The Question CNN Refuses to Answer, and the Apology It Refuses to Give Ted Cruz
I am not the only one calling out CNN for its self-righteous and even mendacious handling of the Ted Cruz-Ben Carson-Iowa caucus controversy, and it all comes down to a very simple question that CNN refuses to answer.
The question is this: Why did your TV reporters (Dana Bash, Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer) only cite CNN correspondent Chris Moody’s first tweet on February 1st at 6:43 PM, CST, namely, that Dr. Carson was taking a break from campaigning, while failing to quote his second tweet at 6:43 where Moody stated clearly that Carson was not dropping out of the campaign?
Why did you mislead your listeners with this “breaking news” (stated twice), calling it “very unusual news” (stated three times) and “very significant news” (stated once) without informing them that, as unusual as this might be, the Carson campaign wanted everyone to know that he was not dropping out of the race?
This is a question I have raised in writing, on video and in direct correspondence with CNN spokespeople, and the only thing louder than their silence is the declaration that, “We did nothing wrong and Ted Cruz is a liar.”
Before I flesh this out in a little more detail, it’s noteworthy that in the last few days, a growing chorus of voices is calling CNN to account.
On February 5th, before CNN’s latest misguided assault on Cruz in the aftermath of the New Hampshire debate, William Tate on the American Thinker website wrote that “CNN owes Ted Cruz an apology.”
Since that misguided (and very ugly) assault, Ben Shapiro wrote on February 7th on the Daily Wire that, “CNN Started The Carson Drop-Out Rumor. Now They’re Lying About It To Bash Cruz.” Shapiro began his article stating that, “CNN’s massively dishonest hit on Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) continued on Saturday night.”
Also on February 7th, Mark Hemingway wrote for the Weekly Standard that, “PolitiFact Attacks Ted Cruz for Accurately Quoting CNN at Debate.”
Precisely so.
On February 8th, Trevor Loudon weighed in from New Zealand, claiming that, “To maintain credibility, CNN must apologize publicly to Ted Cruz,” while the headline to John Nolte’s article on Breitbart.com stated bluntly: “CarsonGate Cover-Up: CNN Fact-Checker Lies About Ted Cruz.” (On a related note, at Townhall.com, Katie Kieffer pointed the finger at Dr. Carson, as some others have done, writing, “Ben Carson: Now He’s a Politician” — and she didn’t mean that in a flattering way.)
In short, when Senator Cruz was asked about the Iowa caucus controversy during the debate he responded accurately, also repeating his apology to Dr. Carson for not distributing updated and accurate information and reiterating that he knew nothing of what some of his team members did immediately before the caucuses began.
CNN pounced on this like a hungry lion, restating their innocence and labeling him an outright liar.
As summarized by Nolte, “CNN is not only desperate to absolve itself of its legitimate responsibility for spreading the false idea that Dr. Ben Carson was dropping out of the presidential race last week, CNN is also hoping to complete a three-bank shot that will damage Sen. Ted Cruz … in the process. Saturday night, CNN went so far as to have their phony left-wing ‘fact-checker’ Tom Foreman lie about Cruz.”
During the debate, Cruz accurately referenced the televised comments of Tapper, Bash and Blitzer and claimed that they didn’t “correct” those comments for almost three hours. (Nolte provides an easy to follow timeline.)
CNN says they had nothing to correct since they never stated Carson was dropping out, pointing to Moody’s tweets that stated that Carson was not dropping out. But it is downright disingenuous, if not outright dishonest, to point to a CNN journalist’s tweet that CNN’s own TV commentators ignored, especially when Cruz pointed to their TV commentators.
To repeat the question: Why didn’t CNN inform their viewers of Moody’s second tweet? Why didn’t they say, “We want to make it perfectly clear that Dr. Carson is not dropping out of the race?”
The facts are that CNN did not report accurately. They left out vital information, information that their own journalist felt was essential to include.
Not only so, but on CNN’s Twitter account, one that is almost a thousand times as large as Moody’s, they reiterated that “Carson plans to take a break from campaigning,” and they posted this about 25 minutes after receiving Moody’s second tweet which had emphasized that Carson was not dropping out of the campaign. Why did they only cite the first tweet and ignore the second?
CNN’s tweet was also released more than 10 minutes after a senior official for Carson sent out his own tweet that Dr. Carson was not dropping out. He obviously did this in order to put out the fires started on TV by CNN (see here for details), yet CNN said not a word of this, neither on television nor on their massive Twitter feed.
In short, CNN had two tweets from their journalist Chris Moody, the first saying Carson was taking a break from campaigning and the second saying he was absolutely not dropping out of the race, yet on TV and on their large Twitter feed, they reported the first tweet and left out the critically important second tweet.
Why?
And how can the Cruz team be held responsible for not being aware of the second Moody tweet when CNN ignored it both on TV and on their large Twitter feed? (For my critique of the Cruz campaign’s actions, see here.)
As Nolte conveniently recaps:
On a Twitter account with 23 million followers, CNN told the world that Carson ‘plans to take a break from campaigning after Iowa.’
On a Twitter account with just 31,000 followers, CNN’s Chris Moody clarified that Carson was not dropping out.
Again, I ask you: Why didn’t CNN use its powerful broadcast center or massive Twitter presence to tell its viewers the full story — to tell viewers Carson was not dropping out?
That is the simple question CNN refuses to answer, telling me that the only ones questioning their reporting are those with an agenda, as if CNN alone had no agenda and as if all those who differ with them can conveniently be dismissed as being non-objective and biased.
The reality is that CNN got caught with its hands in the cookie jar, and rather than acknowledging their error, they are circling their wagons.
So, I’ll ask it once more: CNN, why did you fail to report your own correspondent’s second tweet, also ignoring the tweets of a senior Carson staffer? Why?
