Anti-Trump CNN bitten again for fake news

It's happened again. Over the weekend, CNN published a story about the Trump/Russia connection based on anonymous sources that turned out to be completely false.

Back in January, CNN published a story based on a now-discredited file that made claims about a connection between then-President-elect Donald Trump and Russia, only to find out that neither Trump nor anyone from his team was anywhere near the foreign country when an alleged meeting took place.

In just-released video footage from Project Veritas, a senior producer at CNN reveals that despite not having any "giant proof" that Trump colluded with Russia, the network's CEO, Jeff Zucker, ordered reporters to pursue Russia leads at the expense of other stories because it has been great for CNN's ratings. (CAUTION: Video contains foul language.)

CNN eventually retracted that story – but apparently learned little from the experience. This last weekend the news network published a story that claimed Trump administration officials were connected with a Russian hedge fund, and it used anonymous sources to verify the claims. Then on Saturday, a retraction; and on Monday, three journalists were out at CNN. (Read: Trump takes another swipe at CNN following resignations)

"It is another piece to this growing pattern that we're seeing that all these stories – on television, to mass hysteria by all panelists involved – are through anonymous sources," says Curtis Houck of Media Research Center. "And here's a situation where it bit them again."

He says CNN isn't alone in its determination to take down the president, but it's been one of the worst offenders. "It's competing with White House press briefing access for what CNN's most obsessed with," Houck suggests, "and both look pretty pathetic right now."

At the same time, says the MRC spokesman, there's a real scandal right under their noses. Even congressional Democrats say they're looking into collusion and obstruction from former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who James Comey said asked him to downplay the Clinton email investigation.

OneNewsNow asked Houck how the mainstream media is covering that story. "It's footnotes," he responds. "For the most part it's getting some coverage, but it's just a news brief here and there, 15 seconds, move along."

And that, he adds, reveals "a massive double standard going on where something is clear as day, whereas this is kind of a mess right now with anonymous sources that may or may not be true."