From what I understand, O’Keefe’s big story exposing ABC News for spiking the Epstein story yesterday was never covered on CNN. But Brian Stelter did manage to cover it in his newsletter and in he made sure to point out the real villains of O’Keefe’s big story:
Stelter outdid himself.
He found the real villains of ABC spiking the Epstein story – Commenters on the right. pic.twitter.com/xQdp01f0vL
— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) November 6, 2019
That’s right. The media is the victim and us right-wing commenters are just using the story to spread anti-media hatred. What a garbage take.
Here’s his full writeup on the story in which he goes all in on excuse ABC News provided:
Vox’s Jane Coaston reports: In a video obtained by a right-wing, pro-Trump activist group, ABC’s Amy Robach “complains to a producer off-air that she had convinced one of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, to speak on the record about her allegations” against Jeffrey Epstein “and others reportedly involved in Epstein’s web of sex trafficking — including former President Bill Clinton, attorney Alan Dershowitz and Prince Andrew. But, she continues, ABC refused to run the story in order to keep access to the British royal family.”
In the video, Robach clearly thinks she’s just speaking privately to a colleague. What she is heard describing is roughly what NPR’s David Folkenflik reported earlier this year — that ABC interviewed Giuffre in 2015 but decided not to air the tape.
Folkenflik’s story suggested that lawyers including Alan Dershowitz were involved in scuttling the planned segment. “At the time, not all of our reporting met our standards to air, but we never stopped investigating the story,” ABC said. The network re-upped that statement on Tuesday, and Robach put out her own statement too… She said she was “disappointed” her interview didn’t air, but acknowledged that it “didn’t meet our standards,” and said that “in the years since no one ever told me or the team to stop reporting on Jeffrey Epstein, and we have continued to aggressively.”
Nonetheless, Tuesday’s video clip caused widespread outrage, particularly on the right, with many commenters using it to stoke hatred of the media writ large. Personally, the most troubling part to me is Epstein’s usage of high-profile, high-priced lawyers to intimidate news outlets…
I knew media types like Brian Stelter would fall for ABC’s excuse. Nevermind what Robach actually says in the leaked video about the “Palace” and Alan Dershowitz putting big pressure on ABC News not to run it.