Ashley Bianco. Screengrab from Megyn Kelly YouTube channel.
Ashley Bianco, the former ABC producer that was fired from CBS over her role in the footage from the Amy Robach “hot mike” footage that went viral, has spoken out in an interview with Megyn Kelly.
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Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has been the Managing Editor of Ordinary Times since 2018, is a widely published opinion writer, and appears in media, radio, and occasionally as a talking head on TV. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter@four4thefire. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast. Subscribe to Andrew'sHeard Tell Substack for free here:
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In the interview, Ashley Bianco drops the bombshell that she only clipped the clip in the first place for office gossip. She did *NOT* distribute it and doesn’t know who did. She’s upset that she might not ever work in the industry that she loves ever again.
And if she had known that this would happen, she *NEVER* would have made that clip.Report
Which means just about everyone at ABC knew about this. The only question is will this be the lone outlier or will the dam break. I suspect the Media In-Club Omerta will win out.Report
It’s a sad clip that juxtaposes a young woman’s great sadness at losing a career with her steady assurance that she would never betray her employer by whistleblowing.
She should get a lawyer.Report
Almost as sad as two major news outlets up in arms and conducting purges because there is still an unidentified “journalist” in their employ who is willing to let the public know the truth.
It’s surreal.Report
Might make people question all that #IBelieveHer movement and the crickets/lack of any support currently emanating from those folks.
Did they really ever exist? Did that really ever happen?
It’s just a complete mystery.Report
Yeah, the abject abjectedness of her willingness to toe the corporate line – any corporate line – was pretty believable. Not the slightest trace of “I was wronged, but ABC was wronger.”
If she’s lying, she’s pretty good… and certainly not concerned about being well thought of. Pitied, yes, but admired? No.Report
Did I mention we would have problems with social truth?Report
Dang… she didn’t leak it. The weirdness continues.
For clarity, the timeline is (I think)
2016 – 3-yrs ago Robach has story on Epstein based on Virginia Roberts interview
NOV 2018 – Miami Herald Publishes first Epstein Story based on Virginia Roberts testimony
JUL 06 2019 – Epstein Arrested
JUL 23 2019 – Epstein Dead
AUG 2019 – Court releases documents on Epstein/Court dismisses case.
AUG 2019 – Robach makes her hot mic comments
AUG 2019 – Bianco “clipped/marked” the tape, but didn’t copy or download
NOV 2019 – Footage leaked to O’Keefe
It seems ABC could see who “clipped” the moment, but Bianco claims she didn’t have a copy and that the clipped moment stayed in the system… someone else leaked the actual footage. So she claims.
Not sure what to make of all that… its just weird… the speed at which they shitcanned Bianco – across corporate lines no less – is curious, if what she says about not leaking the tape is true. Maybe she’s lying…Report
James O’Keefe says that Bianco ain’t the leaker.
But he wouldn’t wouldn’t he?
Report
The leaker, apparently, has a codename: “Ignotus”.
Report
The first rule of leaking is not cultivating an identity.
The second rule is writing in simple Subject/Verb/Object sentences.
The third rule is not to say anything and let your mouthpiece protect you.
This person is going to get caught soon.Report
I think the big giveaway would be the sign on the person’s door that says “The Ign Of The United States.”
I’m guessing IGN is for “In Game Name.” Disney is probably checking all their gamer profiles just in case.Report
Posting a letter? You just *KNOW* that s/he has a recognizable voice in it.
“We are all human and mortal, creatures of mistakes and redemption. The road to redemption favors no soul.”
I mean, Good Lord. There are at least 5 people who work with whomever wrote this who know that s/he wrote this based on that sentence alone.Report
Right… my first thought is that there are probably only 5 people TOTAL at ABC who you might even *think* would write that.
In fact, the phrase “road to redemption favors no soul” is so idiosyncratic that it has to be a give away to someone.
Unless… s/he knows that and is faking a voice to throw off the hunt.Report
If it’s someone who writes copy, a textual analysis program could probably spit out a name in half an hour just by comparing the statement to ABC’s published articles.Report
This timeline would be perfect if a textual analysis revealed the name of the leaker to be…Francis Bacon.Report
Signature, a free stylometry program
I wonder if it’s worth burning a couple hours to see if the answer is in plain sight?Report
Nov. 2019 — Bianco interviewed on Megyn Kelly’s YouTube whatever?Report
Some disjointed thoughts:
1. A lot of people on the left (including me) think that a big problem with journalism especially at the traditional outlets (aka MSM) favor access above anything else. This gives people with power, fame, prestige, etc a vast amount of sway over what gets said and not said. One of the reasons people on the left liked sites like Deadspin is that it preferred to say fuck that shit and went against access journalism.
2. The higher-paid end of the journalistic sphere does look like well-paid sycophants for the powerful. Sure Barbara Walters might ask Putin what seems like a tough question but everything was approved before hand and probably as well rehearsed as a Broadway play on both ends.
2a. On the other end of the spectrum, some lower-end media just looks like a cut and paste from a press release because those organizations lack time and money.
3. Project Veritas is still a far-right wing propaganda and ratfucking institution that purposefully distorts video and audio to suit its purposes. Jeffrey Epstein hanged out with very powerful people and it seemingly impossible to resist using him to smear the other side. Mainly on the right here. The whole thing here is to smear the “left-wing media” as enabling a pedophile. Project Veritas is not doing this out of the goodness in their hearts. So the fact that their beloved Donald also partied with Epstein is seemingly lost to them.
So it wouldn’t surprised me if ABC did do this but it also wouldn’t surprise me if Project Veritas fucked with the video and audio. Certainly its motive is less than stellar.Report
“it it also wouldn’t surprise me if Project Veritas fucked with the video and audio”
At this point that would surprise me a lot — if there was material tampering, that would’ve been a major part of ABC’s response. Instead they’ve just defended the decision not to run it and fired the presumed leaker.Report
Agreed… all the principals have admitted the content is valid.
Their story is that they have higher journalistic standards than the Miami Herald… who’s lax standards got Epstein arrested.Report
It’s a political football. And there’s an election coming up.
Arguably the most important election of our lifetimes.Report
My suspicion is that its a political grenade… once the pin is pulled everyone in the room R’s and D’s takes shrapnel, and there’s no telling whose wounds will be fatal.
Not a pin worth pulling when its arguably the most important election of our lifetimes.Report
At this point, the poison is so very toxic that just knowing who would be wounded tells you who would be killed by it.Report
Same deal with the DNC emails, as I recall. Nobody said “this is bullshit, and god damn you for ever believing it”. They just said “how dare you steal this and publish it”.
Which does make sense, in the New Politics. The point is not to get the swing voters on your side, because there aren’t enough swing voters to matter. The point is to get your base to the polls. And you don’t do that by nattering on about the truth or falsehood of this-or-that attack because if people are fired-up enough to vote then they don’t really give a shit what you might have done. They figure whatever the other guys say is lying bullshit because of course they’d lie, and even if it were true, well, I’m sure our guys had good reasons for doing whatever it was they did, and nobody really knows anything anyway. And you fire these voters up by painting it as a conflict of The Good Guys (you) versus the Evil Cheating Sneak Thieves who go out rifling through trash and dirty laundry looking for something they can smear you with, and it’s important that people vote for you to make sure those rotten cheaters lose like they deserve to do. But if you go out and start trying to apologize, to complain, to whine and quibble, then you’re a wimp, you’re no good, you won’t fight, and the voters figure they’ll just stay home and watch Judge Judy.
The New Politics is dominated by the idea that you Never Apologize For Anything.Report
Hot take. Using information that has been stolen is morally questionable. There may be times it is on the good enough side. But there are many many times when it is well on the wrong side.
There is also a continuum with what is leaked and stolen. If someone breaks into your physical house, takes fugly letters you wrote and publishes them to attack you that would be clearly seen as a majorly problematic. Sort of the same thing for electronic break in’s.Report
“Using information that has been stolen is morally questionable.”
So, Woodward and Bernstein were bastards? Ellsberg ought to have gone to jail?Report
Did i say that? I did say there are times when, though questionable, it can be on the good side. If stolen info is putting a spotlight on greater crimes then that is a good thing. If it’s settling scores or for personal gain, then i’m really dubious.Report
So… the Epstein thing counts as which?Report
you need to read up on William Felt before you start talking like that.Report
What stolen info are you referring to?Report
welp, I guess running into the weeds of “what’s the definition of stealing, really” is one way to get out of the hole you’re inReport
Wut? I’m sitting in a chair and dont’ see any hole. I also don’t see any actual rebuttal to what i said. I didn’t make a categorical great or bad statement about stolen info. If someone wants to make a stark, simple stolen info is always find and dandy/ wrong, please do so.Report
wait. You do know who Felt is, right? And why “settling scores or for personal gain” would be relevant to what he did, right?Report
I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a CGI Amy Rorbach in the video, and nobody has alleged that she didn’t say what Project Veritas put out there.
Sure, people on the left claimed O’Keefe altered the abortion clinic footage, and the media, the same people covering up for Epstein, spent a lot of time pushing that claim, constantly telling us that the footage was “heavily [and] deceptively edited.” The Fifth Circuit rejected such claims as false, saying “that the video was authentic and not deceptively edited.”
All O’Keefe has to do is record the tapes and play the tapes. Further editing would be pointless.Report
It wasn’t just people on the left claiming he altered stuff – he was convicted criminally in one case and had a civil judgement for defamation handed down in another. But hey, thanks for playing I guess.Report
It’s pretty rich that in the midst of this, your position is to point to the right as the rat coitus folk.
Just epic.
Never change Saul.Report
So the fact that their beloved Donald also partied with Epstein is seemingly lost to them.
This sounds to me like one hell of an opportunity for an enterprising journalist to take down the worst president we’ve had since Dumbya.
She’d be the new Woodward/Bernstein.Report
I don’t think that any news bombshell would take down Trump. At this point there are:
1) People who already know Trump is a serial sex abuser, and were already not going to vote for him.
2) People who already know Trump is a serial sex abuser, and will vote for him regardless or perhaps even because of this.
3) People already know that anything negative about Trump in the media is “fake news”.Report
This strikes me as a reason to condemn Trump voters if they vote him back in despite the news coming out.
But the Epstein story also strikes me as being big enough that I changed “when” to “if” in the above sentence.Report
There are 23 separate sexual assault accusations against Trump at this point, none to my knowledge even linked to Epstein. He bragged on a hot mic about committing sexual assault. He is well known to have deliberately burst into women’s change rooms when he ran beauty pageants.
Adding a few allegations related specifically to Jeffrey Epstein would be dumping a teacup of water into the ocean and thinking that’ll make all the difference.
I mean, even if he loses he’ll still have the support of – what’s the minimum you’d predict? 38% of American voters?
I think it’s fine to condemn those voters whether their preferred candidate wins or not.Report
If my choice is between a 50T tax increase (and/or a ton of other equally destructive policies) or holding my nose then that’s an easy choice.
Your above link is to Epstein shutting down a story about him in 2003. I checked to see what powerful people he was connected to in 2002-2003 and the name which stands out is Bill Clinton.Report
Would it be fair to characterize your comment as saying that you are willing to accept racism and injustice for millions of people, just to avoid paying higher taxes?Report
50 Trillion in new taxes subjects the bulk of the people in the US to a level of “injustice” that we need to look to other countries’ experience to comprehend. These policies take us into wreck the economy territory.
A dirty old man walking through the wrong changing room is a problem. Large numbers of people not being able to feed their children is another. They’re not even slightly comparable in terms of the amount of “evil” being inflicted. Real life is a series of trade offs. Looking at the Dem candidate through rose colored glasses and seeing no flaws to match against the other guy’s flaws doesn’t lead to a good evaluation of which is worse.
I’m all in favor of evaluating what is going to happens to millions, or better yet, hundreds of millions of people. However at that level of review, Trump’s sex history rounds to nothing. It’s not a factor. Similarly Bill Clinton potentially being a rapist also rounds to zero at that level of evaluation, although it does showcase that the Dems don’t consider this to be a disqualifying issue for members of their own team.Report
4) People who think, perhaps correctly, that the other side is worse.
5) People who think, perhaps correctly, that this issue is less important than others.Report
A commenter at Intapundit said:
Any lawyers want to weigh in?Report
Someone on the twitters pointed out this juicy excerpt to me:
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