ABC's Brian Ross On Newt Ex Expose: 'We're proud of what we do.'

"Maladroit. It wasn't very well done." Terence Smith, PBS NewsHour ex-media reporter, on CNN John King's #1 debate question to Newt Gingrich.

Howard Kurtz, host of CNN's media moveable feast, Reliable Sources:  "It's a misstep . . .  Didn't it give the impression, fairly or unfairly, that CNN thought this was the most important thing to be discussed?"

Jennifer Rubin Wash Post:  "The question was dopey. If he hadn't thought through it, then shame on him. It was a setup."

Howard Kurtz:  "We have buried this guy twice, once last summer, again after Iowa. Why does the press keep underestimating Newt Gingrich?"

New Yorker's Ryan Lizza:  "We never learn." 

Terence Smith: "Ryan's really right. We don't ever learn. Predictions are a dangerous business, and they're usually wrong."

Kurtz on Gingrich nailing the media Thursday and hitting nearly all the spin shows Sunday: "He obviously uses the media to his advantage while ripping what we do." 

Kurtz questions a spinning Brian Ross on ABC News running the recycled recollections of Newt's second wife, Marianne:  "On some level, wasn't ABC used by Marianne Gingrich to take revenge against her ex-husband, just at the time that he was surging in the polls?"

Kurtz:  "Was it fair?" 

Brian Ross: "We didn't know he was surging in the polls, first of all, Howie. But we had been trying to get this interview with her since November, and if she was out to really get him, I think she probably would have pushed to do it in December when he also appeared to have been surging."

Howard Kurtz: "To air this story a day and a half before the South Carolina primary feels like a late hit. Were you uncomfortable with the timing?"

Brian Ross: "Not at all. We had done a story on Wednesday night about Mitt Romney and his accounts and funds that are in the Cayman Islands offshore, and we have the story on Mr. Gingrich and his ex-wife for Thursday. We wanted to run them in tandem, and we felt that as long as it wasn't within 24 hours, that was good for us."

Howard Kurtz: "Twenty-four hours would have been too close, but 36 or 48 hours is OK?"

Brian Ross: "We're not out to get anybody. We're out to cover the news and to frame what's going on in this campaign. You know, our viewers and the voters in this country have a right to know all they can about the candidates, and in this case, questions of the moral character, of Newt Gingrich, was one of the campaign issues."

Ross:  "We're proud of what we do."

CNN Reliable Sources transcript 
Kurtz, Rubin, Lizza, Smith "Does Gingrich Confuse the Media?"
Brian Ross video