ABC News wrote an apology yesterday for mischaracterizing George W. Bush’s former Press Secretary Ari Fleischer’s remarks regarding current Press Secretary Sean Spicer earlier this week. Mediate reports that ABC Nightline quoted Fleischer supposedly saying the following about Spicer’s first press conference:
“[Spicer’s] briefing made me uncomfortable. It was too truculent, too tough. It looks as if the ball was dropped on Saturday.”
In response to that reporting, Fleischer corrected the record in a series of tweets, demonstrating that ABC selectively edited his words to make it seem like he was critical of Spicer.
@Nightline proves Spicer right about MSM’s dedication to negativity. Here is what I told them in a taped interview: 1/4
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) January 24, 2017
“It looks to me if the ball was dropped on Saturday, Sean recovered it and ran for a 1st down on Monday.” 2/4
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) January 24, 2017
Here is how they chopped my quote: “It looks to me if the ball was dropped on Saturday” after ABC referred to “deliberate falsehoods.” 3/4
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) January 24, 2017
If this is how the press reports, Trump is right to go after them. 4/4
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) January 24, 2017
Fleischer is right. If the press continues to selectively edit statements in order to discredit President Trump or his administration, then it deserves to get treated with disdain. Given the current debate about fake news and its influence on information, ABC did not help itself in promulgating what seems to be an anti-Trump agenda. It does not benefit them to have Trump give them the same shellacking he gave CNN and BuzzFeed a few weeks ago.
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