CNN’s Seven Biggest Screwups of 2017

During his first press conference as president-elect, Donald Trump had a notably fiery exchange with CNN’s Jim Acosta, who attempted to ask Trump a question when he was trying to take another reporter’s inquiry. “Don’t be rude…… don’t be rude,” Trump said, as Acosta continued to speak.

Then he dropped a classic one liner: “You are fake news.”

That shut Acosta up – and surprisingly got some laughs from the press. Acosta would later tweet Trump that “we are real news, Mr. President,” a line that, in hindsight, hasn’t aged well.

It’s been mainly Russia-mania for all of 2017 on CNN without a single bombshell. But that’s hardly the only fake story they’ve pushed this year. Let’s take a walk through memory lane, shall we?

Courtesy of the Daily Caller, here are CNN’s seven biggest screwups of 2017.

1. Comey Testimony

On June 6th, CNN ran a story claiming that former FBI Director James Comey would be refuting President Trump in his testimony scheduled for the next day. According to CNN, Comey would rebuff Trump’s claim that the FBI head had assured the President that he wasn’t under FBI investigations on three occasions.

That was debunked the next day… by James Comey’s testimony. It ended up confirming Trump’s claim.

2. CNN Smears Scaramucci

Later in June, CNN published- then had to delete, retract, and apologize for – a piece claiming that brief-hire Anthony Scaramucci was the subject of a Senate investigation over ties to Russian bankers. Three key members of CNN’s investigative team later resigned for their role in the bogus story, and CNN pulled its investigative team off the Russia story shortly afterwards.

3. CNN Spreads Fake News…About Fake News!

Yes, you can spread fake news about fake news!

In reporting on a study from the “Oxford Internet Institute” that claimed to show that fake news targeted swing states during election week, they didn’t realize that the study didn’t say that. In fact, the study focussed on “junk” news, not “fake” news. The study also deliberately included conservative outlets like the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News in their definition of “fake news.”  It’s clear there was bias in the reporting.

4. Republican Donor Did (Not) Fund The Dossier

CNN told their viewers in October that the infamous anti-Trump dossier was funded by a Republican. Not exactly. The 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 dossier.

5. Fake (Fish) News

CNN apparently didn’t watch their own footage in reporting on President Trump’s visit to Japan last month.

They managed to spread the fake story that Trump committed a faux pas while feeding Japanese fish by getting impatient and pouring out his entire box of fish food. In their coverage, they zoomed in on Trump while Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe were feeding the fish.

The story went viral…. but there was more to it.

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.

6. Trump Is (Not) Ignorant of Japanese Cars

In another fake story stemming from Trump’s visit to Japan, they played part of his speech 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. But Trump later mentioned that Japan did assemble cars in the U.S. Trump’s initial remark was a joke.

7. CNN Botches Another ‘Bombshell’

CNN finally had another “bombshell” story to run with when it reported that Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump campaign had received advanced access to stolen emails published by WikiLeaks. They hyped up the story for days before it was debunked.

That was just 2017 – what will the next year bring? Stay tuned, we’re expecting a lot.

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