An NBC News headline Saturday about a Senate staffer being “no longer employed” by Maryland Democrat Sen. Ben Cardin after a porn scandal framed the story around the “conservative outlets” that first reported the news of the leaked video, drawing outrage and a Community Note online.
The Democrat staffer, Aidan Maese-Czeropski, was terminated over the weekend after being identified online as allegedly one of the two participants in a very graphic pornographic video filmed in a Senate hearing room. That video was then shared in the chat of a “private group for gay men in politics,” according to conservative news site The Daily Caller, which broke the story but did not identify the staffer and blurred the faces of the two men in the video when posting.
Politico reported Saturday that other “conservative outlets identified the person responsible” as Maese-Czeropsk, a legislative aide to the Democratic Senator from Maryland.
On his LinkedIn page, Maese-Czeropski claimed to be the victim of prejudice, saying he was being “attacked for who I love to pursue a political agenda.”
He did not say he was not in the video, nor did he say he did not film or share it, only that he “would never disrespect my workplace” and “Any attempts to characterize my actions otherwise are fabricated and I will be exploring what legal options are available to me in these matters.”
Politico remarked, “Yeah, we’d definitely advise finding a lawyer.”
NBC News covered the story on Saturday afternoon with an article by Amanda Terkel and Frank Thorp V under the headline, “Senate staffer alleged by conservative outlets to have had sex in a hearing room is no longer employed.”
The subhed reads: “Conservative news outlets alleged that the aide to Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., appeared in a leaked video showing men having sex in a Senate hearing room.”
The article also points out that Jewish Ohio Republican Rep. Max Miller has identified Maese-Czeropski as the person who came up and said “Free Palestine” at him last week.
The NBC News article by Terkel and Thorp said the outlet was “not able to identify the staffer in the interaction.”
That’s somehow despite the fact that Miller was being interviewed by NBC News when the staffer approached and made the comment.
The article did not offer any reason for framing the story as doubtful other than to say it was reported by conservative outlets.
When NBC’s “conservatives pounce” headline hit X (formerly Twitter), the framing of the story was immediately noted and ridiculed from the right side of the aisle.
Conservatives seized, pounced, and weaponized!
— JWF (@JammieWF) December 16, 2023
wow, NBC. Really?
— Dave Bondy (@DaveBondyTV) December 16, 2023
It’s conservative news outlets’ fault?
Ridiculous headline.
NBC News is working for the Democrats. https://t.co/cHOfSyCae4
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) December 16, 2023
At one point do you feel embarrassed? Who cares who reported on it? He admitted it. It was posted to his account. A Democrat Senator fired him for it. But somehow conservatives are to blame for it? The media is beyond broken. It's actually sad.
— Jon Nicosia (@NewsPolitics) December 16, 2023
Republicans pounce!! https://t.co/eg7ix7wfzP
— Kimberly Ross 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇮🇱 (@SouthernKeeks) December 16, 2023
Not alleged. It's on video, @frankthorp and @aterkel. And whether it's from "conservative news outlets" is irrelevant.
— Jackson Richman (@jacksonrichman) December 16, 2023
NBC’s framing of this is outrageous & belongs in the Media Bias Hall of Fame.
A Dem senator’s staffer videotaped himself having sex in a Senate committee room, shared it online with others, and got fired when it became public.
But NBC casts conservatives as the bad guys. https://t.co/AuT0ajhT3q
— Tim Murtaugh (@TimMurtaugh) December 17, 2023
The media cannot escape this formulation. It is constitutionally incapable of seeing what it does, or why. https://t.co/waORDinpip
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) December 16, 2023
Video proof.
Admission of guilt on his own LinkedIn.
His entire IG page full of nudity.
Own boss confirms and terminates.
“Conservatives alleged”
Sit down.— Courtney (@crystalandqueue) December 16, 2023
I really want to be charitable here because I like one of the contributors to this story (and they probably aren't responsible for the headline or subhead). But this headline is nonsense. There's a way to write this headline without the "Republicans pounce" narrative, even if you… https://t.co/NWMGUGrqcu
— Meredith Dake-O'Connor (@meredithdake) December 17, 2023
At the time of this article, there have been no updates to the story, but a Community Note was added to NBC’s post on X.
