ABC News president excoriates staff over Brian Ross' Michael Flynn error
During ABC News' morning editorial call Monday, audio of which was obtained by CNN, Goldston excoriated his staff for the error.
"I don't think ever in my career have I felt more rage and disappointment and frustration that I felt through this weekend and through the last half of Friday," Goldston said.
"I don't even know how many times we've talked about this, how many times we have talked about the need to get it right," he added. "That how we have to be right and not first. About how in this particular moment, with the stakes as high as these stakes are right now, we cannot afford to get it wrong."
CNN provided the quotes from the recording included in this article to an ABC News spokesperson, who did not deny that they were authentic. The spokesperson declined to comment beyond Goldston's remarks.
"250,000 tweets. One percent positive, 99 percent negative about this news division. Two tweets from the president," he told staff.
Goldston also said, "If it isn't obvious to everyone in this news division, we have taken a huge hit and we have made the job of every single person in this news division harder as a result. It's much, much harder. We have people in Washington who are going to bear the brunt of this today and in the days forward. Very, very, very, very unfortunate. Really, really angry about it."
The ABC News chief said that Ross reported information that was "just plain wrong," and did so without anyone "having ever made a decision that we were going to go to air with that information."