James Woods Brutally Punishes CNN for Citing Humiliatingly Bad Strzok Parody Account
When Donald Trump called CNN “very fake news” during a news conference just one month after he took office, the Ted Turner network freaked.
“This was an assault on the free press!” they wailed. The gnashing of veneers and the rending of Armani could be heard all around CNN HQ. “How dare Trump impugn our media?” In fairness, Trump didn’t actually have to do this. I’m not implying that he was wrong, mind you. I’m just saying you don’t necessarily need to do much to make CNN look bad.
In fact, you can just kick your feet up, sit back and watch CNN do the work for you. And James Woods did just that.
So, some background. FBI super agent-turned-human resources desk jockey Peter Strzok became former FBI human resources desk jockey Peter Strzok after the human Chucky doll got dismissed from the bureau.
Whatever reasons and controversies might surround that are wholly irrelevant in this case. Instead, this has to do with the fact that CNN’s Chris Cillizza — one of the numerous men and women at CNN who diligently fact-check every shred of evidence that passes through their newsroom — was one of the first to report on why Strzok was fired from the Bureau:
https://twitter.com/notpeterstrzok/status/1029104137030578177
It wasn’t long before he tweeted this preposterous quote himself:
So I guess Strzok isn't sorry or…. https://t.co/us5E4cq4OI
— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) August 13, 2018
That’s a pretty big scoop on Cillizza’s part. I don’t understand why he was the only one who came up with this. Why on earth would nobody else report it?
I don’t have the foggiest idea why this didn’t get more play in the mainstream media. Thank God for Chris Cillizza for telling it like it is.
So anyway, Mr. Cillizza finally got around to reading the name of the account and the profile information and apologizing in that sorta-kinda-way CNN’s famous for:
https://twitter.com/CillizzaCNN/status/1029112374253547520
“And now I am told…”? I’m sorry, I’ve made some mistakes around the Conservative Tribune newsroom in my time, but if I pulled this one I’d pretty much be put on rattlesnake-eradication duty for the rest of my time with the company.
And that would be if I figured it out myself. If I had to be told that my article reporting the publication of “Gravity’s Rainbow 2: S-Gerät Boogaloo” probably shouldn’t have sourced Twitter user @fakethomaspynchon, I’d pretty much spend the rest of my career as a landscaper planting palm trees in Juneau.
In his inimitable style, Mr. Woods decided to draw attention to just how preposterous of a mistake this was:
So I’m guessing investigative journalism isn’t your strong point. You needed to be “told” this was a fake account? Only at #CNN… pic.twitter.com/cqrILivByq
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) August 14, 2018
Cillizza still has a job with CNN because of course he does. After all, he’s one of their bigger stars and this will all disappear in about a week.
However, whenever the media wants to pretend that their gatekeeping is what’s keeping us from being snookered, this should serve as a relatively safe object lesson in why Americans shouldn’t put their blind trust in the Fourth Estate.
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