CNN promo backfires as viewers call out: “You’re proud of lying?”
CNN’s Failed Attempt to Regain Trust
Scorn across the board is a marketing metric that no one wants to achieve. Unfortunately for CNN, their recent promotional post on Twitter managed to provoke virtually unanimous mockery. The network chose to highlight its supposedly superior news-reporting abilities by focusing on a story where it disgraced itself on a nearly daily basis.
The video featured a scene from CNN’s archives on May 30, 2020, in Minneapolis, ground zero of what became a months-long carnival of horror across the United States over the death in police custody of George Floyd. The tweet declares pompously, “When history is being made, we hit record. Unflinching, unrelenting, uncut. This is CNN.”
When history is being made, we hit record. Unflinching, unrelenting, uncut. This is CNN. pic.twitter.com/6BoU1nW9EV
— CNN (@CNN) June 3, 2023
The video is apparently part of CNN’s campaign to regain Americans’ trust and come back from its leftward lurch during the Trump administration. Unfortunately for the brains behind this piece of marketing genius, the video really just underscores the perception that the network is willing to skew its coverage regardless of the history being made.
For Twitter users, that jarring juxtaposition of a CNN correspondent’s words about “peaceful protesting” with the scenes on the ground pretty much described the network’s approach to “covering” news – forcing events to fit CNN’s preferred narrative.
CNN’s Attempt to Regain Trust: Do You Believe It?
CNN’s Latest Post Backfires
As of late Monday morning Eastern Time, the post had been viewed more than 313,000 times but “liked” only 313 times. Of the nearly 700 comments, virtually none was positive.
As a backfire for a supposedly promotional post, it doesn’t get much worse.
In fact, it reminded all the people who know anything about CNN why they can’t stand CNN in the first place.
Here are a few samples:
So you are bragging about your lying?
— Joe Biden’s sniffer (@bshaver70) June 5, 2023
“So you are bragging about your lying?” the user asked. With CNN, that’s an excellent question.
The question is not being there, but reporting accurately on what you are witnessing without bias.
— Charlie Bedgood (@CharlieBedgood) June 3, 2023
“The question is not being there, but reporting accurately on what you are witnessing without bias,” wrote another.
True, but this is the CNN that agreed to keep quiet about Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s torture and murder of his own citizens in return for access to the country during the Gulf War three decades ago, then earned the disparaging sobriquet of “Clinton News Network” for its liberal bias during the Bill Clinton White House. Being there is one thing, but reporting “accurately” and “without bias” just isn’t in its DNA.
And then there was the mockery:
Ah yes, it is well known that one has to find cover during a peaceful protest.
— Jeremy That Old Fart (@JerOHMee) June 4, 2023
Ah!! The Summer of Love and Mostly Peaceful Protests! I miss those days of staying up late and watching buildings being burnt and looted. The anarchists formations and the black umbrella squads. The ones that don’t exist, they told us. Good times
— Salem Poor (@salempoormusic) June 4, 2023
He flinched. Right after he declared it a peaceful protest and decided he needed to run from all the peacefulness.
— Kaiser Angepöpö (@kaiserangepopo) June 5, 2023
CNN Promo Video Backfires When Viewers Point Out a Very Big Problem: ‘You Are Bragging About Your Lying?’
I thought this was a CNN parody
— 9mmSMG (@9mm_smg) June 4, 2023
When a Twitter user made this comment about CNN, it was hard to disagree. The network has become a parody of a news organization, especially during the years when former President Donald Trump was in the White House.
Who can forget then-White House correspondent Jim Acosta’s virtually daily performances as a caricature of the over-inflated ego of a television talking head? Or then-prime-time host Don Lemon’s nightly attacks on Trump and his supporters and the ratings boosts they meant for CNN?
But this wasn’t the last time CNN was linked to the “peaceful” line to describe obviously violent images for its gullible viewers. CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez was a key part of one of the most infamous CNN images of the George Floyd era, when he stood on camera in front of buildings literally engulfed in flames during rioting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August 2020 while a chyron below him displayed the words: “Fiery but mostly peaceful protests after police shooting.”
Fiery but mostly peaceful protests!!! pic.twitter.com/4OHvKnh63u
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) August 30, 2020
Recently, CNN’s marketing department published a tweet that backfired badly. The tweet contained a promo video that reminded Americans of how badly the network disgraced itself and betrayed its journalistic mission. Viewers pointed out that CNN was bragging about its lying, and it was hard to disagree.
If CNN truly wants to become an honest source of news heading into the 2024 election years, it needs to do better than this. As a product promotion, this one backfired about as badly as it could.
The post appeared first on The Western Journal.
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