A reporter who produced a story about a book by Vice President Kamala Harris being handed out to illegal aliens at a migrant shelter has resigned, revealing that she had been ordered to write the story and that was her “breaking point.”
The story from last weekend charged that a children’s book Harris wrote was being handed out to migrant kids at the border, but when it was fact-checked it was deleted, according to a report from Mediaite.
The organization then explained the reporter, Laura Italiano, took to social media to confirm she was quitting.
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.
— Laura Italiano (@Italiano_Laura) April 27, 2021
She said, “An announcement: Today I handed in my resignation to my editors at the New York Post. … 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.”
She added, “It’s been a privilege to cover the City of New York for its liveliest, wittiest tabloid – a paper filled with reporters and editors I admire deeply and hold as friends. I’m sad to leave.”
The details of that “order” to write the story weren’t clear.
“The report falsely claimed that copies of a children’s book by Harris were being given to migrant children at a shelter in Long Beach, California as part of ‘welcome kits,'” Mediaite reported.
It had been on the Post’s front page on Saturday.
“On Tuesday The Post deleted the story from the internet. That came after a Washington Post fact-check found that just one of Harris’s books was donated to the shelter, by a local, as part of a book drive.”
The book’s title was “Superheroes are Everywhere,” and Long Beach officials said a single copy was donated during a book drive, and was used, but in general copies are not being handed out.
Before the story was removed, it had been cited by Fox News and its talk show hosts.
When asked about the issue, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki did not have answers, but noted she heard “it’s a good book.”
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