AP media writer David Bauder was first to report that C-Span’s Steve Scully had been indefinitely suspended for lying about a tweet in which he consulted with a former Trump administration official about how to deal with social media criticism from the president. Bauder reported that Scully falsely blamed a hacker for the controversial tweet to former White House press secretary Anthony Scaramucci ahead of the second presidential debate, which Scully was to moderate.
The scoop was an instant success online, viewed by more than 125,000 people on APNews in the first hour, and it became a trending topic on Twitter after Trump tweeted about it.