I don't think an apology is enough

Shouldn't heads roll for this sort of recklessness?

ABC News and Brian Ross are apologizing for an "incorrect" report that James Holmes, the suspect in the Colorado theater shooting, may have had connections to the Tea Party.

"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 said in a statement. "ABC News and Brian Ross apologize for the mistake, and for disseminating that information before it was properly vetted."

In a similar statement released minutes earlier, ABC News said the report was "incorrect" but did not include the apology. "Several other local residents with similar names were also contacted via social media by members of the public who mistook them for the suspect," the initial statement read.

ABC's apology comes after Ross reported this morning that there is "a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea party site... talking about him joining the Tea Party last year."

Ross has a history of this sort of idiocy:

There was the time he falsely connected the 2001 anthrax attacks to Iraq; the time he described the Ft. Hood shooter's emails to Anwar al Awlaki—which the FBI knew about and regarded as related to his medical research—as attempts to "reach out" to "people associated with Al Qaeda"; and the time he falsely reported that one of the planners of the Christmas underwear bombing was a former Guantanamo detainee (the guy happened to be in Saudi custody at the time). And then, of course, there was the time he hyped the Toyota Death Machine story by passing off staged footage of a parked Toyota revving its engines as a runaway automobile.

Point being: Never, ever listen to anything Ross reports unless and until it has been confirmed by another, better, reporter.

Ross should be fired.

Don't hold your breath.

Comments

[Tregonsee]

I sent the following to my local ABC station:

Today during the coverage of the Aurora shooting tragedy, ABC network reporter Brian Ross initially reported that the shooter was affiliated with the Tea Party. This was eventually walked back, but not before the person misidentified began receiving serious threats. This is beyond sloppy; it is irresponsible.

I realize that Mr. Ross is not part of ****, a station I have relied on for 25 years, but he does appear in many network stories. I have written ABC directly, but input from their affiliates will surely have more impact. I am not a Tea Party member, only a 60+ citizen who remembers when the press. had higher standards, and violating those standards had consequences.

[tim aka The Godless Heathen]

I wonder if the a-hole checked the Occupy, or any of the other leftists loony clubs, for any affiliation as obviously as quickly as he did the Tea Party?

Remember when incompetence was punished, now it seems it’s rewarded.

I don’t like the word, and don’t use it often, but I hate Brain Ross, and those like him. He/they are what is wrong with our country, in so many ways.