Brian Ross Stumbles On His Own Sensationalism

Remember when you could sort of trust ABC investigative journalist Brian Ross to give you an informative story?

I'm starting to forget those times, too, thanks to Ross's weird distortions of Blackwater coverage. He's increasingly placing himself further out on the fringe. Take a look at his latest story on the company. It was a news story that everyone's been expecting for a year - the Iraqi Ministry of Interior refused to issue Blackwater a licence to keep operating in Iraq, and without that the State Department can't allow the company to continue protecting diplomats when the annual contract runs out in May.

Most news organizations - even the New York Times which ran a Reuters piece - portrayed the development as a pretty straight news story. Even Cuba's creaky propaganda agency Prensa Latina did.

But Brian Ross had to give it an inaccurate and inflammatory spin. Blackwater, he writes breathlessly, was "fired." The State Department "fired" the company, he claims. ABC "News" even made a sensationalist little piece of artwork to accompany Ross's piece, which we ripped off for today's graphic to show what we think of him and his journalism.

Ross is obviously so out of touch that he either has some intern on his "investigative team" trolling the net to catch what the bottom-feeders are saying and turn it into a story under Ross's byline, or he's just become another TV crank. Either way, the guy's days as a credible journalist are gone. He's simply not a professional any more. He ought to get the boot.