To maintain credibility, CNN must apologize publicly to Ted Cruz

Carson press release on caucus night
Carson press release on caucus night

In case you have not yet figured it out yet, CNN gave the distinct impression that Dr. Ben Carson was suspending his campaign on the night of the Iowa caucus. The report was used by the Ted Cruz campaign, who disseminated the information to precinct captains.

This information was also used by anyone who happened to check the news with their mobile phone during the Iowa Caucus.

It is absurd to consider that media types like Michael Smerconish, Business Insider, Buzzfeed and others were fooled by overly ambitious Ted Cruz precinct captains who were cherry picking information from a CNN report, as alleged by CNN correspondent Chris Moody.

THIS IS HOW IT STARTED:

WHICH LED TO THIS:

WHICH ULTIMATELY LED TO THIS:

The Cruz apology was not that the CNN report was used, it was that staff did not follow up with updated reports.

Dr. Ben Carson’s staff absolutely must take accountability for putting fuzzy information in the hands of CNN (namely, Chris “tick tock” Moody) in the first place, and also for not providing clarity during the caucus. If Ted Cruz supporters were able to convey media reports (as did Trump, Rubio and Paul supporters) Carson staff certainly should have been able to dispute those reports.

Oddly, this is not the first time that it had to be clarified that Dr. Ben Carson was actually staying in the race.

The most shocking thing about this entire mess is how so many have seized upon it to attack Ted Cruz, who is the only one to accept any responsibility.

Why doesn’t Ben Carson demand an apology from CNN?

Alleged Carson Mailer

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Author: renee nal

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16 thoughts on “To maintain credibility, CNN must apologize publicly to Ted Cruz

  1. CNN can be expected to NEVER apologize for ANY of thelies they tell! They never have, so we shouldn’t expect the to start now, right? Besides, having TOLD the lie, the damage has already been done, so apologies aren’t necessary! This just reinforces the fact that NO ONE should be getting all their news from CNN!

    This used to be known as ‘yellow dog journalism!’ Nowadays it’s called ‘tabloid news’ or worse!

  2. You left out A LOT of information here:

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/02/04/cruz-carson-email-trump-iowa-cnn/

    For example, the following tweet from Chris Moody AFTER the one you mentioned:

    Chris Moody ✔ ‎@moody
    Ben Carson’s campaign tells me he plans to stay in the race beyond Iowa no matter what the results are tonight.
    6:43 PM – 1 Feb 2016
    107 107 Retweets 82 82 likes

    And then you forgot THIS Carson campaign tweet:

    Jason Osborne ‎@Jmrhosborne
    .@RealBenCarson will be going to Florida to get fresh clothes b4 heading back out on the campaign trail. Not standing down.
    6:53 PM – 1 Feb 2016 · Clive, IA, United States

    CNN never REPORTED that Carson was dropping out. Cruz made that leap, and the responsibility is squarely on him campaign for that.

  3. Three times Donald Trump tried to bring this up to paint Ted Cruz as a liar who will do anything to get elected.

    CNN is more interested in covering their butt then maintaining their credibility. CNN fact checked themselves and said that Ted Cruz lied. That was too much for the Trump loving Beitbart’s John Notle who clearly showed the blame was on CNN

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/02/08/carsongate-cover-up-cnn-fact-checker-lies-about-ted-cruz/
    Here is the text:

    CarsonGate Cover-Up: CNN Fact-Checker Lies About Ted Cruz
    by John Nolte 8 Feb 2016

    For all of this to make sense, let’s start at the beginning.
    Last Monday night, during the Iowa Caucus, I watched CNN live and saw the Carson segment in question that lit this political fire. At the time, there was no doubt in my mind that CNN, for whatever reason, wanted people to believe that Carson was dropping out of the race. Watch the segment with Jake Tapper and Dana Bash for yourself.
    Watch Bash turn a nothingburger into breathless “breaking news.”
    Bash even goes beyond reporting to ominously inform viewers, “Look, if you want to be president of the United States, you don’t go home to Florida. That’s just the bottom line. That’s the end of the story.”
    Oh, okay.
    Here is the most important fact: In the segment above, Bash is referring to reporting from CNN’s Chris Moody. At the time, Moody’s reporting had been done only through his Twitter account, which has fewer than 31,000 followers. This is important, because through his Twitter account, Moody reported a crucially important fact that CNN held back both on its cable network and through the official CNN Twitter account.
    According to my colleague Joel Pollak’s timeline of events, Moody made clear in his Twitter-reporting that Ben Carson was not dropping out of the race. For whatever reason, the on-air reporting neglected to mention this clarifying bit of news.
    Now ask yourself this simple question: Why did CNN leave that out?
    From here, whatever you think of their tactics, the Cruz campaign immediately took advantage of CNN’s reporting. Within minutes, emails, text messages, and robocalls went out. One Cruz announcement used the following language, “The press is reporting that Dr. Ben Carson is taking time off from the campaign trail.”
    This is reasonable language based on what Tapper said to Bash, “…to be announcing that you’re going to go home to rest for a few days, not going on to the next site.”

    Another Cruz announcement said, “CNN is reporting that Ben Carson will stop campaigning after Iowa.” That is going a bit further than Bash and Tapper, but just a few minutes later, CNN also took its reporting just as far with this cryptic tweet:
    To recap:
    On a Twitter account with 23 million followers, CNN told the world that Carson “plans to take a break from campaigning after Iowa.”
    On a Twitter account with just 31,000 followers, CNN’s Chris Moody clarified that Carson was not dropping out.
    Again, I ask you: Why didn’t CNN use its powerful broadcast center or massive Twitter presence to tell its viewers the full story — to tell viewers Carson was not dropping out?
    What’s especially laughable is that CNN is using Moody’s tweets as an ass-covering defense — an account with only 31,000 followers!
    But that’s all CNN has, and the dishonesty of that defense and the cover-up of CNN’s own culpability in this scandal hit the red-zone Saturday night.
    During that night’s debate, when asked about the scandal, everything Cruz said was 100% accurate. Word-for-word, here’s a transcript:
    Let me tell you the facts of what occurred for those who are interested in knowing: On Monday night at about 6:30 p.m., CNN reported that Ben was not going from Iowa to New Hampshire or South Carolina. Rather, he was quote taking a break from campaigning. They reported that he was taking a break from campaigning. They reported that on television, CNN’s political anchors Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer said it was highly unusual and highly significant. My political team saw CNN’s report — breaking news — and they forwarded that news to our volunteers, it was being covered on live television. Now at the time I was at the caucuses, I was getting ready to speak at the caucuses…I knew nothing about this…I reached [Carson] the next day and apologized. He asked me then, he said, Ted, would you make this apology in public? I said yes, I will, and I did so. I regret that subsequently, CNN reported on that — they didn’t correct that story until 9:15 that night. So from 6:30 p.m. to 9:15, that’s what CNN was reporting. Subsequent to that initial report, Ben’s campaign put out a statement saying that he wasn’t suspending his campaign. I wish that my campaign had seen that statement.

    Although Cruz spoke only the truth, after the debate, CNN’s “fact-checker” Tom Foreman and anchor Erin Burnett outright lied about what Cruz said:

    Erin Burnett: What Ted Cruz says here is completely false. Tell us exactly what happened.
    Tom Foreman: At no time did CNN say that Ben Carson was dropping out of this race [ME: Cruz never said CNN said any such thing], not online, not on-air, not anywhere. And for Ted Cruz to stand on-stage once again tonight and suggest CNN did is a flat-out lie [ME: Cruz “suggested” nothing. He accurately described the CNN on-air report].
    Rather than play the on-air segment Cruz referred to and defend that, Foreman dishonestly turns to Moody’s tweets to “prove” Cruz a liar, even though Cruz never referenced Moody’s tweets.
    Although everything Cruz said is verifiably true, to cover-up their own guilt and damage a Republican (after already damaging Carson just before the voting in Iowa began), Foreman is willing to disgrace himself by manufacturing a straw man that he lights on fire using an obscure reporter’s Twitter account, which is not where CNN reporting happens.
    As Tammy Bruce said on Fox News today, “CNN is a cable news network, not a Twitter news network. ” And here are the only questions that matter…
    Why did CNN choose to selectively report on Moody’s tweets — only the most damning part that Carson “plans to take a break from campaigning after Iowa.”
    Why did it take CNN more than two hours to report the Moody tweet that made clear Carson was not dropping out?
    Why is CNN lying about what Ted Cruz said?
    Why is CNN using Moody’s tweets to defend on-air reporting?
    The answer is simple…
    It’s a three bank-shot. The arsonists at the left-wing CNN get away clean but damage two Republican presidential candidates in the process — Carson and Cruz.

    1. Cruz did lie. CNN never reported that Carson was suspending his campaign. They found out he wasn’t going straight to NH and SPECULATED as to why that may be. They NEVER reported that he was dropping out.

      As a matter of fact, they DID report that he WAS NOT dropping out, via the Moody tweets.

      Cruz’s campaign made the leap squarely on its own.

  4. No disrespect on your fabulous report, however … follow the time line … these were the first tweets that I know of:

    At 5:29 PM CT @conradclose of Team Rubio tweeted:
    Rubio campaign pushing the narrative hard that Carson is dropping out. Obviously looking to pick up votes from Carson.

    Furthermore, at 5:39 PM CT a Carolyn Moore as @ccarolson tweeted this:
    Reports @RealBenCarson is dropping out. I hope you’ll consider joining us on #TeamMarco and caucus for @marcorubio tonight.

    ^^ Note this was out there over an hour PRIOR to the CNN broadcast.^^

    It was also 4 and 14 minutes prior to Chris Moody’s tweets.

  5. “To maintain credibility,…”

    WHAT CREDIBILITY ???!!!!

    …but yes, they still should apologies to Cruz.

  6. IN OTHER NEWS:
    “DNC is asked to apologize
    to Richard Nixon for
    the Watergate Break-In.”

    Ted Cruz needs to apologize for
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFL8NR0gQ5A
    THIS.

    IF Cruz had no part in the “Carson is quitting” scandal, and had later found out, he – as ANY “true, principled Conservative” – would have FIRED the sorry #§$es responsible, whether campaign manager or overzealous field people…

    …BUT NOOOO!!! CRUZ DEFENDED THEM and LIED up to and including at the debate.

    It’s PURE Richard Nixon.
    The coverup is worse than the crime.

  7. Carson should have been apologizing to Cruz. Carson clearly blamed CNN for spreading false information that other people believed. Carson accepted that it was CNN’s fault and then goes on to blame Cruz who’s campaign was only guilty of spreading the information directly from a CNN report. Cruz himself didn’t do anything except to offer an apology. Can you imagine if Trump’s people had done what Cruz’s campaign did? Trump would have never apologized and instead would have attacked the Carson campaign for being incompetent. Trump would have faced a lot less heat for taking the issue head on and putting the blame squarely where it belonged. On the Carson campaign itself and on CNN for not updating the information within a 3 hour window.

    Now if you want to know about something that is really screwy. Last night I tried to upload a picture to Facebook that showed a Rubio supporter spreading the news that Carson was dropping out. You cannot post this picture to Facebook. When you get it uploaded an error message pops up and says the item does not exist. I’m going to paste a link here to the picture and you can see it for yourself. It’s as if this picture is banned by Facebook. Maybe it’s Zuckerberg’s Open Borders support that wants to support the Open Borders candidate Rubio.. https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=ED1D4019A5A93871!5975&authkey=!AOlqhSOdQc54cu0&v=3&ithint=photo%2cjpg

    1. Excellent, Ben – Thanks for that – this person now has a protected account. It is beyond obvious that any supporter of a candidate would have used that news. But I guess with the controversy, they would not want to step up and say so. I am disappointed in Carson. He was my second choice, but it turns out that he is just as opportunistic as the rest of them.

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