Project Veritas stings ABC’s David Wright and reminds journalists that opinions cause trouble

On Wednesday, ABC News suspended correspondent David Wright after Project Veritas caught him on an undercover camera criticizing his network and expressing his own political views while covering the New Hampshire primary election.

Let’s point out that the video Project Veritas posted is edited, so we may not have all the context we might want about this conversation. But since ABC responded with a suspension, it is safe to assume the network is not questioning the basic facts the video presents.

And therein lies the lesson that journalists seem to need to learn over and over: Keep your political opinions to yourself.

I feel awful for a journalist like Wright, who has two decades of national and international award-winning experience bulk-erased by a hidden camera gotcha. The only good that comes from this is if we take a few moments to remind ourselves that as journalists, we are the faces of our newsrooms and the public judges our work and the work of our colleagues not only by what we report, but by what we say and do publicly.