CNN’s defamation trial is the latest instance of liberal media being held accountable for sham reporting targeting people who are perceived to be their political opponents.
In 2021, CNN ran a segment talking about the private contractors helping to evacuate Afghans from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. These people were making President Joe Biden look bad since Biden was the one who let the Taliban take over Afghanistan and failed to help Afghan American allies (as well as hundreds of Americans) get out of the country. CNN’s Jake Tapper and Alexander Marquardt talked about “black markets” and “exorbitant fees,” claiming that these Afghans were being exploited by the people evacuating them.
The only one of these contractors who was identified was Navy veteran Zachary Young, who was named and had his face plastered on the screen for talks of black markets and other suggestions of illegal activity. Young had pointed out the inaccuracies in CNN’s reporting, but CNN pushed through anyway, later issuing a “correction” on Tapper’s show but not a retraction and not acknowledging the “correction” on social media or in written form, two methods the outlet used to promote the original story.
Jury selection has begun for CNN’s case, and a trial couldn’t be more deserved. At best, CNN was reckless, sloppy, and lazy, showing that the outlet puts no effort or care into its “journalism.” (Remember, this was aired on the show hosted by Jake Tapper, CNN’s golden news host who is supposedly its most serious and professional.) Given that messages from CNN staffers described the story as “a mess,” “full of holes,” and “incomplete,” the reality is likely much worse.
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It is the latest in a list of media legal reckonings for bad, politicized reporting. ABC News is fresh off a $15 million settlement with President-elect Donald Trump after ABC’s chief political correspondent (and former Bill Clinton campaign operative) George Stephanopoulos repeatedly falsely claimed that Trump had been legally found liable for rape, over the objections of his producers. CNN, NBC, and the Washington Post settled with Covington Catholic student Nicholas Sandmann for blowing up a short video into a national news story smearing Sandmann as a hateful racist for smiling.
These cases are just another indication of the decrepit state of mainstream liberal “journalism.” Whether it is trying to destroy political opponents (as ABC did) or whip up mobs against people like Young or Sandmann (who have less influence to change the narrative) because anger draws eyes, outlets such as CNN have abandoned any pretense of journalism in order to draw viewers and insert themselves into political debates. This is why media trust is in the toilet and why legal consequences should be on the table in cases like Young’s.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
