#CNNBlackmail
We interrupt our regularly scheduled discussion for this breaking news.
CNN, that bastion of “What were you thinking?!”, has just given the general public yet another reason to believe that all mainstream media outlets are corrupt to the core.
A little bit back, some CNN staffers resigned after a story was retracted; the event was such an embar-rassment that CNN itself was forced to publicly recognize it -> http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/26/media/cnn-announcement-retracted-article... . Why was it retracted? The involved parties failed to maintain proper journalistic standards. CNN refused to admit that the material – a piece alleging that Trump officials have ties to a Russian investment fund – con-tained false information, but was forced to concede that the trio didn’t follow proper protocol.
In response to this incident, someone on Reddit found old footage from when Trump made an appear-ance on a professional wrestling program. The footage originally depicted Trump taking out the owner of the wrestling promotion, but the someone superimposed CNN’s logo over the face of the owner. This was done as a news commentary piece, in that the someone regarded the incident as Trump scoring a major victory against the news organization.
As these things are wont to do, the altered footage made its way through the internet until it reached President Trump himself. Trump apparently found it so hilarious that he sent it out over Twitter. Cue a number of people getting very upset because they mistook a satire piece (of which other similar items have been done in the past, like when someone altered footage to show Hulk Hogan doing a leg drop on Gawker Media’s logo) for an actual call to violence.
Well, CNN was even less amused by what took place, especially after they found out that the guy in ques-tion was also posting other material that they deemed offensive. What do I mean by “even less amused”? I’ll let their own words tell the story:
“CNN is not publishing ‘[redacted by me]’ name because he is a private citizen who has issued an exten-sive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all his offending posts, and because he said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again. In addition, he said his statement could serve as an example to others not to do the same.
CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.”
That’s right, folks. CNN’s response to the matter was to dox the guy, that is, obtain his personal infor-mation through questionably legal or even illegal means and threaten to make it public.
In short, CNN is blackmailing a private citizen who dared to make something that mocked them.
Think about that a moment.
And yes, this is illegal -> http://codes.findlaw.com/ny/penal-law/pen-sect-135-60.html . As a private citi-zen, the someone had every reason to believe that their information would only be given out to a law enforcement official with a court order. Instead, CNN is now trying to coerce the someone into toeing a party line.
As someone who strives to be a professional, and who works for a mainstream media outlet that holds professional standards, I find this turn of events vomitous. I very sincerely hope that the authorities in-vestigate the matter to the fullest, and that any and all individuals who are found to have broken the law get what’s due to them.
Stay tuned folks; we might just be watching CNN’s final days here.