Brian Ross lands at Law & Crime after exiting ABC News earlier this year. (© American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.)
Beleaguered reporter Brian Ross landed a gig at Law & Crime Network less than two months after departing ABC News on the heels of a botched "exclusive” report on President Donald Trump and Russia that sent the stock market tumbling.
Last year, Ross reported incorrectly on live television that fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn would testify that Trump had ordered him to make contact with Russians about foreign policy while Trump was still a candidate. The report raised the specter of Trump’s impeachment and sent the stock market plummeting.
After ABC was forced to retract the report, ABC News President James Goldston said on a staff conference call that he’d never felt more “rage, disappointment and frustration” in his entire career. In a statement, ABC News said Ross’ report “had not been fully vetted through our editorial standards process.”
Ross was suspended for the debacle and, along with his longtime producer Rhonda Schwartz. The duo was demoted to ABC News’ outside production house, Lincoln Square Productions, when they returned from suspension.
Last month, Goldston suddenly announced Ross and Schwartz “decided to leave the company.”
On Monday the Law & Crime Network announced both Ross and Schwartz will contribute to the brand across all platforms, including a weekly original program, “Brian Ross Investigates,” which Schwartz will produce.
“I worked with Brian and Rhonda for years, and there are no more celebrated and dogged investigative journalists in the country,” Law & Crime founder Dan Abrams said. “We could not be more excited that they have agreed to join our network and team.”
Law & Crime bills itself as “the only 24/7 linear and OTT network offering daily live trial coverage and expert legal commentary and analysis.”
The Trump fumble was another in a series of black marks for Ross, who was at ABC News since 1994 after spending nearly two decades at NBC. Perhaps most infamously, Ross reported in 2012 that Colorado movie theater shooter James Holmes may have had ties to the Tea Party movement. He was not sanctioned for past errors.
Schwartz and Ross have also racked up a collection of awards. Abrams noted that Ross and his team have won seven duPonts, six Peabody’s, six Polks, the 2014 Harvard Goldsmith Prize and 17 Emmy’s
“We’re delighted to join Dan and his team to help grow a vital 24/7 OTT and linear live network covering the biggest law and crime stories—issues that could not be more central now to what’s happening in our country. ABC and NBC were great partners in the broadcast era. Now in the digital era, we are thrilled to become part of Law&Crime as the place to find news-making and important investigative reporting.” Schwartz and Ross said in a joint statement.
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