In a last-ditch effort to derail Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s bid to retain his job in a recall election, some Wisconsin Democrats started a rumor accusing Walker of fathering a child with his college girlfriend and then abandoning them both. But many sources, including the liberal group blog The Daily Kos, immediately debunked the rumor as a false story.
Wisconsin Citizens Media Co-op reported that Walker had conceived a child with a girlfriend in 1988. Initially, the report said, he was supportive of the pregnancy, but later denied that the child was his and then suggested she have an abortion.
The article cited a classmate of Walker’s at Marquette University as the source of the story.
Several news outlets disproved the story, almost immediately. No reporter has verified the details supplied by the “source” from Marquette.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Daniel Bice, who wrote that he spoke with the woman who allegedly had Walker’s child, jumped on the rumor and quickly dismantled it.
Bice reported that the anonymous woman vehemently denied Walker fathered a child with her. Walker attended Marquette University for four years, but did not graduate.
An Wisconsin Citizens Media Co-op editor’s note now concedes, “[S]o far we have not been able to independently verify” what the report described as “one woman’s account of the Scott Walker she knew.”