#JOURNALISM: Harriet Hageman Accused of Lying About Liz Cheney Concession, Then She Released the Voicemail. “When I first saw the accusation against Hageman, I posted that this was probably a case of the voicemail being cut off, meaning that there was no reason to rush out and call her a liar. A perfectly reasonable explanation existed, and all it would have taken was a few minutes for Politico to get the full story. Besides, why would she even bother to lie about something like that? Think about it. If she were going to accuse Cheney of not calling to concede, wouldn’t it make sense to just say she never received a call at all? That should have been a dead giveaway. Sure enough, Hageman had the voicemail saved and it was exactly what she said it was. Cheney called and said ‘Howdy, Harriet’ with nothing but blank space and background chatter after that. That leaves two possibilities. Cheney herself set this up and gave Politico a false recording or there was a technical difficulty. Either way, Hageman wasn’t lying.”

But the press knew the story it wanted to run with.