Subject to Debate: Did ABC Know About Its Expert’s Sourcing Problem?
Posted by bg on September 14, 2007
Update:
The neocon link to the ABC News scandal
As predicted yesterday, the scandal over disgraced ex-ABC News consultant Alexis Debat continues to spin out of control, with major implications for the way that Americans have been getting their news about the flashpoints that could determine war or peace in the Persian Gulf and South Asia.
The story first broke in Debat’s native France, but here at home Laura Rozen continues to lead the pack on the coverage. Writing online today for Mother Jones, she exposes that there were long-time, serious questions about Debat by some at ABC News — yet those questions never stopped star investigative reporter Brian Ross from airing sensational and inflamatory articles about U.S. meddling in Iran and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, using Debat as a prime source. Writes Rozen:
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Subject to Debat: Did ABC Know About Its Expert’s Sourcing Problem?
In the end, it was Pascal Riché, a Paris-based former Washington correspondent for France’s Libération newspaper, who uncovered a scandal at a top US television news network. On September 7, Pascal reported that an ABC counterterrorism consultant, Alexis Debat, had faked an interview with Sen. Barack Obama that he published under his name in a French journal, Politique Internationale, and that he had published other alleged interviews in the same journal with Sen. Hillary Clinton, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, former Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. It turns out, ABC itself later reported, the interviews were apparently fabricated.
