Note to CNN: it will take more than putting Republican Scott Jennings on a couple of your shows to give you any semblance of neutrality/evenhandedness in your reporting of news.
The latest reason I say this relates to a just-published article by CNN’s Liam Reilly that features one of Elon Musk’s children – one who hates his guts and hasn’t spoken to him for years. The child is a male transsexual who now calls himself Vivian Jenna Wilson and seems to have trouble getting through a sentence without cursing.
I don’t know much about the interactions between Musk and his son/trans daughter, and assume they are interesting and probably worth exploring. But what hit me in the article was how Musk’s alleged nazi salute was treated. Here how it was “reported”…
The 20-year-old said she often learns about Musk’s actions from the news, saying she should “probably post about this and denounce it, which I have done a few times.”
“The Nazi salute sh*t was insane,” Wilson said in reference to Musk’s performance of a straight-armed salute during Donald Trump’s inauguration that he has denied was a Nazi gesture. “That sh*t was definitely a Nazi salute.”
…and here is the accompanying visual/subtext:
That’s what readers were treated to/groomed to believe. Musk’s own child knows he gave a nazi salute, complete with visual proof.
The only problem? That claim, and the still photograph, 100% misrepresent what Musk did.
The reality that Liam Reilly and the CNN editors who approved this article decided not to show you, or even allude to in any way, was the fact that this “nazi salute” was made on January 20 – inauguration day – at a huge Trump rally. And the video – not a still photo grab that completely misrepresents this – shows Musk clutching his heart and then reaching out to the audience as if to offer it while saying “My heart goes out to you.”
Want to see the video – the one that debunks this claim completely? Here it is. You’ll find the relevant few seconds starting at about the :57 mark.
As anyone with even a scintilla of honesty can plainly see and hear, Musk’s outreached arm with the open hand was a symbolic holding out of his heart to the cheering audience. Nothing more than that.
But the CNN article makes exactly no mention of this. It only shows the “nazi salute” accusation and a still picture that, in the absence of seeing the video it came from, seems to clearly back the accusation up.
This is journalism?
Maybe if you’re at CNN it is.
But if your definition of journalism is a truthful account of the news, it isn’t even in the ballpark.
Shame on Liam Reilly and shame on CNN.
