CNN and CNN Breaking News both put the word “terrorists” in quotation marks when initially reporting on the terror attack in Tel Aviv. The now-deleted tweets were:
Screen capture from Twitter
Screen capture from Twitter
The unnecessary use of quotation marks around “terrorists” did not go unnoticed.
@cnnbrk Hi, CNN. Can you explain why the word terrorists is in scare quotes in your news reporting?
Thanks!
— Dread Pirate Cates (@drawandstrike) June 8, 2016
Quick question: What would it take for you to just call them terrorists, no scare quotes or modifiers? https://t.co/pXl1Lf3Y5B
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) June 8, 2016
@cnnbrk “terrorists”? They are. They killed three people. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
— Adi (@_iamadi_) June 8, 2016
By Thursday morning both accounts had deleted the tweets and issued the following statements:
A previous – now removed – tweet appeared to call into question the Tel Aviv attack as an act of terrorism. It undoubtedly was.
— CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) June 9, 2016
A previous – now removed – tweet appeared to call into question the Tel Aviv attack as an act of terrorism. It undoubtedly was.
— CNN (@CNN) June 9, 2016
CNN did not say why the quotation marks were used in the first place nor who sent the tweets.