Not necessarily, although I don’t think it’s a clear denial of the accusation either.
I think that’s one possible reading of the quote. For example, if Al Franken / John Conyers said they were being absolutely pilloried for sexual assault, I wouldn’t take it necessarily as a denial of the claims against them, just an observation on the result.
Given the context of this remark (an internal company call) I think it’s more likely that Goldston was trying to impress the gravity of the error on his staff, not offer a denial (or an admission) to the “fake news” accusation.
Perhaps. I’d probably rate ABC News as a whole as more interested in playing things straight than Fox (although I’m not sure Brian Ross merits that assumption at this point), but I don’t believe that, for example, MSNBC is (see below).
I actually found even worse behavior from MSNBC:
Perhaps you don’t count MSNBC as a “mainstream news site” either though.