Kudos to Ross For Report on Coddled Auto Execs Flying on Corporate Jets

Brian Ross

There's an old saying in the news biz that it's a journalist's job to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. ABC News investigative reporter Brian Ross was doing the latter this week.

When the CEOs of the Big Three auto companies went before Congress pleading for a multibillion-dollar taxpayer-financed bailout, Ross documented how the pampered CEOs flew to Washington, not in coach or business class, but in multimillion-dollar corporate jets.

Ross was right there in the Congressional chamber, badgering the execs about why, when thousands of their workers are being laid off, they couldn't spend $200 on a commercial flight (as opposed to $20,000 or so each to fly on their luxe corporate jets.)

Ross' story even got the attention of congressional leaders, one of whom asked the trio of coddled corporate crybabies whether any of them would be willing to sell their corporate jets and fly commercial airlines like the rest of us serfs. None volunteered. At least one member of Congress was heard to say later that Ross's report was a factor in their decision to not approve a bailout plan, at least not for now.

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