On Monday morning, CNN further debased itself into the terrain of mockery, unveiling a new advertisement clearly aimed at President Trump by arguing that “some people might try to tell you” that an apple is actually a banana.
The 30-second ad began airing on CNN shows and launched with great fanfare by the network, their employees, and fanboys. Of course, this is amidst their minuscule coverage of The Hill’s stories on the Russian uranium deal, but I digress.
It starts with harmless piano music and a white background with an ordinary, red-colored apple before the narrator explains:
This is an apple. Some people might try to tell you that it’s a banana. They might scream “banana, banana, banana” over and over and over again. They might put BANANA in all caps. You might even start to believe that this is a banana. But it’s not. This is an apple.
Next, “Facts First” appears for a few seconds before giving way to the CNN logo.
Hours after the video’s release, CNN’s Reliable Sources host and liberal media cheerleader Brian Stelter tweeted out this new network creed:
Facts Are Facts. They aren’t colored by emotion or bias. They are indisputable. There is no alternative to a fact. Facts explain things. What they are, how they happened. Facts are not interpretations. Once facts are established, opinions can be formed. And while opinions matter, they don’t change the facts. That’s why, at CNN, we start with the facts first. CNN Facts First.
One could go line by line and raise some concerns/questions about it, but that’s for another time.
Needless to say, there’s a number of ways to mock this ad campaign. But from a serious standpoint, my colleague Geoffrey Dickens documented in June a handful of fake news peddling by CNN over the years:
Donald Trump’s repeated branding of CNN as “fake news” may have been born in its biased 2016 campaign coverage, but the truth is CNN has peddled inaccurate reporting with an agenda for at least three decades.
From former CNN correspondent Peter Arnett, in 1991, passing along Iraqi war propaganda of allied forces bombing a “baby milk plant” to CNN executive Eason Jordan, in 2005, accusing U.S. soldiers of targeting journalists to CNN contributor Donna Brazile feeding townhall questions to the 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign, there is a long history of news fakery at the oldest 24-hour cable news outlet.
One such example Dickens documented was a June 1998 claim about U.S. troops during the Vietnam War by then-CNN correspondent Peter Arnett:
In a story so rife with false reporting CNN was forced to retract it, Arnett claimed U.S. forces had committed war crimes and used nerve gas in Laos during the Vietnam War in Operation Tailwind. The “Valley of Death” segment aired on the June 7, 1998 premiere of Newstand: CNN & Time was so atrocious, CNN’s own military affairs consultant Perry Smith resigned in protest.
If CNN is interested in #FactsFirst, maybe they should look at themselves before calling the kettle black or at least fire Fareed Zakaria, who has repeatedly been caught engaging in plagiarism. Or least ensure Jim Acosta takes a chill pill before White House press briefings.
Here’s another example. Look at how CNN hosts like Stelter and Don Lemon adore Dan Rather by having him on their shows. CNN wants to lecture the White House and Trump supporters on “Facts First,” but they repeatedly invite on the ex-CBS Evening News anchor who lost his job for pushing a fake news hit job in 2004 on then-President George W. Bush.
If facts come first for CNN, one should look at the August 22 and 23 meltdowns experienced by Stelter, Peter Beinart, and Lemon on CNN Tonight following the President’s August 22 Arizona rally. Along with pushing the dubious claim that Ronald Reagan suffered from Alzheimer’s while President, Lemon and his ilk repeatedly argued that Trump has mental problems.
Many of them argued that they’re simply stating what people are saying, the same could be said about birtherism. But we all know that’s false.
Critics of NewsBusters might argue that we want to destroy the liberal media (and thus the freedom of the press). In reality, what stories like this want to accomplish is simply inform viewers of what they’re getting when they turn on CNN or open The New York Times.
No one’s perfect, but the liberal media’s constant assertions that they should be trusted and that they’re not concerned about any agenda other than the truth is just asinine. Pointing out their bias is our mission.
After all, it’s Facts First. Right, CNN?
Here’s the transcript of the CNN advertisement that began airing on October 23:
CNN Advertisement
October 23, 2017NARRATOR: This is an apple. Some people might try to tell you that it’s a banana. They might scream “banana, banana, banana” over and over and over again. They might put BANANA in all caps. You might even start to believe that this is a banana. But it’s not. This is an apple.
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Facts First]
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: CNN]
