On Thursday, we noted that a German journalist who CNN gave a "Journalist of the Year" award turned out to be a fake-news specialist...and Wednesday night's "Reliable Sources" newsletter cast this only as a scandal for the leftist German "news" magazine Der Spiegel, omitting their own embarrassment.
Then came Thursday night's "Reliable Sources" newsletter....and they made it worse. Facts weren't First. They accused the "right-wing universe" of "sliming" CNN. How dare the conservatives accuse CNN of backing a Journalist of the Year who shouldn't have been rewarded! This is how they described it, via Oliver Darcy (all emphasis theirs):
Meanwhile, right-wing outlets dishonestly use scandal to smear CNN...
Darcy emails: The right-wing universe is often too predictable. Thursday was no exception. Outlets and individuals living in this space seized on the Der Spiegel scandal to...slime CNN. How did they do this? Well, it turns out Relotius was once honored at a CNN-backed awards ceremony for German-language journalists several years ago for a story published in a Swiss magazine. That prompted misleading headlines like this one from Sean Hannity's website, which read, "Really Fake News: CNN's 2014 'Journalist of the Year' Admits to Faking Stories, Sources."
Bizarrely, when CNN gives a Journalist of the Year Award, it's "dishonest" to say "CNN's Journalist of the Year Is a Fraud." Right there, in the picture we used, the CNN.com caption reads "Claas Relotius is awarded the CNN Journalist of the Year accolade by Parisa Khosravi, senior vice president for CNN Worldwide." They put their brand on his award.
So let's imagine that Donald Trump gave a "Businessman of the Year" award to someone who turned out to be a fraud. We're going to guess the CNN chyron would be "TRUMP'S BUSINESSMAN OF THE YEAR IS A FRAUD." That construction is factual. So is ours.
But in their newsletter, CNN felt the itchy urge to "correct" the right-wingers.
CNN VP Matt Dornic corrected the record, tweeting this:
"1) He never worked for CNN, never published by CNN.
2) Honored for a piece published by a Swiss magazine - 4+ yrs ago.
3) German award & unique to that market.
4) The award was sponsored by CNN but judged by an independent jury.
5) His award was revoked by that panel this AM."
None of these "corrections" actually correct anything we reported. Number three is especially funny. It's not a "German award," it's a CNN AWARD. It's a "CNN Worldwide" award for a German-language article in a Swiss magazine.
A Pulitzer Prize jury gave an award to Janet Cooke. A Grammy Awards panel gave a Best New Artist award to lip-syncing Milli Vanilli. And CNN gave "Journalist of the Year" award to someone who was also fraudulent.
Why can't they just own the mistake? Why can't they understand that their failure to apologize makes all their claims to be the Real News People (Unlike You People) look like liberal messaging?
