Monday morning all three major broadcast networks, ABC, NBC and CBS failed to update their viewers with the news that ABC correspondent Brian Ross had been suspended over the weekend for his false “bombshell” report that led media reports Friday morning.
That false “scoop” took the networks by storm shortly before 11am EST last Friday morning and was talked about endlessly until the evening newscast on ABC News that night, several hours later.
Here’s what Ross originally reported that sent the media into a feeding frenzy:
[Michael Flynn’s] prepared to testify that President Trump, as a candidate, Donald Trump, ordered him — directed him to make contact with the Russians which contradicts all that Donald Trump has said to this point.
As Ross later had to shamefully admit to viewers that evening, his sources were incorrect. In reality, Flynn said that President Trump as president-elect had ordered him to speak with the Russians.
Saturday evening, ABC released a statement online, and correspondent Cecilia Vega apologized to viewers for the mistake on World News Tonight, though she didn’t acknowledge Ross’s suspension.
Neither Ross’s suspension, nor the fact that the “scoop” was false, was reported on any of the networks by their journalists Monday morning.
While none of the journalists themselves brought up the update, pro-Trump guests Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie did briefly mention it on Monday’s Today show. In response to anchor Savannah Guthrie grilling the Trump campaign aides on Billy Bush’s comments about President Trump, the pair called out Ross, and the media, for “making up stories:”
LEWANDOWSKI: What we've seen time and time again is people want to make up a story that isn't true. We saw it this week with an ABC news reporter. They want to make up a story about the administration and the president which isn't true. It then becomes the news of the day, and everyone is forced to respond to a story that is not true.
BOSSIE: They set a narrative that is negative for the president. Brian Ross did it. And it was obviously wrong.
