People had a week to draft one for each VP candidate being vetted.

Like Carter’s obituary - write it now so you can publish it early.

They are preloaded and ready to go. They probably have other articles in the can for the other names that were being considered as well.

It might also surprise you to know that major news networks pre-tape celebrity obituaries just in case that person dies.

Walz has been known to be on the shortlist for at least a week, probably longer. They probably had articles like this in the pipeline for all the likely candidates.

The best one I found is this opening from cnn:

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz hadn’t been in the top tier of potential running mates for Kamala Harris until the past few weeks.

No shit!

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/06/politics/math-behind-harris-walz-vp-pick/index.html

The campaign worked with news outlets and let them write the articles, under what's often called an embargo. Basically, in exchange for holding the story until it's announced, the journalists can write the story ahead of time.

Source: dated a girl who worked in PR and a girl who was in media relations for a large company

Presumably various media outlets had articles prepared ahead of time for each of the possible outcomes.

Big news sites will do things like write up a story announcing a presidential win for each of the candidates, then only publish the one that matters after the election. This way they can have a story on the front page within minutes (seconds these days) of having official results.

I wouldn't be surprised if Vox had 1 of these lined up for each of the likely VP picks. If not that, it certainly wouldn't be unusual for a journalist to do their homework on all of the candidates and to have the rough outline and some key facts ready to go for each. If you've already done most of the research, assembling the final story shouldn't take more than a couple of hours.

Its like how obituaries are written well in advance of notable people dying. They had this article written up for each person on Harris's list.

Well, he didn't just crawl out of a hole, he has a record. The article is making the claim that he has the potential to bring together different elements of the democratic party, which ultimately is the party of everyone else that isn't voting Trump. This is a big tent with a lot of perspectives, and while democrats are largely united against Trump, that doesn't inherently mean they're just as united behind the candidate (as we just saw), and those kind of things are ripe for Republicans to pick at and promote infighting.

Because it’s Zach Beauchamp and he essentially hates the left.

I know everyone is giving you tidy, case-solving “it’s-always-like-this” responses, but indeed you are on to something.

Let the anti-anti corporate work begin (Walz and Harris being the [somewhat] anti-corporate).