7 Times CNN Botched The News In 2017

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. 

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:

Trump joined his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe in feeding fish, emptying the whole box of food into a koi pond https://t.co/ervKCSChINpic.twitter.com/4b3XoyLNOJ

— CNN (@CNN) November 6, 2017

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 The DC’s Chuck Ross debunked it, revealing several serious errors with the story.