ABC News announced it is suspending veteran news reporter David Wright after Project Veritas released a video that recorded the journalist admitting he was a socialist and that the network doesn’t give the president “credit” when it is due him.
An ABC News spokesperson told The Hill on Wednesday that Wright will be reassigned “to avoid any possible appearance of bias” upon his return, the timing of which is unknown.
“Any action that damages our reputation for fairness and impartiality or gives the appearance of compromising it harms ABC News and the individuals involved,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “David Wright has been suspended, and to avoid any possible appearance of bias, he will be reassigned away from political coverage when he returns.”
According to the video, Mr. Wright is guilty of plain-spoken honesty.
Breitbart has some choice snips from the video.
“It’s like there’s no upside in, or our bosses, don’t see an upside in doing the job we’re supposed to do; which is to speak truth to power and hold people accountable,” he adds.
In another part of the video, Wright claims that the media doesn’t hold President Donald Trump to account, and then admits that reporters don’t give the president “credit” where it’s due. “I think, some of that at least in the place that I work and places like it, is that with Trump, we’re interested in three things: we’re interested in the outrage of the day, the investigation, and of the palace intrigue of who’s backstabbing who,” he says.
Later in the footage, Wright is asked about his political ideology, to which he says that he not only sees himself as a Democrat-socialist, but a full-blown socialist. “I think there should be national health insurance,” Wright argues. “I’m totally fine with reining in corporations, I think there are too many billionaires, and I think that there’s a wealth gap. That’s a problem.”
The video concluded with Wright saying that the establishment media is more interested in covering the election as a “horse race” than a contest about issues important to voters. “I don’t think we’re terribly interested in voters,” he concedes.
Reporters are human. They have personal lives and private beliefs just like anyone else. Their job is to put aside those beliefs and their private lives and report the facts free of bias or spin. It can be done if the effort is made.
But reporters today are inherently lazy. They don’t want to make an effort at relatively unbiased reporting. They don’t have to be a cheerleader for one side or the other, nor do they have to make judgments about the people they report on. But “news” today is a loaded word. News is entertainment — just like Paddy Chayefsky knew it would become back in the 1980s. “News” is drama, pathos, full of heart-tugging stories and heroes and villains and even damsels in distress. It’s opinion masquerading as journalism and images and words are manipulated to deliver an emotional response — the emotional response desired by the editor and management.
When politicians expose some of these charlatans for the fakers they really are, they get all huffy and defensive. How dare someone criticize the holy order of journalism? Any criticism is an “attack” and places the First Amendment in “danger.” If it wasn’t so transparently cynical and insincere, it would be laughable.
There are still some good journalists out there. David Wright isn’t one of them.
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