Fake News Claims Against CNN…Fake
When students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School asked powerful questions and made powerful statements regarding school safety and gun control, the pro-gun media outlets did what they do best. Deflect. This deflection is typical of media outlets when they want to distract from the actual issue. Several right wing media outlets attacked the CNN town hall regarding guns and school safety as scripted and fake.One of the pieces of evidence to this effect was an email sent by the father of one of the students who spoke out. The father (Glenn Haab) has subsequently admitted that he doctored the email he sent to media outlets in an attempt to discredit the town hall as “staged”. Using the tactic of “attack the messenger” (in this case CNN) should not distract the debate from the facts and the real issues. Don’t let the jingling keys distract you.
The father of a Florida shooting survivor acknowledged Tuesday he omitted words in an email he sent media outlets accusing CNN of using scripted remarks at a town hall on guns and school safety.
Dozens of conservative websites called the network’s Feb. 21 town hall forum scripted after Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School junior Colton Haab skipped the event and said the network had told him what question to ask. The websites call it proof the forum was slanted against gun rights. President Donald Trump tweeted about it on Friday, saying “Just like so much of CNN, Fake News!”
CNN countered with a release of email exchanges between producer Carrie Stevenson, Colton Haab and his father Glenn and accused Glenn Haab of deliberately altering email sent to Fox News and the Huffington Post.
“It is unfortunate that an effort to discredit CNN and the town hall with doctored emails has taken any attention away from the purpose of the event,” the network said in a statement.
Glenn Haab told The Associated Press he omitted some words from the email but said he didn’t do it on purpose.
“There was nothing malicious behind it,” he said.
In one exchange, 17-year-old Colton Haab proposes several questions to ask at the town hall, including one on whether to arm teachers. His father, a Republican gun owner, later emailed Stevenson a four-page document with a roughly 700-word speech and a series of questions he said Colton wanted to ask.
Stevenson told the father the additional language he proposed was “way too long” and Colton would need to stick to the question “that he submitted.” The words “that he submitted” were left off the email sent to Fox News and Huffington Post.
