Someone was playing dirty politics and an NBC O&O fell into the trap.

NBC O&O KNSD (San Diego) has posted a retraction to a story they did at the top of their website.

The station did an “investigative” report claiming that a mayoral candidate may have “misrepresented” details of a controversial city real-estate deal.

It seems the station based their story over a document that turned out to be fake.

On their website, KNSD writes:

“NBC 7 is retracting a previously reported story that relied in part on a document that was “fabricated,” according to the law firm that wrote the primary report. NBC 7 chose to retract this story and explain our further reporting for transparency. We apologize for the error and will continue our reporting into who sent NBC 7 a doctored report.”

This should come as a warning to all stations that are covering elections local or national.

When you have the President of the United States encouraging his supporters to try and vote multiple times, it is clear that this year’s election is all about dirty politics.

This NBC O&O got duped and now is doing their best to starve off legal action against the station by issuing a retraction.

In other words, make sure you triple check the facts before going with the story.