My Turn: Brian Ross got it wrong in R.I., too

Thursday
Dec 14, 2017 at 5:56 PM Dec 14, 2017 at 5:56 PM

By Philip Terzian

On inauguration eve 1991, in Rhode Island, the departing governor, Edward DiPrete, had a morsel of news for the incoming governor, Bruce Sundlun.

 A case of embezzlement at a mobbed-up bank in Providence had led to the collapse of the dubious private agency that insured the state’s credit unions. So the next morning, after taking the oath of office, Sundlun was obliged to close the affected credit unions (and a handful of banks), since state law requires financial institutions to have insurance. Overnight, some 300,000 people — in a state with a population of 1 million — lost access to their money.

 Needless to say, this was a big deal in Rhode Island — and big enough that it attracted the attention of national publications. At the time, I was editorial page editor of The Providence Journal, and took a parochial interest in outside coverage of the ongoing story.

 One evening, I tuned in to the NBC Nightly News and was greeted with the image of correspondent Brian Ross, standing somewhere in Providence with the State House dome in the background. As I recounted shortly thereafter to a producer at NBC News in New York, in two or three minutes, Ross had managed to get every single fact and statistic about the banking crisis — including who was to blame and who was not — wrong.

 I had called NBC as a matter of professional courtesy. I suspected that Ross, in the parlance of broadcast journalism, had parachuted into Providence for the day and read a story thrown together by some underpaid staffer in Manhattan. The next time NBC News evinced any interest in the story, I suggested, I’d be happy to furnish some background information or put NBC in touch with the resident experts.

 The producer, to her credit, was polite. But since the angry demonstrations and citizen sob stories had largely abated, she didn’t think a follow-up report was likely to happen. Neither did I.

 I was reminded of this last week when Brian Ross was suspended for four weeks without pay by his current employer, ABC News, for (falsely) reporting that Gen. Michael Flynn was prepared to testify that Donald Trump had instructed Flynn to contact the Russians during the 2016 campaign. The president, in his characteristic way, commented on Twitter — “More Networks and ‘papers’ should do the same with their Fake News!” he exclaimed — but the episode revealed that my experience with ABC’s chief investigative reporter was scarcely unique.

 George W. Bush’s onetime press secretary Ari Fleischer recollected that Ross had once (falsely) reported, in defiance of White House entreaties, that Saddam Hussein was behind the series of post-9/11 anthrax attacks in America. Others recalled that, in 2012, Ross had (falsely) accused a Tea Party activist in Colorado of being the gunman in that year’s mass shooting in an Aurora movie theater. And the list goes on.

 Under such circumstances, the tendency of news organizations is to express a kind of ritual regret and then circle the professional wagons. In The New York Times' story about Ross's suspension, the director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin lamented that “this error plays right into the hands of people who callously try to say that news media all just lie.” It “would give fresh ammunition to ... conservatives who have attacked the credibility of news organizations, especially those that have reported negatively on the [Trump] administration.”

The truth is that, in this instance as in innumerable others, “people who callously try to say that news media all just lie” have a valid, if exaggerated, point.

 My experience with Ross occurred a quarter-century ago, and despite the Emmys and Peabody Awards and the bronze medallion of the Society of Professional Journalists (Sigma Delta Chi), he seems to have established a pattern of chronic, even compulsive, malpractice. And yet he has proceeded from strength to strength at ABC while academic guardians of “journalism ethics” warn against “callous,” but valid, suspicions.

 Philip Terzian is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, which originally published a longer version of this piece.

Thursday
Dec 14, 2017 at 5:56 PM Dec 14, 2017 at 5:56 PM

By Philip Terzian

On inauguration eve 1991, in Rhode Island, the departing governor, Edward DiPrete, had a morsel of news for the incoming governor, Bruce Sundlun.

 A case of embezzlement at a mobbed-up bank in Providence had led to the collapse of the dubious private agency that insured the state’s credit unions. So the next morning, after taking the oath of office, Sundlun was obliged to close the affected credit unions (and a handful of banks), since state law requires financial institutions to have insurance. Overnight, some 300,000 people — in a state with a population of 1 million — lost access to their money.

 Needless to say, this was a big deal in Rhode Island — and big enough that it attracted the attention of national publications. At the time, I was editorial page editor of The Providence Journal, and took a parochial interest in outside coverage of the ongoing story.

 One evening, I tuned in to the NBC Nightly News and was greeted with the image of correspondent Brian Ross, standing somewhere in Providence with the State House dome in the background. As I recounted shortly thereafter to a producer at NBC News in New York, in two or three minutes, Ross had managed to get every single fact and statistic about the banking crisis — including who was to blame and who was not — wrong.

 I had called NBC as a matter of professional courtesy. I suspected that Ross, in the parlance of broadcast journalism, had parachuted into Providence for the day and read a story thrown together by some underpaid staffer in Manhattan. The next time NBC News evinced any interest in the story, I suggested, I’d be happy to furnish some background information or put NBC in touch with the resident experts.

 The producer, to her credit, was polite. But since the angry demonstrations and citizen sob stories had largely abated, she didn’t think a follow-up report was likely to happen. Neither did I.

 I was reminded of this last week when Brian Ross was suspended for four weeks without pay by his current employer, ABC News, for (falsely) reporting that Gen. Michael Flynn was prepared to testify that Donald Trump had instructed Flynn to contact the Russians during the 2016 campaign. The president, in his characteristic way, commented on Twitter — “More Networks and ‘papers’ should do the same with their Fake News!” he exclaimed — but the episode revealed that my experience with ABC’s chief investigative reporter was scarcely unique.

 George W. Bush’s onetime press secretary Ari Fleischer recollected that Ross had once (falsely) reported, in defiance of White House entreaties, that Saddam Hussein was behind the series of post-9/11 anthrax attacks in America. Others recalled that, in 2012, Ross had (falsely) accused a Tea Party activist in Colorado of being the gunman in that year’s mass shooting in an Aurora movie theater. And the list goes on.

 Under such circumstances, the tendency of news organizations is to express a kind of ritual regret and then circle the professional wagons. In The New York Times' story about Ross's suspension, the director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin lamented that “this error plays right into the hands of people who callously try to say that news media all just lie.” It “would give fresh ammunition to ... conservatives who have attacked the credibility of news organizations, especially those that have reported negatively on the [Trump] administration.”

The truth is that, in this instance as in innumerable others, “people who callously try to say that news media all just lie” have a valid, if exaggerated, point.

 My experience with Ross occurred a quarter-century ago, and despite the Emmys and Peabody Awards and the bronze medallion of the Society of Professional Journalists (Sigma Delta Chi), he seems to have established a pattern of chronic, even compulsive, malpractice. And yet he has proceeded from strength to strength at ABC while academic guardians of “journalism ethics” warn against “callous,” but valid, suspicions.

 Philip Terzian is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, which originally published a longer version of this piece.

Choose the plan that’s right for you. Digital access or digital and print delivery.

Learn More