CNN’s Brian Stelter admitted he allowed a gun control activist mislead on the air.
Stelter appeared on HLN’s “SE Cupp Unfiltered,” when he let it slip that he allowed David Hogg, a student at Parkland, Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School-turned-gun control activist, to make false claims on the air.
Host S.E. Cupp questioned Stelter on whether or not it was a good idea to elevate teens like Hogg, who survived the shooting.
“Brian, we as a business have been giving these kids a lot of coverage. All the networks have in some way or another,” said Cupp. “But the policies is the tough part. Do you think in showing these kids so often, as often as we all do, we’re doing actually them a disservice because the policy is actually what’s going to change this?”
Without any additional prompting from Cupp, he bafflingly admitted that he had known Hogg had been telling falsehoods about gun control – but didn’t bother to correct him.
“A disservice is a strong word,” said Stelter. “But when I was interviewing David Hogg only ten days after the massacre, there were a few times I wanted to jump in and say let’s correct that fact.”
Cupp, seemingly shocked by the admission that CNN knowingly allowed a guest to lie on the air, interrupted Stelter: “That’s so interesting, let me stop you. Did you?”
According to Stelter: most of the time, he did not.
“At one of the times I did and other times I did not,” he said. “There’s always that balance, how many times you’re going to interrupt.”
Possibly knowing that he had made such a startling admission, Stelter tried to downplay the fact that, while the Parkland students didn’t have a firm grasp on policy, they still deserved to be seen as mouthpieces for the anti-gun movement.
“We want everybody to be as well informed as we can about contours of this debate,” Stelter said. However, he added, “I think we have to recognize where David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez are coming from. There has been an increase in the lethality of mass shootings in recent years in this country. The so-called top ten list of horrors is very, very ugly and very recent. I do think they are trying to raise awareness of that.”
(Video H/T NewsBusters)
AAN Staff
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