For the younger folks: Kerry got some seriously badass medals for his military service in Vietnam. People who had been on the same boat as he did, but at a different time, worked with the Republican party to claim that he hadn’t really done what he did. The press ate this up, and distributed it widely, costing him public support and likely the election.
Neither the Post nor the Times’ articles do what TPM says they do, though.
They both report (accurately) on what Vance said, and then both report (accurately) on why it is bullshit. The Post article maybe does a little more BoTh SiDeSing than the Times one, as it it is written in a manner to make it seem like the Harris campaign was being evasive. But neither gives any impression that Vance’s claims were correct.
What they’re doing is putting the lie in the headline, where lots of people read it, and burying the truth paragraphs down in the article. Because very few people click through to articles, but just see headlines, the impact is to leave a large chunk of the public with a false belief.