CNN : Stupid is as Stupid Does

63 days after they got it so horribly wrong, CNN continues to prove that they have learned nothing since the election. While many mainstream media outlets seek to repair their tattered reputations and shattered public trust, CNN continues to double down on their naked hatred of Donald Trump. During the election season many had dubbed the network the “Clinton News Network” and even went as far to suggest that they had gone from a news network with a defined leftward world view to an advocacy wing of the Democratic Party. Well the insanity continues for CNN.

Yesterday, BuzzFeed decided to break a story that had been floating around media and political elites for a few months. The story included unverified and unsubstantiated rumors so solicitous that many reputable news organizations walked away from the story months ago. While the editor in chief of BuzzFeed stated in an internal letter to his staff there “there is serious reasons to doubt the allegations”, they still went ahead and published the completed and unvarnished set of documents. While I can expect this of the news organization that brings us such pivotal news as “Which Disney Princess Should be Your Side Dick” and “15 Mansplaining Stories That Mansplained So Fucking Hard” to be irresponsible, I do not expect this of serious organizations.

While CNN was careful to not make the documents available directly or pull direct quotes they did have some early morning articles where the set of documents was referenced and BuzzFeed was linked. This of course granted credence to a story that should not have been published by allowing it to be linked with CNN. Now in those early morning articles, which are no longer on the site, they made some halfhearted references to the information not being validated, but immediately gave credence the unnamed British intelligence agent who was supposedly the author of this paid opposition research. (This assertion is still available in BuzzFeed’s article on the entire thing being a hoax perpetrated by Trump supporters.) This is the issue CNN. You attempted to stay above the fray on a story and you are being used to give legitimacy to a “Fake News” story by many of non-functioning basement dwelling liberals.

In your blatant hatred of Trump you have forgotten the main rule of journalism when it comes to maintaining the public trust, “Trust but verify.” Now CNN commentators are complaining about how unfairly their organization was treated at the Trump press conference when they were not allowed to ask a question and the President Elect called them “Fake News”. Well fairness is a two way street. At this very moment skimming through CNN I see 5 headlines I would consider negative about Trump or those picked for cabinet positions and 7 that at best I might describe as neutral. Not one of your headlines indicates anything positive about the President Elect. I am not advocating that media organizations become puppets of the president, but if you CNN are going to present your organization as one that reports the truth without an agenda or favor then your organization needs to represent both sides of the story. If CNN openly admitted that they were reporting news with a Liberal, Democratic or Progressive slant then I could respect them as a news organization because they were being up front. While they recently described President Obama as “Unbowed and Unapologetic” I think they found out today that Trump will not bow or apology to their stupidity.