Usually, when Project Veritas grabs undercover video, the media ignores it while conservatives see it as affirmation. In this case, there are consequences because David Wright said things he shouldn’t have. And that makes the outcome somewhat sad.

Yes, the ABC News political correspondent comes out as a socialist. Pretty much everybody in the national media under 50 is. But he also offers relevant critiques of the media.

“We live in a moment where people live in echo chambers and the truth suffers and, in an effort, to compete, we’ve become an echo chamber ourselves. We’ve been in the mainstream media we have an effort to match the zippy news cycle with responding to the latest tweet and trying to keep pace with the desperate pace of it all.”

The desperate pace means reporters like him lose focus, he said.

“As a result, we’re easily distracted and that means that we don’t bring focused attention to something that could make a difference,” he said. “I think, some of that at least in the place that I work [ABC News], and places like it, is that we’ve, with Trump we’re interested in three things: the outrage of the day, the investigation, and of the palace intrigue of who’s backstabbing whom. Beyond that, we don’t really cover the guy [Trump].”

 “The first story is the big story, about Trump. And it’s about whatever outrageous thing he said or tweeted about, and it’s about, or it’s about this effort to unseat him, or it’s about, you know, ‘Today we found anonymous’ or ‘Who’s he [Trump] throwing out of the White House today/’ or ‘Who’s blowing the whistle and stabbing him [Trump] in the back?’”

Trump’s domination of the media also leads to reporters not reporting the positive stories about the president. “We don’t hold him [Trump] to account. We also don’t give him credit for what things he does do.”

There’s plenty more there at the Project Veritas site. 

Wright is obviously a lefty, but he succinctly diagnoses a corrupt corporate media that spends all its time going after Trump, not only for political reasons, but for reasons of profit and relevance, which mixes Disney and Marvel into the news cycle for corporate synergy, which threw away its influence by refusing to actually do its job. And thereby killing whatever was left of journalism.

The media would be in a stronger position if it maintained, at least, the pretense of objectivity, and if it backed away from its naked partisanship. But that wouldn’t produce immediate gratification and virtue signaling garlands. Partisan institutions appeal only to partisans. And the media created the partisan echo chamber it’s dying in.

So obviously ABC News suspended him. Its statement claims, “Any action that damages our reputation for fairness and impartiality or gives the appearance of compromising it harms ABC News and the individuals involved. David Wright has been suspended, and to avoid any possible appearance of bias, he will be reassigned away from political coverage when he returns.”

Please.

If Wright had limited his criticism to badmouthing Trump or calling himself a socialist, he would not have been suspended or reassigned. He criticized his bosses and the media’s way of doing business. That’s why he’s paying the price.

Andy Fies, also on the tape, wasn’t suspended or reassigned because he spoke about the general problem of the media, but didn’t say anything negative about ABC News.