Huffington Post hastily erases article about Malia Obama’s appearance at One Direction concert

◼ Several media outlets have again pulled or edited already-published articles about the activities of President Barack Obama’s daughter, even though the stories appeared to pose no active security risk to the first family. - Gregg Re/The Daily Caller

On Thursday, 14-year-old Malia Obama attended a concert by the British boy band One Direction at the Patriot Center in Fairfax, Va., flanked by Secret Service agents who attempted unsuccessfully to blend in with the crowd of mostly pre-teen girls.

On Friday, the story was picked up by the liberal website The Huffington Post, which ran the headline, “Malia Obama, One Direction Fan: First Daughter Attends Boy Band Concert with Secret Service in Tow.”

Within hours, the entire post was scrubbed from the site without explanation, and the post’s URL was hastily changed to direct users to the site’s celebrity section.

The next day, news aggregation website Buzzfeed ran a story on the event, accompanied by a picture of Malia in attendance at the concert. The headline was “Malia Obama Goes to the One Direction Concert with the Secret Service,” and the story’s picture showed Malia standing awkwardly in front of a scowling male Secret Service agent, with what appear to be two additional female Secret Service agents standing to her right.

By Sunday, the headline had changed to “Secret Service Agent Does Not Appear To Enjoy One Direction Concert,” and Buzzfeed had cropped the photo to remove Malia entirely, leaving only a narrow shot of the unhappy Secret Service agent....

On Saturday, the Associated Press reported that the first family was attending yet another concert — this time, they took in some Beyonce. Many sites, including The Huffington Post, omitted any mention of the Obamas in stories about the concert.

The media have run interference for the first family in the past. In March, several news sites — including The Huffington Post — scrubbed stories about Malia’s planned spring break vacation in Mexico with a dozen friends and 25 Secret Service agents.

At the time, the White House admitted it had asked that the stories be removed only for security reasons.