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Why is ABC News skating on its Trump-info-sharing foul?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2017/12/07/why-is-abc-news-skating-on-its-trump-info-sharing-foul/?utm_term=.98e204304dcc(snip)
What to say about another emerging ABC News situation? As reported by Politico’s Michael Calderone, ABC News has reprimanded Chris Vlasto, former executive producer of “Good Morning America” — after learning that he had shared proprietary exit-polling data with Team Trump on Election Night. That revelation came from a new book, “Let Trump Be Trump,” by Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, in which they write, “Vlasto had the early exit numbers that the consortium of news networks — the Associated Press, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and NBC News — had collected. The consortium followed eleven battleground states, including Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Trump was down in eight of the eleven states by five to eight points. The news was devastating. A kill shot.”
(snip)
What we have here is an extreme form of routine journo-source interaction. They share information and analysis and gossip all the time, though generally not information that is closely guarded and funded by an entire coalition of news organizations. As Calderone notes, Vlasto later held discussions with Trump transition officials about joining the White House team but eventually withdrew. And Vlasto himself has transitioned to a new job at ABC News overseeing investigative efforts, including Ross’s recent, misguided ones.
The Erik Wemple Blog has asked ABC News why a faulty report triggers a four-week suspension, while a case of what appears to be misconduct draws a reprimand. Mind you — a reprimand isn’t nothing, especially when the network publicizes it. Maybe the network has heeded this blog’s warning about the futility of suspensions.
(end snip)
The other big question here that no one is touching is what did Trumpco do with the proprietary exit polls that they got before the election had closed. When one right-wing Clinton-hating news producer gives proprietary data to the chairman of Citizens United, the mind boggles on what was done.