Brian Ross and ABC Fail Journalism 101

William Jacobson points out basic failings:

"The 'interview' was not so much an interview as an 8-minute ABC News attempt to portray Newt in an unfavorable light interspersed with very short clips of Marianne.

"A prime example was Brian Ross asserting that Newt divorced his first wife while she was 'being treated for cancer.' That account has been disputed, but no note of the dispute was made by Ross."

Further:

"Robert Costa of National Review reported yesterday a news story from 1999 that Marianne was the one who broke the relationship years before the divorce by cleaning out the house of all furniture while Newt was away, and that they were separated for six years before briefly reconciling[.]"
. . .
"Second, Marianne stated that Newt asked for a divorce after she had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Again, Ross did nothing to challenge the statement even though James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal reported earlier in the day that Marianne’s account was not consistent with an account she gave to the Associated Press in July 2000[.]"

Bill O'Reilly (who knows the turf and often has Bernard Goldberg address MSM journalistic failures) also failed Journalism 101. He interviewed Brian Ross last night without asking Ross about failing to address contrary evidence.

UPDATE: Scott Whitlock of NewsBusters points out that the blockbuster TWO HOUR interview with Marianne Gingrich laughably turned out to yield TWO AND A HALF MINUTES of actual footage in an EIGHT MINUTE report.

"How bereft of new information was the segment? According to reports that broke on Wednesday, Ross sat down with Marianne Gingrich for two hours. In the eight minute segment, ABC only used two and a half minutes of actual footage from that interview. But Ross breathlessly hyped, 'And we begin tonight with a story at the white-hot intersection of presidential politics, private lives and character.'"