Credit where it's due: WaPo's Erik Wemple doesn't shy away from addressing ABC News' #EpsteinCoverup

Sarah D | 6:57 PM on November 05, 2019

James O’Keefe and Project Veritas’ bombshell video of ABC News’ Amy Robach complaining that her network buried her major story on Jeffrey Epstein has been met with near-universal silence from TV media firefighters. That’s not quite true of other media outlets, however. As Twitchy told you earlier, AOC retweeted the Daily Beast‘s article about the coverup. And Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple has written about it as well (though it’s been confined to WaPo’s opinions section):

https://t.co/XSS4l92GGQ

— ErikWemple (@ErikWemple) November 5, 2019

WaPo even including credit to Veritas

Saying the ABC story is newsworthy and airtight https://t.co/18Uw10laKL

— Tim Pool (@Timcast) November 5, 2019

WASHINGTON POST COVERS #EpsteinCoverup! These journalists are realizing that all the undercover work we do into the media, is for the express purpose of observing behavior and eliciting statements we otherwise would not observe and hear. Nothing more. https://t.co/BAfGYn6xkB

— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) November 5, 2019

Wemple concludes:

Which Amy Robach do you believe: The one chatting candidly in her studio, believing that she’s just exchanging gossip with colleagues? Or the one who comes to you through a prepared statement distributed by ABC News?

In her 2014 book “Stonewalled,” former CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson inveighed against the mentality that might account for both NBC’s and ABC’s whiffs: “Many story topics are selected by managers who are producing out of fear and trying to play it safe,” she wrote. “Playing it safe means airing stories that certain other trusted media have reported first, so there’s no perceived ‘risk’ to us if we report them, too.”