Source: YouTube/Maureen Dowling
Brian Ross is an American journalist who was most known for his work on various ABC News programs, such as Nightline, Good Morning America, 20/20 and ABC News Radio, after joining the news organization in 1994. Earlier in December, however, ABC News suspended him for four weeks without pay over a “serious error” found in an “exclusive” concerning former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Using an anonymous source, Ross had claimed that Flynn was prepared to testify that President Donald Trump told him to contact Russians at a time before entering office. Later in the day, Ross changed his story to that Trump had been president-elect at the time, when he previously said it was at a time when he was only a candidate.
A tweet from the news organization concerning the report garnered around 25,000 shares before eventually being deleted. It was believed that Ross’ mistake even temporarily made a hit in the financial markets, as the Dow fell more than 350 points, although stocks have recovered since then.
As ABC said in a statement:
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.
A few ABC employees added, according to CNN Money, that the incident caused much internal embarrassment for the company. These comments had been made anonymously, as the company had not allowed them to publicly discuss the matter. As one such anonymous employee said in a statement:
It makes me cringe. This is not what any networks needs when people are so quick to say ‘fake news’ to you. It makes me sick to my stomach.
