JOURNALISM: What Happens When True Speech Prevails Over False Speech?

[anobserver2]

Last edited Sat Mar 7, 2026, 07:24 PM - Edit history (1)

A journalism lesson from The Texas Tribune --when GP Bush was “staring down the barrel of academic probation”

by Susan Alyn on Medium.com - published in the "Curiosity Sparks" Medium publication

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Published in The Texas Tribune newspaper; yellow arrows and comments by Texas Tribune reporter Jay Root who’s now at The NY Times. Official undergraduate academic transcript of George P. Bush, a public record because he was a Florida public school teacher before being elected Texas Land Commissioner. Rice University.



Many years ago I happened to stumble upon a 2000 online article about George P. Bush, the son of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.

Headlined “Gorgeous George” — with the subtitle “Everyone’s Loco for the Latino Bush They Call ‘P’ ”— it was published in The Austin Chronicle here.

The last paragraph raised a few questions for me:

After earning a history degree from Rice in 1998, George P. took a teaching job in an agricultural community south of Miami. He abandoned that …for his future law school plans. Harvard, New York University, Columbia, and Yale law schools rejected his applications, but a spokesman for the Bush campaign says George P. has been accepted by the University of Texas law school…

The journalist who wrote the article did not inform his readers there was no independent verification of the claim that George P. Bush had applied to “Harvard, New York University, Columbia, and Yale law schools.”

Consequently, perhaps not realizing this claim has not been verified, some readers may have accepted this claim as true.

But was it? ....

[anobserver2]

2. Re Page 2 of this transcript

Page 2 of this 2-page transcript appears at the end of the essay. It shows his final grade point average.

[anobserver2]

3. Spoiler alert....

For those who do not have time to read the entire essay, George P. Bush's final grade point average -- his GPA -- appears on page 2 of the transcript and was as follows:

2.79 Final GPA at Rice University

That GPA is less than a "B" average (which is a 3.0).

In short, whatever superior Intellect he and his office were trying to sell to the public, such an intellect was actually NOT evidenced by any Ivy League grade point average at Rice University.

But he and his office wanted the electorate to believe otherwise.

[anobserver2]

4. FYI - the article link bypasses the paywall

You don't need to join Medium if you want to read this entire essay. The link bypasses the paywall.