A fake news story has resulted in the resignation of a tabloid reporter who claims she was “ordered to write” lies about Vice President Kamala Harris in a story about her role leading immigration efforts at the southern U.S. border. It was just the latest instance of the New York Post, a right-wing conservative media outlet, being attached to a news story accused of being anti-Black in order to advance the newspaper’s Republican-leaning agenda.
Longtime Post reporter Laura Italiano tweeted Tuesday that she was quitting following the controversy over her news story that incorrectly claimed without offering any proof that undocumented migrant minors arriving at the border were being greeted with copies of a children’s book written by Harris.
The article prompted widespread outrage among Republicans who claimed Harris was shamelessly promoting herself instead of focusing on the root causes of the immigration crisis, as President Joe Biden tapped her to do.
But, of course, the article was entirely incorrect — and still remains live online as of Wednesday morning.
Italiano falsely wrote in her story published Friday: “Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t been to the border to address a crisis she was tasked to help fix — but a children’s book she wrote was waiting there in a facility for young migrants who are being welcomed into the country.”
Four days later, Italiano, who was with the Post since 1996, had a change of heart.
“Today I handed in my resignation to my editors at the New York Post,” Italiano tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “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.” Read more about a fake news story. https://bit.ly/3tbonwb
