CNN own goal

It is quite possible Donald Trump will be re-elected in 2020 if he suceeds in casting the media as his opposition, and some of the media continue to behave as they do.

The Herald reports:

#CNNBlackmail was the top trending Twitter topic Wednesday morning, thanks to the efforts of a furious Trump internet, which had concluded that the user’s apology was forced by a “threat” from CNN. Their evidence? A story CNN itself published, detailing its attempts to contact and identify the anonymous Reddit user ahead of their apology, whose offensive posting history suddenly became part of a national news story.

The part of the article that infuriated the Trump internet – and people on both sides of the political spectrum, who questioned the ethical standards of the network’s decision – had to do with how CNN described its reasoning for not identifying the Redditor by name. Reporter Andrew Kaczynski wrote that CNN had spoken with the person behind the account, and would not identify the user because “he is a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology,” who had promised not to continue flooding the internet with offensive memes.

But, he wrote, “CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.”

Like many online controversies of this era, it’s difficult to explain exactly what’s going on here in one smooth narrative. The ethical question of whether a news outlet should withhold the identity of a private citizen who posted extremely offensive things online on the apparent condition that they behave better in the future is one that resonated well beyond the bubble of the Trump internet.

A real own goal by CNN.