CNN State of the Union host Jake Tapper poses as a Just the Facts Man, but his command of the facts vanished on Sunday. When Trump's chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said the " media got it wrong for so long" speculating on collusion in the Mueller investigation, Tapper offered the spit take that "I'm not sure what you're saying the media got wrong....Other than the people in the media on the left, not on this network, I don't know anybody who got anything wrong."
Put aside the lyrics of CNN and the "MSM." The music of the Mueller probe was always dark and ominous, and that was wrong for very long.
On the facts, Tapper should at least know about CNN's whoppers, especially ones with his name on them. Let's recall Washington Post media blogger Erik Wemple noting Tapper and three others wrongly predicted what former FBI director James Comey would tell Congress that he didn't reassure Trump he wasn't under investigation. "CNN assigned four reporters to inaccurately predict testimony that was coming in a matter of hours." Wemple called that "stupid news."
Or the fraudulent item on Anthony Scaramucci and the Russians that got three CNN employees canned. The network issued a giant Editor's Note that the story “did not meet CNN’s editorial standards and has been retracted....CNN apologizes to Mr. Scaramucci.”
Or CNN screwing up the dates on a WikiLeaks email to Donald Trump Jr. After hours of breathless hype smearing the president's son, CNN issued an on-air correction read by Manu Raju. The reporters however, faced no disciplinary action because, according to a spokewoman, they “followed the editorial standards process."
Take a walk down recent-memory lane with NewsBusters, in which Curtis Houck and Rich Noyes catalogued "Eight Times the Liberal Media Screwed Up on Trump-Russia in 2017."
Here's the transcript.
CNN
State of the Union
3/31/19
9:02 am EDT
MICK MULVANEY: We need to figure out what went wrong with the Mueller report, why, in all fairness to your network, why the media got it so wrong for so long. Bu it is time to talk about health care. It is time to talk about trade. It is time to talk about other things, while at the same time talking about why it came down the way that it did. It was so thorough and yet so accurate, how did the media get it so wrong? I think the President is venting the same frustration a lot of people had when the Mueller report came out and it turned out exactly like he said that it would. So, as usual, you take the President at his word in his tweets.
JAKE TAPPER: He wants it released. But I'm not sure what you're saying the media got wrong. The media reported the investigation was going on. Other than the people in the media on the left, not on this network, I don't know anybody got anything wrong. We didn't say there was conspiracy. We said Mueller was investigating conspiracy.
MULVANEY: That's fine, if that's your recollection of history, that's great. Face it, the media got this wrong. It's okay. People get stuff wrong all the time, just not at this level.
