CNN throws three employees under the bus, hopes that you’ll believe they’re totally reporting the truth now:
Three CNN employees have handed in their resignations over a retracted story linking President Trump to Russia, the network announced Monday. The article was removed from CNN.com on Friday after the network decided it could no longer stand by its reporting.
“In the aftermath of the retraction of a story published on CNN.com, CNN has accepted the resignation of the employees involved in the story’s publication,” a network spokesperson told TheWrap in a statement.
On Thursday, CNN investigative reporter Thomas Frank published a story involving an investigation into a Russian investment fund with possible ties to several Trump associates.
According to the network, an internal investigation found that “some standard editorial processes were not followed when the article was published.”
Citing a single unnamed source, the story reported that Congress was investigating a “Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials.” The story, which only appeared on the network’s site, was quickly disputed on Friday, as one Trump ally Anthony Scaramucci — who was mentioned in the story — pushed back on Frank’s reporting, insisting he “did nothing wrong.”
“Once it was determined that editorial processes were not followed, CNN deleted the story from CNN.com,” the network said Friday on its site. “Soon thereafter, the story was officially retracted and replaced with an editor’s note.” The piece “did not meet CNN’s editorial standards and has been retracted,” the note said. “Links to the story have been disabled.”
CNN blamed the mistake on a “breakdown in editorial workflow,” explaining that that “these types of stories” did not go through the usual departments such as fact-checkers, journalism standards experts and lawyers.
The gaffe cost three employees their jobs: Frank, who wrote the story, Eric Lichtblau, a unit editor, and the person in charge of the unit, Lex Haris.
The network’s investigative unit was told during a meeting on Monday that the retraction did not necessarily mean the facts of the story were wrong. But, rather, “the story wasn’t solid enough to publish as-is,” according CNN.com.
Haris, Lichtblau and Frank had solid reputations among their colleagues.
Frank worked as reporter for USA Today and Newsday before joining CNN. Lichtblau is a former New York Times Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter. And Haris was a former executive editor of CNNMoney.
This is what happens when you put your trust in the reliability of Team NeverTrump. The problem is that if this newfound sense of journalistic integrity caused CNN to force the resignation of three employees every time they published Fake News, they’d soon have none left. Of course, they have learned nothing.
CNN boss Jeff Zucker says despite Donald Trump’s war on the network and what the president says is “fake news,” he is certain that CNN maintains the trust of its viewers, as it extends into digital brands to attract a younger audience.
Speaking at Cannes Lions, he said, “CNN has been around for 37 years, our trustworthiness today is the same as it was a year ago, before people in high offices started questioning it. We know that through our own brand research. Just because somebody says you are not trustworthy, that doesn’t mean it is so … CNN’s brand equity is built over 37 years doing hard work in very dangerous places … those who rely on CNN trust CNN more than ever.”
CNN is dying. No one watches it. Because it is Fake News posing as real news.
Primetime viewers in millions: FNC: 2.346 | CNN: 827 | MSNBC: 1.705