CNN Shoots Itself In Foot Again

The New Yorker’s satirical Borowitz Report, the liberal-leaning reshuffling of the news by Andy Borowitz described the bastion of fake news this way in October 2015:

The strong ratings for Tuesday's Democratic Presidential debate have surprised CNN executives, who are now tentatively considering introducing substance into their programming. 

After reviewing the numbers for the debate, however, Zucker decided to launch a pilot program at CNN called Project Substance, which will introduce information and "substance-based content" into the network's programming, on a limited basis. 

"Just to be clear, we're not suddenly going to flood our programming with substance," Zucker said. "We know that would be jarring for our viewers." 

By implementing a "dash of substance here and there," the network will be able to gauge whether viewers' interest in substance is for real, "or just a passing fad," Zucker said. 

"If, at the end of the day, viewers aren't interested in serious news, we'll just go back to what we've been doing," he said.

Last Friday evening CNN fully retracted and completely scrubbed a bogus story which cited an unnamed source claiming the Senate Intelligence Committee was investigating a “$10-billion Russian investment fund whose chief executive met with a member of President Donald Trump’s transition team four days before Trump’s inauguration.”

The transition team member was Anthony Scaramucci, and he “supposedly” discussed lifting sanctions with investment fund chief executive Kirill Dmitriev. Except, the ties were strung together by CNN with absolutely no proof and despite a firm denial from the Russian investment firm spokesman.

“CNN.com published a story connecting Anthony Scaramucci with investigations into the Russian Direct Investment Fund,” CNN wrote in the editor’s note after the retraction. “That story did not meet CNN’s editorial standards and has been retracted. Links to the story have been disabled. CNN apologizes to Mr. Scaramucci.”

Anonymous sources described the incident as a “massive, massive fuck up and people will be disciplined.”

Source told me Scaramucci called CNN reporter/Washington bureau chief to complain on Friday, threatened legal action

— Hadas Gold (@Hadas_Gold) June 26, 2017

Thomas Frank, Eric Lichtblau and Lex Harris all resigned from CNN over Russia/Scaramucci story. These are big names. https://t.co/5efVCUZl8P

— Hadas Gold (@Hadas_Gold) June 26, 2017

In an effort to stop the bleeding caused by growing public skepticism about its integrity and not have the “fake news” label stick, stories involving Trump/Russia now require the approval of senior executives before publication.