Media

7 Times CNN Botched The News In 2017

CNN (Credit: Shutterstock)

Font Size:


CNN has had a rough 2017 and it’s not even over yet. The news network has repeatedly made key errors when breaking big stories, only to get embarrassed when the facts come to light.

Here are seven times CNN botched the news in 2017.

Comey Testimony 

CNN ran a story on June 6 that claimed former FBI Director James Comey would use his testimony the next day to refute President Donald Trump’s claim that Comey had assured him three separate times that he was not under FBI investigation. That story was debunked the same day when Comey’s prepared remarks were released to the public, showing that Comey would actually confirm, rather than refute, Trump’s assertion.

The botched story had four bylines, including those of three veteran journalists: anchor Jake Tapper, chief political analyst Gloria Borger and executive editor Eric Lichtblau, who had recently joined CNN from The New York Times. CNN was forced to rewrite the piece with a correction noting the error.

CNN Smears Scaramucci 

Later that month, CNN.com published, deleted, and then retracted and apologized for an article that claimed Trump adviser Anthony Scaramucci was the subject of a Senate investigation for his ties to Russian bankers. After an intense public backlash, three key members of CNN’s investigative team resigned over their role in the retracted story. The network pulled its investigative team off the Russia story shortly afterwards. (RELATED: Wolf Blitzer Humiliates Colleague Over Quality Of Her White House Sources [VIDEO])

CNN Spreads Fake News…About Fake News!  

CNN was one of several establishment media outlets to spread fake news about a new study on Russian influence efforts in the United States. CNN cited the study, from the Oxford Internet Institute, to show that fake news targeted swing states during election week. But the study didn’t show that, as The Daily Caller first reported.

The study focused on “junk news,” not “fake news,” and then deliberately included conservative outlets like the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News in their definition of “fake news.” CNN and other outlets included none of those facts, portraying a misleading picture to the public.

WATCH:

Republican Donor Did (Not) Fund The Dossier

CNN spread fake news to its viewers during a segment on the infamous anti-Trump dossier in October. While CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer discussed the dossier, the chyron on his show indicated that a Republican donor had initially funded the dossier. That is incorrect. The opposition research firm behind the dossier, Fusion GPS, had contracted with Republican donor Paul Singer for research on candidates including Trump, but that was unrelated to the controversial dossier.

WATCH:

Fake (Fish) News

During President Trump’s visit to Japan last month, CNN spread two false narratives about the president. The first false narrative was that Trump committed a faux pas while feeding Japanese koi fish by impatiently pouring out his entire box of fish food. CNN zoomed in close on Trump while he and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe were feeding the fish, appearing to show the president making the embarrassing mistake. The video went viral and Trump was mocked on social media.

WATCH:

The full video, however, showed that Trump followed Abe’s lead and only dumped out his box of fish food after his host had done the same.

WATCH:

Trump Is (Not) Ignorant Of Japanese Cars

In the second false narrative that CNN spread during Trump’s Japan visit, the network took the president’s words out of context to make him appear ignorant of the fact that Japan makes cars in the United States. “Trump asks Japan to build cars in the U.S. It already does,” CNN Money’s Daniel Shane wrote.

As TheDC’s Alex Pfeiffer noted at the time, Trump’s full remarks — which Shane left out — clearly showed that Trump was aware of the fact that Japan makes cars in the U.S. His remark, which CNN took seriously, appeared to be a joke.

CNN Botches Another ‘Bombshell’

CNN botched another “bombshell” on Friday when it reported that Donald Trump Jr. and the Trump campaign had received advanced access to stolen emails published by WikiLeaks. The network hyped the story as a bombshell for most of the day before TheDC’s Chuck Ross debunked it, revealing several serious errors with the story.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel