ABC News Apologizes to Paul Manafort for Falsely Reporting That He Pleaded Guilty to Manslaughter
ABC News admitted that they made a mistake when it briefly aired an error-filled graphic during a special report implying that President Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort pleaded guilty to five charges of manslaughter.
The erroneous lower-third graphic that is known in broadcasting as a chyron was seen by the audience for about seven seconds while reporting that Trump will sign an executive order that will amend his zero tolerance immigration policy.
The network immediately removed the chyron when they realized their mistake and returned to the original graphic that said, "President Trump: 'I'll be signing something' to address family separation crisis."
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But The Wrap media editor Jon Levine managed to capture the erroneous graphics in the special report before it was taken down by ABC News.
The Huffington Post noted that Manafort was never charged with any manslaughter case. Instead, the former campaign manager was charged with other cases connected to the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller regarding the Russian meddling during the 2016 US presidential election. These include engaging in a conspiracy against the US, conspiracy to launder money, making a misleading and false statement in the documents filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. He was also ordered to jail last week while waiting for the trial after being accused in a witness tampering scheme. The Public Relations of ABC News turned to Twitter to apologize for the error in a series of posts.
"We regret and apologize for the false lower third graphic that aired during our special report. We are investigating how incorrect information was in our system and how and why it was allowed to air," the network stated. "We apologize to our viewers and to Mr. Manafort. There simply is no excuse for this sort of mistake," it went on to say.
Trump got hold of the news network's error and called them out on his Twitter account, saying: "Look what Fake ABC News put out. I guess they had it prepared from the 13 Angry Democrats leading the Witch Hunt! #StopTheBias"s
