CNN Is Fake News: Sr. Int'l Reporter Thinks Horribly Photoshopped Pic Is Real, Publishes
Despite the outcries from leftists, there is a very clear reason why President Donald Trump is always railing against the “fake news” mainstream media.
It’s stories like this one from CNN, where Trump has particularly focused his fire, that truly reinforce his allegations of fake news.
In a since-deleted tweet, CNN posted an image attempting to slam Saudi Arabia by showing a Tunisian man holding a chainsaw in protest of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
The allusion, of course, is to occasional Washington Post writer Jamal Kashoggi, who is believed to have been murdered and dismembered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.
Unfortunately for CNN, the picture was clearly doctored.
Even more unfortunately for CNN, deleting things on the internet hardly means the image is gone. The Daily Caller’s Peter J. Hasson was able to take an image of the absurd tweet.
Uhhhhh
1) The original photo is seven years old: https://t.co/RrfOV9lB0j
2) That chainsaw is an embarrassingly obvious photoshop pic.twitter.com/IsGKYrMTCu— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) November 26, 2018
“The IS the shot of the day as Tunisians, who managed to preserve their revolution against tyranny, protest the upcoming visit of #Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman,” CNN’s senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman posted to his Twitter account. He ended the post with “#Khashoggi #Tunisia.”
A high school student with even the most rudimentary of knowledge of Photoshop should have been able to tell that that image was a fake.
First of all, the chainsaw is of a completely different clarity compared to the rest of the image. For crying out loud, where’s the shadow that would be cast by a sizable chainsaw? Second of all, the man doesn’t even to be straining while holding a chainsaw with nothing but his fingertips. Anyone who’s ever used a chainsaw before could tell you that the chainsaw in the image would fall on all of the protesters.
The real image, as Hasson points out, is actually from 2011 and the man is holding an empty cage adorned with the Tunisian flag.
Even more embarassing for CNN, its chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto responded to the fake image with a “Wow.”
Again, these are two alleged professionals working for an allegedly reputable news organization pushing and reacting to a unbelievably fake image.
To be fair, Wedeman took the tweet down, but did not offer any sort of apology.
Deleted tweet about Tunis protest. Turns out it was fake.
— benwedeman (@bencnn) November 27, 2018
That wasn’t well received. Some of the replies were obscene, others were just appalled. And some were outright funny — while even more embarrassing for CNN.
Fixed it for you. pic.twitter.com/xFp0FrQQ25
— Marc (@Fuego_Marc) November 27, 2018
Humor and schadenfreude aside, the whole incident illustrates a much graver concern with the liberal media.
One of Merriam-Webster’s definitions of journalism reads: “writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation.” In other words, it should be the impartial pursuit of facts.
CNN, and the rest of the liberal media, fails miserably at that. That’s beyond worrisome. In their zeal to attack Trump on any possible level, they are willfully throwing journalistic integrity to the wayside.
It’s pathetic, wrong, and spits in the face of anyone who has ever cared about impartiality and fairness in their news.
Trump’s “Worldwide Network” to counter CNN might not be such a bad idea at all.
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