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. And while most of the affected banks ultimately reopened, some did not, wiping out depositors.
Needless to say, this was a big deal in Rhode Island—big enough, indeed, that it attracted the attention of the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other national publications—and produced a protracted crisis of confidence in a state with a long history of public corruption. At the time, I was editorial page editor of the Providence Journal, the largest newspaper in the vicinity, and among other things, took a parochial interest in outside coverage of the ongoing story.
One evening, having been told that NBC was about to broadcast a story about the banking crisis, I tuned in to the NBC Nightly News and was greeted with the image of correspondent Brian Ross, standing somewhere in Providence with the statehouse dome in the background, delivering a (comparatively brief but on-the-scene) report. 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 not because of any defensive feelings about Rhode Island but 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, did not hesitate to comment about the fiasco 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 also took to Twitter to recollect 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—one Jim Holmes—of being the gunman in that year’s mass shooting in an Aurora movie theater. (The actual gunman was a different James Holmes.) In 2006, Ross (falsely) reported that then-House speaker Dennis Hastert was under FBI investigation for bribery. 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 that respect, on this occasion, the New York Times did not disappoint. The centerpiece of its story about Ross’s suspension was an extended quotation from the director of the Center for Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin, who lamented that “this error plays right into the hands of people who callously try to say that news media all just lie.” Ross’s “error,” the director told the Times reporter, “would give fresh ammunition to . . . conservatives who have attacked the credibility of news organizations, especially those that have reported negatively on the [Trump] administration.”
Meanwhile, over at ABC News, its president, James Goldston, announced that henceforth Ross would no longer be covering stories related to Trump and, for good measure, gave his colleagues a well-earned tongue-lashing: “I don’t think ever in my career have I felt more rage and disappointment and frustration. . . . We cannot afford to get it wrong,” he declared.
I have no doubt that Goldston’s anger is sincere, and that Ross’s four-week suspension will put a dent in his 401(k). But 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. Moreover, James Goldston notwithstanding, news organ-izations like ABC News can afford to get it wrong and will continue to do so when Brian Ross returns from purdah.
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.
In that sense, Ross’s penitence is revealed for what it is: a tactical withdrawal before resuming business as usual.
Philip Terzian is a senior editor at THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
