On Friday, ABC News correspondent Brian Ross dropped a bombshell report on “Good Morning America,” revealing that candidate Donald Trump had told him to make contact with the Russians — thus contradicting everything so far coming from the White House on the issue.
The only problem — that was fake news.
Seven hours later, the network updated their story to reflect that the order came from “President-elect” Trump and not candidate Trump — which is a pretty big difference.
CORRECTION of ABC News Special Report: Flynn prepared to testify that President-elect Donald Trump directed him to make contact with the Russians *during the transition* — initially as a way to work together to fight ISIS in Syria, confidant now says. https://t.co/ewrkVZTu2K pic.twitter.com/URLiHf3uSm
— ABC News (@ABC) December 2, 2017
The internet, however, was having none of it, raking the network for reporting such a monumental error and then taking hours to issue a correction. Many were furious too that the network statement initially used the term “clarification” before offering a full correction.
Astonishing. The story moved markets, set off a media frenzy, suggested worst possible outcome. This is called a massive correction, or retraction, not clarification. https://t.co/uVUamf4jYY
— Jim VandeHei (@JimVandeHei) December 2, 2017
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/936763396975988741
What makes it worse is that ABC won’t admit its error and now tries to sugar coat it with now calling their correction just a ‘clarification’ – (and other news organizations of course repeated ABC original story) https://t.co/bgZhtK40wB
— Greta Van Susteren (@greta) December 2, 2017
https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/936768524583923717
Big, big detail, guys. https://t.co/N7Tud27I3x
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) December 1, 2017
That changes things considerably. https://t.co/g1vUxlDxJQ
— David French (@DavidAFrench) December 1, 2017
Told you so: https://t.co/Ef64s577O2 https://t.co/ucBtRRFWUK
— Joel Pollak (@joelpollak) December 1, 2017
… And former Press Secretary and self-described “horrable speller,” Sean Spicer also decided to weigh in.
Shotty at best by @ABC https://t.co/PbQtTE91JK
— Sean Spicer (@seanspicer) December 2, 2017
Reps for ABC declined to say whether Ross would face disciplinary actions for the error.