Thread by @mateosfo

It's been four days since Associated Press falsely reported that Gavin cancelled high-speed rail. National media, and DC political media in particular, have had a field day dunking on California and spreading propaganda that in America, only cars infrastructure works; not trains.

It's true that AP's lie made it around the world before the truth got its pants on. But let's define "the world" a little bit.

California's political press - which I consider to be best-in-class - got the story *totally right.* We've been reading about the nuances all week.

This is a @jayrosen_nyu -level example of when the cult of the savvy meets fake news. National political reporters didn't bother to check with their colleagues in Sacramento to find out if AP's story was accurate. They just ran with it.

Whose job is it to go back and fix this?

No one's job, actually. This is how fake news erodes our civil discourse. No one will go back and say, "Hey, sorry 285 million Americans who aren't in California, we got this super wrong and you should all follow @CapRadioNews to get the straight story."

This says nothing of the other HSR projects in the works in Texas and Florida. They face challenges, too, but the truth is, some of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States - the Bay Area, LA, Houston, Dallas, Miami - are moving ahead, clumsily, expensively, with HSR.

You'd never, ever learn this reading/watching national media. In fact, you'd learn the opposite.

Support your local/state media, folks. The truth is out there.