On 12/10/07, ABC's Brian Ross reported as news the Big Lie by John Kiriakou (left) that one session of waterboarding "broke Zubaydah in less than 35 seconds."

That Big Lie convinced a majority of Americans that torture "works," even though there is not a shred of evidence that it produced life-saving intelligence.

Yesterday, Brian Ross said his 2007 report was "contradicted" by the SASC report that Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times. But that "contradiction" was mentioned briefly in passing, without any formal correction or editorial explanation, as Greg Sargent notes.

More importantly, Ross did not try to explain the heart of his 2007 story - whether Zubaydah "broke" or provided life-saving intelligence. Dick Cheney, the Republican Party, and rightwing ideologues still cite Zubaydah as Exhibit A that torture "works."

Nor did Ross explain why he failed to do minimal journalistic due diligence in 2007:

1. reporting that Kiriakou was not present during the waterboarding, therefore was not a reliable source (that fact was added later to Ross's online report)
2. vetting Kiriakou's sources, whether documents or eyewitnesses

When Dan Rather reported George Bush's 1972 desertion from the Texas Air National Guard, at least he tried to vet the "Killian memos," even if the vetting was inadequate. In this case, Brian Ross failed to do even the minimal vetting.

Brian Ross should be fired immediately. And ABC should do a thorough investigation (like the CBS Thornburgh Report) to expose everyone at ABC responsible for this Big Lie.