At this stage of the game, CNN is making it easy for President Donald Trump to push his “fake news” narrative.
CNN has egg all over its face yet again over an erroneous report that Donald Trump Jr. received an email on Sept. 4, 2016, that included a decryption key and website address for hacked WikiLeaks documents from the Democratic National Committee and from former Secretary of State Colin Powell — access that was said to have come more than a week before the files were released to the public.
The trouble is, the network, which heavily promoted the story, missed their mark by 10 days.
Turns out, CNN never saw the email in question and relied on sources to describe it to them. The Washington Post did obtain the email and reported the message was dated Sept. 14, 2016.
Of course, by the latter date, the files in question were available to all.
Trump Jr.’s attorney told CNN his client had no recollection of the email and took no action on it. He also said Trump Jr. did not know who the sender was.
Among the first to point out the inaccuracy on the date was Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume.
“As I write this, this story is still up on CNN’s website, even though the date in it is wrong. The email was not sent until 10 days later, after the Wikileaks documents were already public. -> Email shows effort to give docs to Trump camp @CNNPolitics,” he tweeted.
As I write this, this story is still up on CNN’s website, even though the date in it is wrong. The email was not sent until 10 days later, after the Wikileaks documents were already public. -> Email shows effort to give docs to Trump camp @CNNPolitics https://t.co/9kJORPrmKG
— Brit Hume (@brithume) December 8, 2017
CNN updated the article a short time later with the correct date, saying the “new information indicates that the communication is less significant than CNN initially reported.”
Less significant? The earlier date was the story, yet the network left the article up.
The network posted a mea culpa of sorts on Twitter.
“CNN’s initial reporting of the date on an email sent to members of the Trump campaign about Wikileaks documents, which was confirmed by two sources to CNN, was incorrect. We have updated our story to include the correct date, and present the proper context for the timing of email,” the tweet read.
CNN's initial reporting of the date on an email sent to members of the Trump campaign about Wikileaks documents, which was confirmed by two sources to CNN, was incorrect. We have updated our story to include the correct date, and present the proper context for the timing of email
— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) December 8, 2017
Donald Trump Jr. let the network have it after the error:
Have you offered a full retraction to this #fakenews yet? Trying to help your credibility. https://t.co/noysh5jLlu
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) December 9, 2017
Because they heard what they wanted to hear and that’s enough for them. #fakenews https://t.co/yt1tQf6lBk
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) December 9, 2017
Because they are higher ups who do lots of interviews with them and discrediting them would hurt their collective agendas. https://t.co/GnnY7hWJYo
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) December 9, 2017
Donald Trump Jr. also retweeted the following:
https://twitter.com/courrielche/status/939397584090566656
President Trump, who was attending a rally in Pensacola, Fla., was only too happy to gloat over the screw up, according to The Post.
“CNN apologized just a little while ago,” Trump said Friday night. “They apologized. Oh, thank you, CNN. Thank you so much. You should’ve been apologizing for the last two years.”
Violating the code that says when in a hole, stop digging, CNN’s Brian Stelter took to Twitter to clarify that his network didn’t actually apologize for the embarrassing error, but simply corrected the record.
https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/939303937504612352
Why would CNN “apologize” for the error? Even if it’s misinformation, as long as it damages Trump, his family, or his political associates, the network considers it “all good.”
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