FILE – In this Sept. 1, 2015, file photo, James O’Keefe, President of Project Veritas Action, waits to be introduced during a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington. Project Veritas, a conservative group known for undercover investigations, has been linked to a woman who falsely told the Washington Post that Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore impregnated her as a teenager, the newspaper reported. “We don’t comment on investigations real or imagined, or imagined stings,” conservative activist and Project Veritas’ leader O’Keefe told The Associated Press Monday, Nov. 27, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
The Project Veritas expose about ABC that my colleague, Elizabeth Vaughn referenced last night, has dropped.
It sounded like it was going to be good, because even before the video came out this morning, ABC even suspended one of the people who appeared in the video, veteran Washington correspondent, David Wright, who has reported for “World News Tonight,” “Good Morning America” and “Nightline.”
So what was it that prompted such a quick response on their part? Had he done something awful?
Project Veritas taped him while he was covering the Democratic primary in New Hampshire.
He was caught on tape talking about ABC’s refusal to cover the news accurately and saying that they didn’t see “any upside” in actually doing their job and reporting the truth.
From Fox News:
“I feel terrible about it. I feel that the truth suffers, the voters are poorly informed, and people also have the opportunity to tune into whatever they want to hear,” Wright said in the video, which also features an ABC News producer.
“And so, it’s like there’s no upside, or our bosses don’t see an upside in doing the job we’re supposed to do, which is to speak truth to power and hold people accountable.”
Wright then specifically spoke about their coverage of the president, “We don’t hold him to account. We also don’t give him credit for what things he does do.”
According to Wright, ABC and similar places are interested in three things when it comes to Trump. “The outrage of the day, the investigation, and of the palace intrigue of who’s backstabbing whom. Beyond that, we don’t really cover the guy,” Wright said.
So why is this happening? Wright points to the profit motive.
“It became a profit center, a promotion center. Like now, you can’t watch “Good Morning America” without there being a Disney princess or a Marvel Avenger appearing. It’s all self-promotional,” Wright claimed. “The commercial imperative is incompatible with news.”
Wright makes it clear that he’s anti-Trump, describing himself as a socialist, saying he believes in National Health Insurance, he’s “totally fine with reining in corporations,” there are “too many billionaires” and there’s a “wealth gap.” He also referred to Trump by an expletive.
Wright did not respond to Fox News’ request for comment. A rep for ABC News told Fox News he would be reassigned after serving his suspension.
“Any action that damages our reputation for fairness and impartiality or gives the appearance of compromising it harms ABC News and the individuals involved,” the rep said. “David Wright has been suspended, and to avoid any possible appearance of bias, he will be reassigned away from political coverage when he returns.”
Translation: they’re punishing him for telling the truth. How about instead of punishing him, change the nature of your reporting back to actually doing objective news? You might actually find a huge market of folks hunger to see that in a news organization again.
While Wright’s a socialist and that tells you a lot about who media has putting out these stories, he’s right, it’s all about what will make money and what will feed the narrative, not about the truth or the news.