ABC News Has Learned Nothing About Professional Ethics Since Tucson

Wow! That didn’t take long. At 6:00am MDT this morning, as soon as we took the air on News New Mexico, we cautioned media outlets suggesting they refrain from the temptation to transmit their political biases through their coverage of the massacre in Aurora, Colorado. We cited what happened immediately after the shootings in Tucson, Arizona only eighteen months ago.

Brian Ross

Well, it is too bad ABC’s national news desk didn’t learn anything from the Tucson tragedy or listen to our show. It seems “reporter” Brian Ross and the ABC News organization found itself apologizing for an "incorrect" report that James Holmes, the suspect in the Colorado theater shooting, may have had connections to the Tea Party. How long did it take to transmit the false information and then retract the smear job? It all happened before lunchtime today.

Here is what ABC had to say: "An earlier ABC News broadcast report suggested that a Jim Holmes of a Colorado Tea Party organization might be the suspect, but that report was incorrect. ABC News and Brian Ross apologize for the mistake, and for disseminating that information before it was properly vetted."

It is truly instructive to find that the first thing an ABC reporter would do in the wake of this massacre is search Tea Party websites in the area. Was ABC be looking to use this immense human tragedy simply as a golden opportunity to smear what it obviously perceives to be a political opponent? Maybe. Does anyone wonder why Fox News has such a huge following? Not really.

ABC News Has Learned Nothing About Professional Ethics Since Tucson