Thursday, June 29, 2017

Fake Story Scandal: How Russia Obsession Led CNN into a Trap

CNN is in trouble, with its reputation tanking as a result of publishing an article connecting Trump ally and Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci, who served on the executive committee of Trump's transition team, to the $10-billion Russian Direct Investment Fund. The story based on a single antonymous source happened to be a fake. Despite swift retraction of the article, apology published and the following resignation of three veteran journalists, the image of the cable news network has been greatly tarnished.

The US media are waging an information war in an effort to oust Donald Trump from the White House. That’s where Russia – the country blamed for each and everything going awry in the United States – comes in handy. None of the stories regarding Russia and President Trump has been backed up by anything like solid evidence or facts. Even if only a small part of them were true, impeachment procedures would be launched but nothing like that has happened, except that US media has limited the President's room for maneuver with endless false stories about Russia.

What if the investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller does not produce any facts to make the media information offensive look like a failed conspiracy to stage a quite coup d’état in the United States? Will those who work in the leading media networks waging the smear campaign and spreading around unconfirmed information be held responsible?

Media attacks negatively affect the prospects for a Putin-Trump meeting during the Russia-US summit to take place on July 7-8 in Hamburg, Germany. The US is no less interested in the positive outcome than Russia. With the troublesome news coming from Syria, tensions running high between Russia and NATO, arms control and non-proliferation regime eroding, and terrorists moving to Africa and the Asia Pacific, as well as a host of other issues on the agenda, the US media do a disservice to their own country by obstructing all attempts to revive the Russia-US dialogue on burning issues of mutual interest. Intensification of media attacks against the president in the days left till the event in Germany is something to be expected. But too much zeal is not always a good thing. Scoop stories attract public attention just for a few days, but a good reputation is hard to win and easy to lose. The CNN fake news scandal is a good illustration of the fact. 

Strategic Cultures


CNN is in trouble but this has nothing to do with John Bonifield. James O' Keefe was mischievous because he didn't mention that John Bonifield was a senior producer of medical and science stories and had nothing to do with politics.

2 comments:

André said...

"CNN to a trap"

"CNN is in trouble, with its reputation tanking as a result of publishing an article"

"the image of the cable news network has been greatly tarnished"

Do you really think CNN's reputation was affected some how?

That's just random sensationalism. CNN was not affected at all.

The way you put it, it seems that CNN was involved in some big scandal or something, but the truth is that no one noticed such article.

Tom Hickey said...

Not quite the case. The tide of public opinion in the US is turning against the Trumpgate for two reasons, the first leading to the other. The first reason is lack of credible evidence and the second is that public is getting tired of a narrative that leads nowhere. More and more people think that they are being put on for the revenue from eyeballs.