ABC News Takes Charge! Brian Ross Gets Suspended For Wrongful Reporting
Brian Ross is no longer a part of ABC News!
ABC News has suspended longtime American investigative journalist Brian Ross after realizing there was a 'serious error' in his report on Michael Flynn on Saturday.
Brian cited that an unidentified source of Flynn reported him about the President Donald Trump having directed Flynn to make contact with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential campaign on Friday.
However, after several hours, ABC News stated their 'clarification' of the report on air and online, saying that Trump asked Flynn to get in touch with the Russians to repair relations with Russia and work together against ISIS; that too after he became a president.
Prior to the correction of the news, the network was heavily criticized for not fixing the story immediately. In a statement on Saturday from Heather Riley, ABC News apologized for the major error as,
"We deeply regret and apologize for the serious error we made yesterday. The reporting conveyed by Brian Ross during the special report had not been fully vetted through our editorial standards process. As a result of our continued reporting over the next several hours ultimately we determined the information was wrong and we corrected the mistake on air and online.
It is vital we get the story right and retain the trust we have built with our audience — these are our core principles. We fell far short of that yesterday."
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump congratulated ABC news on Ross's suspension via his Twitter and encouraged more networks and papers to do the same on December 3.
Congratulations to @ABC News for suspending Brian Ross for his horrendously inaccurate and dishonest report on the Russia, Russia, Russia Witch Hunt. More Networks and “papers” should do the same with their Fake News! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2017
Kathleen Culver, the director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, also poured her two cents on the matter in an interview. She expressed,
“This error plays right into the hands of people who callously try to say that news media all just lie. This is the kind of thing you can see being brought up again and again and again at appearances by the president, where he will take one situation in which something was wrong, and blow that out into a condemnation that all news media are fake.”
Meanwhile, Flynn, the former national security adviser of Donald Trump, pleaded guilty on Friday for lying to the police regarding his contacts with the Russians.
Moreover, the 69-year-old journalist also referred to his suspension via Twitter,
My job is to hold people accountable and that's why I agree with being held accountable myself. — Brian Ross (@BrianRoss) December 3, 2017
Brain's suspension will last four weeks and he won't receive any paycheck.
However, this is not the first time for Brian's error!
Back in 2012, Brian and ABC news apologized for 'incorrectly suggesting' that the shooter of the massacre at Aurora, Colo, was involved with a Tea Party organization.