Media

CNN Devoted Just Four Minutes To Clinton Uranium Revelations

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Amber Athey Podcast Columnist
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CNN managed to give just four minutes of news coverage to revelations about Clinton ties to Russia over the course of an entire week.

According to a study by the Media Research Center, from 7 AM on October 17 to 7 AM on October 24, CNN mentioned the new scandal just twice. Overall, they gave it 3 minutes and 54 seconds of coverage.

The first mention of the story, which alleges kickbacks from Russian energy officials to the Clinton Foundation while then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton was approving Russian uranium deals, was on October 19 after Trump criticized the media for failing to cover it. Host Wolf Blitzer dedicated just 19 seconds to the story — just enough to give viewers context of what Trump was talking about.

On October 20, Blitzer interviewed ex-Obama official Jake Sullivan, who denounced the reporting as having “no basis in fact.”

Blitzer managed to push back against Sullivan, asking how “some of these Russians who were involved were giving the Clinton Foundation thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and Bill Clinton was going to Russia to deliver speeches for huge speaking fees?”

The entire October 20 interview lasted 3 minutes and 35 seconds.

The lack of coverage by anchors and reporters was particularly bizarre given CNN showed live coverage of a hearing in which Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley discussed the case for nearly five minutes. CNN provided no additional comment.

CNN finally gave more coverage to the relationship between the Clintons and Russia on Tuesday after the MRC concluded their study, but the network practically dismissed it as a conspiracy theory.

CNN covered House GOP members announcing they were going to investigate the Clinton ties to Russia, but political correspondent Dana Bash said the investigation is just the GOP is “listening to their base.”

“What we do know is that the President tweeted about it a couple of days ago, on the 19th of October,” she said. “Sean Hannity, Fox News, the conservative media, from Breitbart to talk radio, they have been aggressively pushing this story, saying that the mainstream media is ignoring it.”

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