Last Friday the Coltons Point Times responded to the first release of an ABC News report by commenting on the Michael Flynn Plea Bargain article on Yahoo saying it was false reporting. In a matter of minutes many major news outlets had rebroadcast the story with the false information.
As we suspected, the ABC News story turned out to be false. Yet throughout the entire day into the late evening the main street media continued to run the false story. Ironically, those media news outlets carried the ABC false news report without checking the facts. By doing so they all violated the code of ethics of journalism and demonstrated their is no credibility even at the highest levels of reporting in America.
To make matters worse the ABC News department under the direction of former Bill Clinton Press Secretary George Stephanopoulos, first tried to "clarify" the false report before pressure from the other media forced them to release a correction. Perhaps he should be terminated for allowing this anti-Trump, anti-conservative environment to persist in the bowels of major network news broadcasters.
Is not this an example of the same "collusion" between the media to promote fake news as the media is trying to convict the Trump Administration of "collusion" with the Russians? Every outlet that ran the fake story without verifying the facts is guilty of promulgating the undermining of a free press in America.
It is time to stop the Internet fake news machine where money talks and facts walk, stop the proliferation biased media outlets with no interest in the truth, and stop the breakdown of common sense and morality in life. All media outlets running the fake story have an obligation to publicly acknowledge this blatant lie, and make a correction. They chose to run the fake news without verifying the facts.
More important, the people of America who long ago realized the chicanery in the media and lost faith in the institution of the press, deserve action to stop this nonsense and polarization. We need to redefine who is the Free Press that deserves Constitutional protection, and strip that protection from all the biased and special interest media flooding the airways that do not deserve it. It is also time fake stories should be subject to legal liability consequences.
Here is the result of the collapse of the free press in America.
After
erroneous Flynn report, ABC News suspends Brian Ross
JOCELYN NOVECK 2 hours 39 minutes ago
In Nov. 16, 2015 photo
provided by ABC, correspondent Brian Ross speaks on Good Morning America, which
airs on the ABC Television Network, in New York. ABC has suspended
investigative reporter Ross Saturday, Dec. 2, 2017, for four weeks without pay
for the network’s incorrect Michael Flynn report on Friday. (Fred Lee/ABC via
AP)
NEW
YORK (AP) — ABC News on Saturday suspended investigative reporter Brian Ross
for four weeks without pay for his erroneous report on Michael Flynn, which it
called a "serious error."
Ross,
citing an unnamed confidant of Flynn, the former national security adviser, had
reported Friday that then-candidate Donald Trump had directed Flynn to make
contact with the Russians. That would have been an explosive development in the
ongoing investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to
interfere in the election. But hours later, Ross clarified his report on the
evening news, saying that his source now said Trump had done so not as a
candidate, but as president-elect. At that point, he said, Trump had asked
Flynn to contact the Russians about issues including working together to fight
ISIS.
ABC
was widely criticized for merely clarifying and not correcting the report. It
issued a correction later in the evening.
"We
deeply regret and apologize for the serious error we made yesterday," the
network said in a statement Saturday. "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."
The
news brought swift reaction from Trump, who tweeted: "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!"
As
for Ross, who is ABC's chief investigative correspondent, he tweeted: "My
job is to hold people accountable and that's why I agree with being held
accountable myself."
Ross,
69, joined the network in 1994. He has won a slew of journalism awards,
including, according to his ABC bio, six George Polk awards, six Peabody awards
and two Emmys, among others.
He
also, though, has drawn criticism for previous errors. In just one example, ABC
had to apologize in 2012 when Ross reported on "Good Morning America"
that James Holmes, the suspect in the movie theater shooting in Aurora,
Colorado, might be connected to the tea party, based on a name listed on a web
page. It turned out to be a different "Jim Holmes." Ross was
criticized for politicizing the story with the error.
Journalism
analyst Roy Peter Clark, senior scholar at the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit
journalism school based in Florida, noted that while reporting errors are
always serious, the current media climate — in which the president is accusing
mainstream outlets of purveying "fake news" — renders the stakes even
higher.
"There
has been a significant change in the political culture in the last two
years," Clark said. "That change has had many consequences for the
practice of journalism. When the president of the United States refers to the
press collectively as an enemy of the people, the people who support that view
will interpret certain acts of journalism as being evidence that the president
is correct."
"The
problem," Clark added, "is that a mistake like this, even though it's
ultimately corrected, and the reporter punished for it, feeds into a narrative
that is now poisonous. When there is a clear mistake, it can be translated by
folks who are attacking the press as bias. I think it's very important for
journalists in this political culture to be more aggressive, and more cautious
at the same time."
