Yes, CNN is now FNN: Fake News Network!
3 journalists resign at CNN after online story is retracted
NEW YORK — CNN accepted the resignations Monday of three journalists involved in a retracted story about a supposed investigation into a pre-inaugural meeting between an associate of President Trump and the head of a Russian investment fund.
The story was posted on the network’s website Thursday and was removed, with all links disabled, Friday night. CNN immediately apologized to Anthony Scaramucci, the Trump transition team member who was reported to be involved in the meeting.
The story’s author, Thomas Frank, was among those who resigned, according to a network executive who requested anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss personnel issues. Also losing their jobs were Eric Lichtblau, an assistant managing editor in CNN’s Washington bureau, and Lex Harris, head of the investigations unit.
CNN, in initially taking down the story, said it didn’t meet its editorial standards. The story never made it onto any of CNN’s television networks.
The story had been quickly questioned both internally and externally, including by the conservative site Breitbart News. It was determined that the story was posted without going through the expected checks and balances for a story of such sensitivity, the executive said.
THEN THERE IS THIS TRUTH TELLING:
Shouldn’t it go both ways?
After months of accusations from the left, some scrutiny in return
What if Republicans investigated Democrats the way that Democrats and the media investigate Republicans?
Not sure we’ll ever get there – especially since the media seem to have no appetite to investigate Democrats – but Republicans and independents and law enforcement at least ought to level the scales of justice just a little, don’t you think?
What about Benghazi, in which four Americans died in an attack on our consulate in Libya – the cause of which the Obama administration flatly lied to our faces about?
What about the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal, in which the Obama administration intentionally ran guns to ultra-violent drug cartels in Mexico, leading to the deaths of untold numbers – including U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry? No one died in Watergate, by the way.
What about the IRS scandal, in which partisans in the Obama administration used the frightening power of the federal government’s most feared agency to harass and intimidate conservative nonprofits prior to the 2012 presidential election?
No private citizens were targeted in Watergate, by the way.
What about the Obama administration’s admitted spying on Americans, including reporters with the Associated Press and Fox News?
What about Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who not only met in secret with Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac while his wife was under investigation for national security breaches with her rogue computer server, but also told FBI Director James Comey to call it a “matter” rather than an investigation?
And what about that investigation? How could Comey have determined that Clinton compromised classified documents – but recommend she not be charged? It defies logic. And to this point, it – and Comey – has defied scrutiny.
When are Republicans going to figure out that Democrats have all but declared war on them? When are the media going to play it down the middle? Every Republican’s every move and utterance is now under the microscope – for example, did Attorney General Jeff Sessions happen to run across the Russian ambassador at the local diner? Meanwhile, no curiosity whatsoever about the multiple still-unaccounted-for scandals of the past eight years.
Finally comes a solitary ray of sunshine: The Senate Judiciary Committee announced last week that it will investigate Lynch’s ill-defined role in the bizarrely botched Clinton email investigation.
“In a letter to Ms. Lynch,” writes the Washington Times, the committee asks her to detail the depths of her involvement in the FBI’s investigation, including whether she ever assured Clinton confidantes that the probe wouldn’t ‘push too deeply into the matter.’”
Comey has admitted that Lynch’s order to refer to the investigation as a matter “gave the impression the attorney general was looking to align the way we talked about our investigation with the way a political campaign was describing the same activity.”
Imagine if Donald Trump or Jeff Sessions had done such a thing. The Chattering Class would be going ballistic!
This should just be the start. The Trump administration may have naively thought Democrats would let bygones be bygones. But they have done everything short of declaring war on the administration.
Maybe it’s time the questions and investigations went both ways.
3 comments:
If lies should result in resignation, Trump should have gone on day one of his term.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html
But, nobody mentions that . . .
Has Mark Thomas defended CNN yet or did I miss the quote? Pax
If we are to realize any hope of restoring or achieving a polity of virtue and integrity, everyone should be held to account under the same standards—standards that transcend petty partisan differences and that are appropriate to the activity in question (politics, journalism, etc.).
But indicting Hillary and the Democrats under these standards does not excuse President Trump and his administration. Trump has told so many lies/falsehoods in such a short period of time since becoming president that virtually anything he says should be subject to a presumption of mendacity that he and his surrogates bear the burden of rebutting.
As far as this episode with CNN proving that Trump is right to call CNN “fake news,” let us not overlook the fact that CNN retracted the dodgy story, apologized to Scaramucci, and let go the three journalists in question.
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