ABC Suspends Brian Ross Over False Report About President Trump
The ABC news network has suspended Brian Ross for reporting false information regarding United States President Donald J. Trump about contacting the Russians.
The investigative reporter has been suspended for four weeks without pay by ABC News for relaying inaccurate information about the U.S. president communicating with Russians, which was sourced by his former National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn.
ABC released a statement announcing that they "deeply regret and apologize for the serious error" that their network has made, CNN reports.
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"The reporting conveyed by Brian Ross during the special report had not been fully vetted through our editorial standards process," ABC confirmed. The network added that they have corrected Ross' reports both on air and online.
"It is vital we get the story right and retain the trust we have built with our audience -- these are our core principles," said ABC.
In Ross' initial report, he said that Flynn was ready to testify that Trump ordered him to contact the Russians when he was still running for the presidency.
Ross rescinded his report last Friday on "World News Tonight." According to Ross, Flynn later said that Trump wanted to make contact with Russia when he was already elected president.
Multiple employees from the ABC News network have spoken about how embarrassed they were over Ross' blunder. However, Ross has no hard feelings over the incident. He shared a post on Twitter saying he understands that he needs to have consequences for his mistake.
"My job is to hold people accountable and that's why I agree with being held accountable myself," his post reads.
Later on, President Trump congratulated ABC News on the social media platform for punishing Ross for his "horrendously inaccurate and dishonest report" about the Russia controversies, which he described as "Russia Witch Hunt."
Trump also encouraged other news agencies to "do the same" to their correspondents of fake news.
