ABC Reporter Moran's Tweet Lays an Egg

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Ranking ABC News reporter Terry Moran's journalistic transgressions regarding his tweet last night about President Obama calling rapper Kanye West a "jackass" could  fill an entire "Reporting 101" class period.

For those of you who were trapped in a mine cave-in yesterday and may not have heard, Moran was reporting on CNBC's interview with President Obama when the controlled Chief Executive called Kanye West a "jackass" based on the singer wresting the microphone from 19-year-old songstress Taylor Swift at the VMA awards show to declare that Beyonce should have won the award that Swift had just garnered.

The infamous tweet was: "@TerryMoran: Pres. Obama just called Kanye West a 'jackass' for his outburst at VMAs when Taylor Swift won. Now THAT'S presidential."  Politico blogger Patric Gavin "RT'd" Moran's tweet and then his site discovered that the "jackass" remark occurred during an off-the-record segment of the interview with the President.

ABC News apologized to the White House and CNBC for the premature post, but the proverbial toothpaste had already been squeezed out of the tube as  Nightline co-anchor Moran has 1,066,391followers who got the message. 

President Obama deserves some blame for making the incendiary (if accurate) assessment of West within earshot of the press, thereby injecting himself into another less-than-monumental event (he called Cambridge, Mass. police conduct "stupid" for arresting friend and Harvard Prof. Henry Gates, which led to the famous White House beerfest) that will dominate the 24-hour news cycle pedaled by the brain-dead mainstream news media and divert attention from health care reform, the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, the recession, and other "unsexy" matters of state.

Still, Moran, who was ABC chief White House correspondent for six years, and is a Peabody Award winner who followed President Obama's 2008 campaign and has previously interviewed Kanye West (a "TUOL" shout-out to " Kevin Bacon Six Degrees of Separation " fans), should know better.  Repeating an off-the-record comment, engaging in lazy second-hand reporting of CNBC's story, and ignoring his obligation to his employer, ABC News (and its editorial vetting process) in favor of  reporting his "exclusive" on his own personal social media outlet. Readers, you decide which of Moran's missteps was the most serious.