CNN Issues Fake News Report About Own Network, Leaves Politico, Others Scrambling to Escape Fact Checkers
After CNN overstated the success of its town hall with Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris this week, liberal outlets were left scrambling to issue corrections.
CNN’s Monday night town hall event with Harris averaged 1.957 million viewers, according to data from Nielsen Research, which is excellent by CNN’s standards.
But the liberal news outlet misleadingly called its event the “most watched cable news single candidate election town hall ever.”
That was half-true. It was the most watched ever for CNN.
CNN would be disappointed to hear that Fox News and President Donald Trump had more viewers in 2016.
Left-wing outlet Mediaite published CNN’s misleading claim and was forced to issue a correction.
“This post has been updated to clarify it is the most-watched for CNN. A 2016 Fox News Trump townhall with Sean Hannity was watched by 2.7 million viewers,” Mediaite’s correction reads.
In its correction, Mediaite cited a 2016 article from Deadline Hollywood, which said Trump’s town hall clocked 2.7 million viewers.
About the same time, The Hill also reported that Trump’s town hall with Hannity had 2.7 million viewers.
Mediaite wasn’t the only outlet that published CNN’s misleading statement. Politico and the conservative-leaning Washington Examiner also issued corrections.
“An earlier version of this article misstated a viewing record that CNN set on Monday night. It was for the network, not for all cable news,” Politico’s correction reads.
Left-wing outlets like Politico and Mediaite are typically quick to parrot CNN, but even they are unwilling to defend CNN on this one.
News outlets should have known that there was no way Harris could have pulled as much interest as Trump did in 2016.
But with a town hall meeting coming so early in the 2020 election cycle, CNN seems to be setting up Harris to gain early momentum and enthusiasm, and she desperately needs it.
Harris isn’t the first choice for most Democrats. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be a strong consensus for any particular Democratic presidential candidate.
With divisive, but boringly predictable, Democratic candidates like Harris, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and potentially Vice President Joe Biden, it’s a safe bet that Trump’s cable news events will eclipse Democratic events throughout 2019 and 2020.
It’s sad that CNN had to overstate its boring town hall with Harris, but there’s a reason why CNN is called “fake news.”
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