The same news outlet which often claims President Trump is a “thin-skinned” narcissist is now threatening to ruin the life of a private person who dared mock it with a Trump meme.
In an appalling display of what’s been labeled “thug journalism” and may even be blackmail, CNN sought retribution against the anonymous Internet user who created a video portraying Trump wrestling a figure whose head has been replaced by CNN’s logo.
The video went viral this week after Trump retweeted it and irked CNN, which stated that it “encourages violence against reporters.”
The video’s alleged creator has since been forced to issue an apology to CNN after its journalists uncovered his in-real-life identity and discovered that he also posted racist and anti-Semitic content online. In a story featured prominently on its website yesterday, CNN suggested it would reveal his identity if he behaves in a way that displeases the network.
Big mistake.
Somehow CNN managed to turn what was a negative story about Trump against itself. Shortly after the story came out, #CNNBlackmail became the top trendingTwitter topic — ahead of #july4th2017.
Conservative pundit and lawyer Ben Shapiro, despite being a critic of Trump and victim of anti-Semitism, called CNN’s actions “thug journalism” and “essentially blackmail.” Even journalists from left-leaning outlets, such as Vox’s German Lopez, agreed the cable news network’s conduct was “Extremely unethical.”
They’re right. This is the same kind of unscrupulous reporting that recently caused public opinion of journalists to reach a historic low and Gawker to go out of business.
It’s also quite ironic that CNN overreacted to what many considered to be just a humorous, if somewhat juvenile, meme after Trump retweeted it. This is not to condone Trump’s tweet, which started this brouhaha. But, let’s face it, no one expects mature behavior from him anyway.
This is also not to condone the other bigoted content posted by the video’s creator. But a private citizen who purposely conceals his identity does not deserve to be threatened with outing and public shame by one of the most powerful media corporations in America. CNN would have otherwise ignored him before a public figure they dislike happened to share his online art. It’s frighteningly Orwellian.
A news organization’s mission is to report the news, not to thought-police the internet and threaten to make people famous if they make fun of it. CNN, especially, should understand the importance of protecting anonymous speech, given all the anonymous sources it uses.
But, as of the writing of this column this morning, the network was still blasting the story on air and online, so it apparently still thinks it’s good journalism. Now that the holiday is over, the backlash will intensify and CNN will likely soon realize how wrong it was.
Mark Grabowski (@ProfGrabowski) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a lawyer and a journalism professor at Adelphi University in Garden City, N.Y.
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