ABC Gave Smollett a Platform as His Claims Seemed to Fall Apart

Nicholas Fondacaro | February 14, 2019
Font Size

***To read the full blog, please check out the complete post on NewsBusters***

In 24-hours, ABC News had spent over 24 minutes (24 minutes 19 seconds) among their morning and evening broadcasts gushing over Empire star Jussie Smollett and the alleged hate crime he claimed to be a victim of. But recent reporting from ABC7, their local affiliate in Chicago, suggested that Smollett may have collaborated with others to stage the attack because he allegedly was being written off the show.

Multiple sources have told ABC7 Eyewitness News that police are investigating whether Smollett and the two men staged the attack allegedly because Smollett was being written off of ‘Empire,’” reported ABC7. Adding, “Chicago police told ABC News, Police are investigating whether the two individuals committed the attack - or whether the attack happened at all.’

That 24 minutes and 19 seconds was tallied from ABC’s World News Tonight’s coverage on February 13/14 and Good Morning America on February 14. That’s when they were either hyping the interview between Smollett and ABC’s Robin Roberts or showing it. Since the alleged attack first broke on January 29, those two programs had spent a total of 52 minutes and 38 seconds covering Smollett’s claims. An alluring facture was the accusation that the attackers yelled: “this is MAGA country”.

During that time, ABC had been sympathetic to Smollett despite swirling questions about the validity of his claims. As NewsBusters analyst Kristine Marsh discovered, Roberts “did not refer to the attack as ‘alleged’ even once.” And the coverage on World News Tonight wasn’t much better.

(...)

donate