Former New York Post reporter Laura Italiano handed in her resignation on Tuesday, announcing the move on Twitter where she accused the publication’s editors of ordering her to write a story that she tried to “push back” on for being “incorrect.”
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That story, of course, was the false claim that a temporary migrant detention center for children was handing out Vice President Kamala Harris’ book Superheroes Are Everywhere to every kid as part of their “welcome kit.”
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The detention center in Long Beach, California, denied these claims, which were based on a single photo, saying that the book was donated to their facility as part of a larger book drive for the kids. In the meantime, however, right-wing news outlets, politicians, and pundits rand wild with the story, suggesting that Harris was profiting from what they call the “border crisis” by forcing cities to buy copies of her book to hand out to migrant children.
One of these outlets was the New York Post, owned by conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
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“An announcement: Today I handed in my resignation to my editors at the New York Post,” tweeted Italiano. “The Kamala Harris story — an incorrect story I was ordered to write and which I failed to push back hard enough against — was my breaking point.”
“It’s been a privilege to cover the City of New York for its liveliest, wittiest tabloid — a paper filled with reporters and editors I admire deeply and hold as friends. I’m sad to leave.”
The story in question was not only incorrect, it was the cover story for one of the tabloid’s recent print issues, titled “Kam On In.” It claimed that unaccompanied migrant minors who arrived at the Long Beach detention center would each be given one of these books in their welcome kits along with a single photo someone got of the one book propped up against someone’s backpack.
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As conservatives took this line as gospel, others questioned where Italiano and/or her editors got the information that this book would be a standard part of the intake kits. As it turns out, they didn’t, and the Post briefly deleted the story from their website before republishing it with a correction — far too late to stop the right-wing outrage machine.
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In spite of the correction in the post and a statement from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services explaining where the one book came from, few if any tweets exploiting the false claim have been deleted by the Republicans who tweeted them. The Post article itself still focuses on the single book and attacks Harris for not yet visiting the Southern border as vice president.
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Commenters on Italiano’s announcement have been sometimes supportive of her decision, but many are still angry with her for helping to create another false right-wing news cycle. Some have questioned why she would work at the New York Post in the first place if she had any integrity, noting that this is not the first time the outlet has handed conservatives ammo by publishing unsubstantiated rumors as fact in a way that always seems to benefit Republicans.
Oh, and it’s owned by Rupert Murdoch.
*First Published: April 28, 2021, 10:06 am
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