The President’s fake news saga continued as he lashed out at CNN. He had been accusing the media outlet of misinforming the public.
He had accused NBC News of doing the same and said they should lose their license. On the other end Trump had showered Fox News with lots of praise.
Many of the stories carried by these networks had proven true. This could be the main reason Trump was calling out these media outlets.
He lacked the control needed to keep them in check. This created a problem for him since no vetting could be done.
But if these media outlets are spreading fake news, then who can be trusted to vent stories?
CNN
Correspondents from CNN said “it’s not CNN’s job to represent the U.S to the world. That’s yours. #FactsFirst.”
Trump tweeted “@FoxNews is MUCH more important in the United States than CNN, but outside of the U.S., CNN International is still a major source of (Fake) news, and they represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly. The outside world does not see the truth from them!”
Trump had constantly been criticizing anyone and any franchise that don’t agree with him.
CNN however have held their own, responding to Trump on twitter with a tweet of their own.
An Agenda?
It was believed that there could be more to the whole issue. Time Warner was currently in a merging deal with AT&T.
The deal was worth $85 billion and the DOJ was currently trying to block the merger. Time Warner was currently the parent company for CNN.
Some experts believed that Trump’s accusations could become part of litigation in the matter.
The DOJ wanted to block the merger by suing and making it a legal matter. It was said the merger would benefit AT&T which was looking into profits.
Matt Wood said “when AT&T buys a lot of content, they use that content as a sword.” Matt Wood was the Policy Director at Free Press.
Whether the fake news allegations were to discredit the merger was uncertain. If that was the intention of the President then he needed another angle.
If the merger would be bad for consumers then build an argument based on that. Many a case had been won by proper arguments and sensible persons residing over the matter.
Fake news wouldn’t be any good, but calling true news fake would be even worse. Let’s hope the media gets it right and politicians allow the truth to be told.