A reporter at Rupert Murdoch’s New York tabloid has resigned after she claimed she was forced to write an incorrect front page story about migrants and Kamala Harris.
The New York Post published an article on 23 April headlined “Kam on in”, which claimed migrant children were being given welcome packs that contained copies of the US vice-president’s 2019 children’s picture book, Superheroes Are Everywhere. A follow-up article claimed thousands of copies had been distributed.
In reality, officials said a single copy of the book had been donated by a member of the public as part of a call for presents to give to unaccompanied child migrants.
Despite this, the story was followed up by several rightwing media outlets including Fox News. One of the cable channel’s reporters even asked the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, about the supposed mass distribution of Harris’s book by the government, while Republican politicians suggested it was part of a plot to direct government funds into Harris’s pocket.
Laura Italiano, a long-serving New York Post reporter, was credited with writing the article. On Tuesday, she announced she was quitting at the tabloid.
“Today I handed in my resignation to my editors at the New York Post,” she said. “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.”
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