Because they could ......
Posted on 05/18/2015 6:13:00 AM PDT by Servant of the Cross
What to think about George Stephanopoulos?
Some years ago, I worked with a young man who would later become momentarily infamous, during the season of Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair, when he was found to have fabricated aspects of stories for a very high-profile national news outlet. I found all those episodes maddening: As a writer for small community newspapers, I was used to being blown off by sources, accustomed to politicians and other worthies refusing to return my calls. But if you’re a writer for the Washington Post or The New Yorker, people pick up the phone when you ring.
There’s no excuse for the small fry, and there’s really, really no excuse for bigfoot reporters from the majors.
Call me a snob, but I have always been mystified when fabrications show up in the pages of prestigious publications such as the New York Times or The New Republic. I recently taught a seminar at Hillsdale, partly on the subject of Rolling Stone’s shameful, fictitious account of a brutal gang rape at the University of Virginia, a crime that did not in reality happen. How does this sort of thing make it into print, not in some backwater weekly but in a magazine with real editorial resources? We all make errors, and sometimes we make embarrassing errors, and the potential for making embarrassing errors increases the higher up the journalistic food chain one goes, simply because nobody is paying much attention to youngsters writing business features for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Rolling Stone’s Sabrina Rubin Erdely got badly snookered by a source. That happens. I once got badly snookered by a source and published a caustic editorial criticizing the University of Texas for doing something that it hadn’t actually done. That was when I was in college, and that is, to some extent, what college newspapers are for.
You’d expect that standards would become more stringent as one ascends the ladder of prestige, but in that regard journalism is no different from the general run of business, in which as often as not standards of professional conduct decline as the stakes grow larger. When I was editing a small newspaper in the Philadelphia suburbs, one of my reporters asked for a meeting with me, which was in itself unusual — my standing policy for reporters was that after hiring them I did not care if I ever saw them again, so long as their stories showed up on time. I’d assumed we were going to do the usual thing where he asked for a raise and I told him no, but he sheepishly explained that he needed to modify his beat because he was beginning to develop a personal relationship with one of the people he covered. His reasoning was sound: Whether it worked out or went nowhere, he could not claim to be disinterested.
What would have happened if he hadn’t told me? I’d have fired him. And if I hadn’t, somebody would have fired me. And I would have deserved it.
Conflicts of interest are common in small-town journalism. I employed a columnist who was a Democratic activist and public-relations consultant, who sometimes needed to be reminded that she wasn’t allowed to write articles about her clients. Police reporters are infamous for getting themselves captured, socially or romantically, by their beats — one of the telltale signs being when they start writing the way cops talk, e.g. “officers responded to the scene,” a phrase that is true only when police exclaim: “Holy cow! Look at that scene!” The sort of people who like to write opinion columns are also the sort of people who feel called to activism and campaign work, and smaller publications rely on them because they’re cheap — generally free; “free” being every newspaper publisher’s favorite word — and because they often are in fact the best people for the job.
But ABC News isn’t the Muleshoe Journal; ABC News can hire whomever it wants. But Washington, too, is a small town, with a substantial overlap between journalism and politics. And hiring George Stephanopoulos wasn’t a terrible idea: He’s smart, he’s articulate, he knows everybody. He was a Clinton functionary with deep ties and longstanding loyalty to all things Clinton. Is that a problem? Sure, of course, but it’s a problem that can be addressed in no small part with simple disclosure.
Which is to say, the one thing that ABC News and Stephanopoulos needed to do is the one thing that they failed to do.
That $50,000 donation that has since grown to $75,000 may be chump change for Stephanopoulos — it certainly is for the Clintons — but if it were 20 bucks, you’d still want to disclose it if you were, to consider a random, implausible, and crazy hypothetical, overseeing highly critical coverage of a book alleging wrongdoing by the Clintons through the instrument of their family foundation.
Stephanopoulos has offered a half-hearted apology: “I should have gone the extra mile to avoid even the appearance of a conflict.” But “extra mile” assumes a previous mile, and he did not really hike an inch to disclose this conflict — not an “appearance of a conflict,” but an actual conflict. The Clintons’ relationship with the eponymous nonprofit organization is a legitimate public issue, and Stephanopoulos has significant relationships with both family and foundation.
It is impossible to see how Stephanopoulos could do his job with any integrity in an environment in which the Clintons and their foundation will be central to the political news for the foreseeable future. Certainly not after concealing his relationship with the foundation. ABC News owes it to itself to live up to at least the standards of a small-town weekly newspaper. It owes them a lot more than that, in fact, but it cannot deliver the goods with Stephanopoulos at the desk.
Because they could ......
Yes, he does. And there’s a whole lot more just like him.
ABC is owned by Disney. Disney makes money weaving fantasy. No surprise that Stephanopoulus acts as a “newsman” for that carnival.
I don’t see a petition to have him fired yet.
Why isn’t there a petition?
Disney is also loyal to homosexual employees. Don’t expect them to dump Georgie.
He’s not leaving TV. His pretty face will earn him millions over his lifetime. TV is about shallowness and good looks, not brains or common sense.
AN OUTSTANDING POST BY FREEPER TRAVIS MCGEE: "Most viewers of the Jan 7 New Hampshire Republican primary debate, wondered why debate moderator George Stephanopoulos of ABC-News kept asking seemingly off-topic questions about the candidates’ views."
We now understand White House War Room “General” Valerie Jarrett had been coaching hard-left suckups to deliver the administration's “talking points” and strategic memes in the effort to dupe America voters.
Transitioned into an ABC-TV (gag) journo, the Clinton White House War Room “General” George Stephanopoulos just happened to pick debate questions that the cunning Obama White House wanted to float, as a diversion......
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When Barack Obama took office in 2009....ABC-TV "Good Morning America" anchors and guests gushed at the (cough) 'sheer brilliance' of Obama's incoming cabinet, and referenced Obama's "team of economic gladiators"...which included "gladiator" Secy of the Treasuey Tim Geithner (who had a problem filing taxes).
BIG BARFER Predictably, reconstituted Clinton factotum, George Stephanopoulos, now an ABC-TV newsman, rhapsodized about the Obama picks on ABC-TV: "We have not seen this kind of combination of star power and brain power and political muscle this early in a cabinet in our lifetimes," Steffie gushed onair at ABC-TV.
Yes. When the on-air personalities become the news more than they report the news, then they have to go.
<><> •In 2006 Georgeopoulous was a featured attendee and panel moderator at the annual CGI meeting.
<><> •in 2007 he was listed as a featured attendee at the CGI meeting alongside big money Lucas Lundin, Frank Giustra, Frank Holmes, and Carlos Slim.
<><> •He was a 2008 panelist at the annual meeting.
<><> •In 2009 he was a panel moderator at the CGI annual meeting.
<><> •In 2010, he was a “notable member” of CGI's exclusive members-only club w/ a $20,000 membership price tag.
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THIS IS FROM THE CLINTON FOUNDATION ARCHIVES:
Every Republican who does go on ABC or is interviewed by any of these conflicted people should make that the first point of any conversation. Also, now Rubio is answering hypotheticals. There needs to be a seminar for Republican candidates on how not to answer stupid questions. So far, Cruz seems to be the only one aware of how to dodge these questions.
ABC will take a page out of the Clinton play book and wait this out until it is “Old News”. If their ratings stay up, nothing else matters.
I like Stephanopoulos right where he is. Nothing demonstrates the the leftist domination of American media quite like this turd.
BTW, the chart missed Candy Cowley’s husband. Steve Crowley holds a marketing position with the Associated Press.
That explains it. Please make your chart go viral.
Media Research President Brent Bozell, a vocal critic, made the claim that these were "strategy phone calls," and requested ABC to respond. "With each passing day, ABC's failure to speak to, and about, this issue tarnishes further the network's reputation as a legitimate news entity," Bozell writes.
ABC-TV responds to Brent Bozell
Dear Mr. Bozell,
Thank you for your letter regarding George Stephanopoulos. To be crystal clear, George Stephanopoulos does not advise Rahm Emanuel nor anyone else in the Obama Administration. He reports on the Obama Administration. He speaks to Mr. Emanuel, a friend he has know for nearly two decades, as a source, just as he speaks to countless sources across the political spectrum each and every day. That is his job as an anchor and reporter and one that he does according to the highest standards.
In your letter, and public utterances, you falsely assert that ABC News has been silent on this matter. That is simply untrue. Upon reading your press release last week, we reached out to the MRC to make it abundantly clear that you had totally mischaracterized the Politico story written by John Harris last Tuesday.
Indeed, Politico posted a story last Friday by Ben Smith pointing out exactly how badly you had mangled the facts. In that post, Harris stated that, " The calls are certainly a fascinating Washington ritual, but by no means do I think that George Stephanopoulos is participating in strategy sessions.
To my mind, he established his journalistic bona fides more than a decade ago, even as the Clinton administration was still underway, when he showed his willingness to report aggressively on Democrats as well as Republicans."
To give further lie to your claim that ABC News has not responded to your distortions, our senior vice president was quoted in the Politico story saying, "George speaks to Emanuel, but he speaks to plenty of conservatives and Republicans every single day -- that's part of his job.
The idea that there is some kind of daily conference call that George hops on is just nonsense and not true." Furthermore, last Friday, a reporter from CNS News, which was founded by you and continues to be directly affiliated with the MRC, contacted our media relations staff for a piece he'd been assigned to write on this very topic.
We cooperated immediately and provided him an on the record response. We have since learned from your reporter that his story was killed. You have said, "if the charges are false, provide the evidence. We will gladly accept it and consider the matter closed."
From the moment you issued your first press release on the Politico story last week - and numerous times since - we have made it clear to you and your staff that your assertions regarding Mr. Stephanopoulos and ABC News are false and based on a willful and knowing distortion of John Harris' original story.
Sincerely,
Kerry Smith, Senior Vice President
Editorial Quality, ABC News
“I like Stephanopoulos right where he is. Nothing demonstrates the the leftist domination of American media quite like this turd.”
Exactly. ABC would certainly replace Stephanopoulos with a like-minded leftist. Stephanopoulos in his current position serves as a constant reminder of MSM bias.
If it were a Republican he would be gone. It baffles me that the right doesn’t have petitions out for George’s scalp.
I mean not one petition for this political hack to go.
We need to teach a lesson here. I thought George was gay until he has been married for a while. But Gay or not he is a snake in the grass and should be a commentator like Rove.
I don’t like Rove but he says he is raising money and still in contact as a consultant.
George ambush that Author, and doesn’t even have Rove’s level of honesty.
I hope that an organization starts a petition to fire George.
Brian Williams, pick up on the white courtesy phone, ABC is calling...............
I want to know what George got in return for his bribe err donation to the Clinton’s.
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