Media ethicists blast CNN over threat to expose identity of Trump wrestling movie creator
Reddit user behind movie posted apology calling clip a ‘prank, nothing more’
Wednesday, July Five, two thousand seventeen
Media ethicists and watchdogs are criticizing CNN for conditioning the anonymity of a private citizen on his speaking and acting in a way approved by the multi-billion-dollar news network.
In an article published on Independence Day, Andrew Kaczynski, senior editor of CNN’s KFile, tracked down the Reddit user who made a brief movie mocking CNN that President Trump gave broad circulation to in a tweet on Sunday.
Mr. Kaczynski declined to expose the video-maker’s identity – citing the man’s apology, regret and fear of reprisal – but said CNN “reserves the right” to do so in the future “should any of that switch.”
Indira Lakshmanan, Newmark Chair in Journalism Ethics at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, said fastening conditions to an average person’s privacy is “strange” and “troubling” behavior for a news organization.
“What I find troubling is the sentence that says, ‘CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that switch,'” Ms. Lakshmanan said. “Why? I don’t understand that sentence. I’ve never seen that in a story before.”
She said she had no problem with CNN finding out who made the movie, equating posting online comments to standing on a soapbox and shouting in the public square.
“Just because you want to use an alias and an anonymous treat doesn’t mean that, if what you say becomes newsworthy and gets picked up and tweeted by the president, that you don’t abruptly become news,” she said. “Yeah, you become news.”
“But the strange thing is telling we reserve the right if you come back to your previous behavior,” she continued. “That is strange. That I don’t understand. Why not just say, ‘This person asked not to have his name released, and we complied’?”
CNN denounced the president Sunday after he tweeted the movie, which depicted Mr. Trump at a World Wrestling Entertainment event from two thousand seven tackling a man who had CNN’s logo superimposed on his face. The network said the movie would “encourage violence against reporters.”
Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center, said CNN overreacted to the movie.
“This is CNN that has been so embarrassed, it has overreacted so badly to that bimbo ‘Smackdown’ movie – which I wish the president hadn’t done – but they’ve overreacted so badly by suggesting that it’s fostering violence against the media, that they’re attempting to find the upper arm on this,” Mr. Bozell said Wednesday on Fox Business Network’s “Varney and Co.”
CNN ignited a firestorm on Twitter on Tuesday night when they published the article, with figures ranging from Donald Trump Jr. to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange weighing in on the controversy.
Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, said the Atlanta-based company may have cracked a Georgia law prohibiting extortion.
In a statement Wednesday, CNN said any “assertion that the network blackmailed or coerced him is false.”
The article is just the latest black eye for a network that has emerged as Mr. Trump’s beloved “fake news” punching bag.
Last month, CNN was compelled to apologize and retract a report telling the head of a Russian investment fund, who met with a member of Trump’s transition team before the inauguration, was under congressional investigation. Three senior journalists at the network resigned over the story, which CNN said did not meet its editorial standards.
In the following days, Project Veritas began releasing undercover movies from its “American Pravda” series showcasing CNN producers and on-air personalities questioning the network’s nonstop coverage of Russian interference in the presidential election.
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh said it’s the “end of CNN.”
“You turn the criticism on them, and they can’t treat it,” Mr. Limbaugh said on his display Wednesday. “They can’t even treat being laughed at, much less being criticized. And now they’re applauding themselves for their superb investigative work in uncovering and exposing this poor boy who made the movie of Donald Trump assets catapulting the CNN logo.
“They clearly do not know how to deal with Trump,” the radio commentator said.
Copyright © two thousand seventeen The Washington Times, LLC.