ABC News President Goes Nuclear On Staff Over Brian Ross’ #FakeNews Report About General Flynn

ABC News president James Goldston went nuclear on the network’s staff following Brian Ross’ fake news report about General Flynn. “I don’t think ever in my career have I felt more rage and disappointment and frustration that I felt through this weekend and through the last half of Friday,” Goldston told network staffers. 

CNN reports:

During ABC News’ morning editorial call Monday, audio of which was obtained by CNN, Goldston excoriated his staff for the error. […] “I don’t even know how many times we’ve talked about this, how many times we have talked about the need to get it right,” he added. “That how we have to be right and not first. About how in this particular moment, with the stakes as high as these stakes are right now, we cannot afford to get it wrong.” […] Goldston also said, “If it isn’t obvious to everyone in this news division, we have taken a huge hit and we have made the job of every single person in this news division harder as a result. It’s much, much harder. We have people in Washington who are going to bear the brunt of this today and in the days forward. Very, very, very, very unfortunate. Really, really angry about it.” [..] “We just went on air with that information,” he said. “We hadn’t approved doing that. And the thing that just kills me about this is all we had to do was wait. We had to wait a few minutes. A few minutes after that, the charging documents came out. We know that those charging documents had come out, and we had looked to those charging documents, and the charging documents didn’t match what we thought the story was. We would have not gone with that story.”

As The Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft reported, stocks crashed by 350 points on Friday after Ross reported General Michael Flynn, the former national security advisor, would testify that he was directed to make contact with Russians during the presidential campaign in 2016.

Hours later, ABC News issued a “correction.”

“CORRECTION of ABC News Special Report: Flynn prepared to testify that President-elect Donald Trump directed him to make contact with the Russians *during the transition* — initially as a way to work together to fight ISIS in Syria, confidant now says,” ABC News tweets hours later.

Hours later, ABC News announced it had suspended Ross.

“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. Effective immediately, Brian Ross will be suspended for four weeks without pay.”

 

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