NY Post journalist resigns after she was ‘ordered to write’ false Kamala Harris book story
Journalist Laura Italiano quits her post at New York Post after she wrote a story suggesting that copies of a book by Vice President Kamala Harris were given to children who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border.
Laura Italiano announced on Twitter that she turned in her resignation on Tuesday, claiming that she was "ordered to write" the story and called it her “breaking point.”
“An announcement: Today I handed in my resignation to my editors at the New York Post,” Italiano tweeted.
“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 said. Italiano continued, “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 article, which was published last week, said that copies of Harris' book Superheroes are Everywhere is part of a "welcome kit" to children who are crossing the border.
However, The Washington Post found that officials are not giving away Harris' book to migrant kids. According to them, only one photograph of a single copy of Harris’s book was donated.
The article was temporarily deleted and republished later on containing an editor's note saying that "only one known copy of the book" was handed out to a child.
The note said: “The original version of this article said migrant kids were getting Harris’s book in a welcome kit, but has been updated to note that only one known copy of the book was given to a child.”
An announcement: Today I handed in my resignation to my editors at the New York Post.
— Laura Italiano (@Italiano_Laura) April 27, 2021
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.
— Laura Italiano (@Italiano_Laura) April 27, 2021