More Animus from CNN

On Monday of this week, the wild ride we know as the “stock market” was caused further chaos by a false report by Deltatone and CNN. Here is what transpired. During a FOXNews interview with Kevin Hassett, Director of the National Economic Council, he was asked whether President Donald Trump was considering a ninety day pause in implementation of the new tariff policies. Mr. Hassett responded:

“I think the president is going to decide what the president is going to decide.”

How that morphed from a neutral observation to a bold statement that Mr. Trump was considering a ninety day pause is anybody’s guess, but I would ascribe it to sloppy reporting by a webposting Deltatone and the demonstrable animus of CNN towards Mr. Trump. In this instance anything that would appear to indicate that Mr. Trump had made a mistake in implementing the global tariff regimen. I doubt that CNN intended to cause the market reaction that it did mostly because the overwhelming majority of those pinheads can’t add a column of single digit numbers let alone understand the complexities of the economy, the stock market, or international trade. This was simply another attempt by CNN to throw shade on Mr. Trump and the consequences be damned.

And there were consequences. Those people who sold their stock based upon that false report and were thereafter forced to repurchase those shares after the dramatic market increases on the following days have permanently lost the differences in the valuations. Add to that the number of people who bought shares and then immediately lost value when the market dropped upon the admission that it was “fake news.” Some reports indicate that there was over a seven hundred point swing between the broadcast of the information by CNN and the subsequent acknowledgment that its account was wrong. How many shares that were bought and sold in that turmoil is not readily available to laymen like me.

It was so bad that even CNN subsequently branded the whole thing as “fake news” – of course without accepting any blame on their lack of verification of what everyone with half a brain would acknowledge that it would have a dramatic impact on stock prices. And for that there should be consequences.

This is an instance for which “class action” lawsuits were designed – a large body of people suffering injury from a single negligent act, none of whom can bear the expense of individual law suits particularly against behemoths like CNN. Absent such a lawsuit, the irresponsibility of CNN and other media outlets will go unchecked until the next time they seize upon a story that is quite the opposite of what they write. In this instance, CNN’s assertion that Mr. Trump was considering a pause in the implementation of tariffs was completely made up – not an element of truth to it, not a grain of truth to which conjecture might be tied. It was a bold statement of fact without any foundation.

CNN should be made to pay and the liars that reported this fake news should lose their employment by CNN and their credibility as journalists. In the meantime, CNN will never regain credibility by reshuffling the deck chairs – the same can be said for those states and organizations that continue to utilize failed policies with new names and faces to push them.

No wonder CNN has lost half of its viewers since the November elections according Yahoo Finance.