“Never Trump” writer John Podhoretz, who once threw a hissy fit at Breitbart News over an article that was 100 percent factually correct, came to embattled CNN’s defense on Monday evening.
Even though Podhoretz admitted that CNN published a “fake news” story that forced three of its employees to resign on Monday evening, he said yelling “Fake News” at the network is “unfair.”
CNN published a bad story, pulled it, apologized. 3 journalists quit. That's impressive and decisive action. Yelling "Fake News" unfair.
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) June 27, 2017
2/ CNN acknowledged its own error and took action almost immediately. This is what people should want.
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) June 27, 2017
On Monday, three CNN employees—the author of the “fake news” piece and his two editors—resigned after Breitbart News’ Matt Boyle’s investigative report on Friday shredded a CNN story, based on a single anonymous source, that falsely claimed Congress and the Treasury Department were investigating associates of President Donald Trump for their supposed ties to a Russian investment fund.
After Boyle published his story on Breitbart News, CNN took the extraordinary step of apologizing to Anthony Scaramucci, the person the article smeared, before retracting the “fake news” story, pulling it from the internet, and then issuing an editor’s note.
After the “very fake news” story reportedly consumed the network over the weekend, CNN’s Brian Stelter reported on Monday “that three journalists, including the executive editor in charge of a new investigative unit, have resigned after the publication of a Russia-related article that was retracted.”
well, that would be the wrong atttitude to take as well since CNN did publish a fake news story there
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) June 27, 2017
Error? That's kind. pic.twitter.com/SByWI2MixB
— 🇺🇸Red Forman👌 (@wokenburger) June 27, 2017
“Thomas Frank, who wrote the story in question; Eric Lichtblau, an editor in the unit; and Lex Haris, who oversaw the unit, have all left CNN,” Stelter reported after being unable to get a comment from his own employer over the weekend.
This is hardly the first time CNN has been caught red-handed publishing a “very fake news” story. A day before former FBI director James Comey testified before Congress earlier this month, CNN published a piece, based on anonymous sources, that claimed that Comey would “explain to senators” that he did not tell Trump that Trump was not under FBI investigation. Gloria Borger, who co-authored the “fake news” piece, reportedly went on air and said: “Comey is going to dispute the president on this point if he’s asked about it by senators, and we have to assume that he will be. He will say he never assured Donald Trump that he was not under investigation, that that would have been improper for him to do so.”
When Comey then released his testimony that completely debunked CNN’s story, CNN had to issue an embarrassing correction to the top of the story that was co-authored by Borger, Lichtblau, Jake Tapper and Brian Rokus:
CORRECTION AND UPDATE: This article was published before Comey released his prepared opening statement. The article and headline have been corrected to reflect that Comey does not directly dispute that Trump was told multiple times he was not under investigation in his prepared testimony released after this story was published.
Keep in mind that Podhoretz was once so angry at a Breitbart News article, which was 100 percent factually accurate in every way, that he lashed out at Breitbart News, “beclowning” himself in the process by calling Breitbart News a “clown site.” He also said Breitbart News’ 45 million monthly readers were “rape-loving.” Podhoretz apparently did not find it appalling that Rick Wilson, one of his fellow establishment Republican “Never Trumpers” who said the GOP donor class needed to “put a bullet” in Trump while hypocritically decrying the boorish rhetoric of Trump supporters, would actually politicize rape threats against his daughter to try to score political points. But Podhoretz insists that it is “unfair” to yell “fake news” at CNN.
As always, elitist “Never Trumpers” like Podhoretz give establishment Republicans and the legacy media that love to use them as their useful idiots every benefit of the doubt while assuming conservatives are guilty until proven innocent.
(First reported by Breitbart News) http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2017/06/27/john-podhoretz-unfair-to-call-cnn-fake-news/ (June 28, 2017)
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