During a speech on Monday, Cable News Network president Jeff Zucker admitted: “No news organization is perfect, and CNN is not always perfect.”
As if to verify his statement, network reporters that same day covered an appearance by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton with a poorly edited video that made it appear she was laughing about the death of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012. On Tuesday, CNN's Ashleigh Banfield apologized profusely for what she called “a mistake.”
The incident began at the conclusion of the National Automobile Dealers Association convention in New Orleans on Monday, when Clinton was asked if she would like to “do over” anything from her time in the U.S. State Department.
According to CNN’s Jake Tapper, she told the people in the audience: “My biggest regret is what happened in Benghazi. It was a terrible tragedy losing four Americans.”
Clinton was then asked about her plans for the future -- undoubtedly an attempt to learn anything about a possible run for the White House in 2016 -- and she responded with a hearty laugh that was edited in the video clip to make it seem that she was still talking about the tragedy in Libya.
During that day's edition of CNN’s Legal View program, anchor Ashleigh Banfield admitted that the staff had botched the hastily edited video of the former secretary of state.
She began by stating:
I want to be real clear here. Those were two separate sound bites that we tried to get to you as quickly as possible, what we call tape turns. One was about Benghazi, and another that was completely separate and a different time was about her thoughts about about 2016.
That was our mistake. Let’s be very clear. The secretary of state was not laughing about the previous comments about Benghazi.
Since then, CNN officials have made no further comments.
It's interesting to note that within 24 hours of airing the negative video, the cable news network enthusiastically apologized to the Democrat who was made to look bad by a poor edit.
However, one day earlier, GOP senator Ted Cruz appeared on the CBS's Face the Nation program on Sunday morning and was met with a barrage of negative questions from host Bob Schieffer.
As NewsBusters previously reported, along with being the victim of Schieffer’s accusations that the Tea Party Republican from Texas was to blame for the recent government shutdown, it also appears that Cruz was the victim of editing by CBS.
Based on video from Senator Cruz’s YouTube page and what aired on the television broadcast, the senator’s comments surrounding President Obama’s “abuse of power” were edited from the program. Instead, what aired was a segment that ignored many of the senator’s complaints directed at Barack Obama.
In Jeffrey Meyer's article on the incident, he said that “CBS should explain why it felt it appropriate to edit out a high-profile senator accusing the president of the United States of targeting his political enemies. These are strong accusations leveled at the president, and CBS’s viewers deserve to hear them, yet strangely they were not.”
And just a few days earlier, MSNBC “carefully, shamelessly” edited out all praises of women from former Gov. Mike Huckabee's speech at the conclusion of the winter meetings of the Republican National Committee.
The Republican began his discussion of women by stating:
Women I know are smart, educated, intelligent, capable of doing anything that anyone else can do.
Our party stands for the recognition of the equality of women and the capacity of women. That's not a war on them, it's a war for them.
Instead, the far-left cable channel -- and most “mainstream” news media outlets -- focused on another part of his address:
If the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it.
Since neither Cruz nor Huckabee have yet to receive any apologies regarding the misleading edits of their comments, we are forced to include that the “double standard” between how the media treats Democrats and Republicans is still in full force.
