- An undercover video got ABC News’s David Wright reassigned for comments about fake news and his bosses.
ABC News suspended veteran political correspondent David Wright after undercover footage was released of the award-winning journalist criticizing the powerful mainstream news and entertainment network and proclaiming his “socialist” political leanings.
Project Veritas released an undercover video of an interview with Wright, a reporter for many ABC News programs including “World News Tonight,” “Good Morning America,” and “Nightline,” who was then promptly suspended by ABC News. At the time the undercover video was recorded by an operative of Project Veritas, Wright was covering the New Hampshire Primary for ABC.
“Any action that damages our reputation for fairness and impartiality or gives the appearance of compromising it harms ABC News and the individuals involved,” ABC News said in a statement released to Project Veritas following the release of the undercover video. “David Wright has been suspended, and to avoid any possible appearance of bias, he will be reassigned away from political coverage when he returns.”
In the video, Wright explained to the undercover reporter that he considers himself a socialist. “I think there should be national health insurance,” Wright stated. “I’m totally fine with reining in corporations, I think they’re too many billionaires, and I think there’s a wealth gap—that’s a problem.”
He also criticized ABC News, which is owned by the Disney Corporation, for blending its news coverage and programming with support for Disney products and messages.
“You can’t watch ‘Good Morning America’ without there being a Disney princess or a Marvel Avenger appearing,” Wright notes at one point in the video interview. “It’s all self-promotional.” He also admitted that ABC News and mainstream broadcast media in general does not give President Donald Trump “credit for what things he does do” and that he doesn’t think “we’re terribly interested in voters.” He later revealed that “commercial imperative is incompatible with news,” a long-running criticism of mainstream corporate news media outlets.
Wright also offered more general critiques of mainstream broadcast media, which is increasingly becoming more and more superficial and disconnected from the lived experience of most Americans.
“We live in a moment where people live in echo chambers and the truth suffers and, in an effort to compete, we’ve become an echo chamber ourselves,” Wright said. “We’ve been in the mainstream media we have an effort to match the zippy news cycle with responding to the latest tweet and trying to keep pace with the desperate pace of it all. As a result, we’re easily distracted, and that means that we don’t bring focused attention to something that could make a difference.”
James O’Keefe, the founder and president of Project Veritas, announced the release of the video and his organization’s efforts to “expose the agenda of ABC to mislead voters and push their own narratives” on Twitter in early March.
Project Veritas has embarked upon a crusade against the corrupt and dishonest mainstream mass media in recent years, with undercover operatives filming interviews with high-level media insiders, reporters, and journalists in an effort to highlight and expose their misdeeds and biases.
Following Wright’s suspension, O’Keefe offered support for the disgraced correspondent.
“We commend David Wright for his honesty,” O’Keefe stated. “No one should be suspended from their job for truth-telling.”
O’Keefe pledged to continue working to expose the corruption at mainstream news outlets, where he apparently still has an undercover operative working behind the scenes.
“We encourage brave insiders within these media organizations to come forward with any information they have so that the public knows what is really going on inside these companies,” O’Keefe declared.
NB: This article was originally published by American Free Press on March 17, 2020. Subscribe to America’s last real newspaper today!
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