One of the far left’s most prominent media figures apologized on Wednesday for ripping Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis based on the smears spread by Rebekah Jones, the disgraced former Florida Department of Health employee who accused the governor of masking COVID-19 data.
Ana Kasparian, the longtime executive producer of the left-wing broadcast “The Young Turks,” admitted that she wrongfully bit on Jones’ accusations against DeSantis, although from the brief clip it was unclear which of Jones’ tales she was referring to.
As The Free Press has reported, the most recent incident involving Jones was the arrest of her 13-year-old son after he threatened to shoot up a school.
In the news: Teen Son Of Anti-DeSantis Activist Rebekah Jones Arrested For Florida School Shooting Threat
Following the arrest, Jones tweeted, “My family is not safe. My son has been taken on the gov’s orders, and I’ve had to send my husband and daughter out of state for their safety. THIS is the reality of living in DeSantis’ Florida. There is no freedom here. Only retaliatory rule by a fascist who wishes to be king.”
Jones claimed that the arrest was retaliation for a lawsuit she recently filed against the Florida Department of Health and state Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo in an effort to get her old job back.
There is no evidence that DeSantis had anything to do with Jones’ son’s arrest in Santa Rosa County after other students told authorities about the threats.
Yet, as The Free Press has reported, Jones was fired from the Health Department and then investigated for pilfering sensitive government data.
She pled guilty in December to stealing confidential data from the department, which came after an inspector general’s investigation said her claims that DeSantis had cooked the books to understate the number of COVID-related deaths were baseless.
In the news: Rebekah Jones, Concocter Of COVID Falsehoods About Gov. DeSantis, Booted From Ballot
In response to Jones reappearing in the news recently, Kasparian apologized, but not directly to DeSantis.
“I want to correct all of those errors that we had previously reported,” Kasparian said in a video clip that circulated on Twitter on Wednesday.
“And I want to be clear that out of everyone who works on the main show, the only person who should be held responsible for that is me. I’m the executive producer of the show and I screwed up royally, and part of the reason why I screwed up is because I had all these biases, of course, against Ron DeSantis.”
“I don’t really feel bad about that,” she continued, “because I think Ron DeSantis has done some pretty terrible things in the state of Florida. But it becomes a problem when that bias blinds you to what the facts of various stories happen to be.”
“I should have done my due diligence, I failed to do so, and by failing to do so, I feel like I misled the audience into thinking that Rebekah Jones is some sort of hero,” she added.
In the news: ‘No Gun In Her Face’ Rebekah Jones, FULL Body-Cam Video Florida Department of Law Enforcement
Kasparian, almost echoing former President Donald Trump, warned independent news outlets from overly relying on the mainstream media.
“If they’re not doing their due diligence, if they’re allowing their personal biases to stand in the way of actual factual reporting, well, that’s unfortunately going to trickle into the way independent news sources cover these types of stories,” said Kasparian.
“Fact of the matter is, I want to make sure that I correct my errors, I get you guys accurate information and I avoid helping someone who might be a grifter from fundraising off of our own audience members,” she concluded.
That last part referred to teh fact that Jones, who once raised more than $600,000 through GoFundMe after her initial claims against DeSantis, was again appealing for money after her son’s arrest.
Yet not even the left-wing outlet Vice News bought Jones’ story, and in its report on the incident, it criticized not only her but also the Miami Herald, which claimed Jones’ kid was “arrested over memes.”
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“While these events are traumatizing for the family and for students of the middle school, there is currently no evidence to suggest that the arrest of Jones’s son is part of a broader vendetta against her by the DeSantis administration,” Vice News reported.
Kasparian’s mea culpa got the attention of DeSantis’ team, which routinely battles the left-wing press.
On Twitter on Wednesday, the governor’s re-election campaign spokeswoman, Christina Pushaw, thanked Kasparian.
“Thank you. Never thought TYT [“The Young Turks”] would have more journalistic integrity than @MiamiHerald … but here you go,” Pushaw said in retweeting the clip.
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