CNN Lets the Mask Slip in Huffy Segment on Elon Musk's Release of 'Twitter Files'

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On Tuesday, our friends over at Newsbusters posted the results of an analysis they did which showed that CNN and MSNBC gave little to no coverage of the first five installments of the Twitter Files, a series of revelational behind-the-scenes documents on how things worked under the old regime and which have gradually been released over the last two weeks.

“Since the first set of documents were published on the evening of December 2, less [than] half of one percent of the coverage on either network has even bothered to mention the story,” NB Media Editor Bill D’Agostino noted. Their findings dovetailed with early tracking Fox News did in the aftermath of the release of the first series, which was about the decision-making behind Twitter’s deliberate suppression of the NY Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story back in October 2020.

CNN, however, switched gears Wednesday and gave the Twitter Files a little more attention. Not surprisingly, they attempted to downplay the significance not just by suggesting that the government had nothing to do with stifling the story, but also with a sly comment “CNN This Morning” co-host Poppy Hollow slipped into her introduction on the topic.

“[Twitter CEO Elon] Musk selected a handful of journalists unaffiliated with major credible news organizations,” Harlow snarked shortly before she turned to fellow CNN hack Oliver Darcy for a heavily biased analysis of the documents:

CNN finally covers the #TwitterFiles; @oliverdarcy still falsely claims there's "no evidence" showing feds orchestrated suppression of Hunter/Joe Biden scandals pic.twitter.com/XzxvWAx0ex

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) December 15, 2022

That one deliberately-inserted comment pretty much gives the game away not just for CNN but also for other so-called “major credible news organizations” like the Washington Post, which have also given the story scant coverage beyond ones loaded with spin about how they “don’t prove anything,” in their view.

As I wrote Monday in response to the media’s attacks on Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss, there’s a crapton of whiny “why didn’t Musk give them to meee?” mentality at play here as to why many of these “news” outlets aren’t giving the story the coverage it deserves.

Musk smartly bypassed traditional media outlets, which virtually no one trusts anymore and for good reason, and instead released the files to independent journalists for publishing, including Weiss, a former NY Times opinion page editor, and Taibbi, a former Rolling Stone contributing editor, both of who respectively moved on to Substack and have amassed sizable followings in the process. They both have predictably been subjected to ridicule and attempts at discrediting by The Usual Suspects, many of who are simply jealous and seething that they were not made privy to the same information ahead of the release of the files.

On Twitter, my RS colleague, fellow media analyst, and LieAble Sources host Brad Slager made a similar point.

“This is a key factor in CNN not covering the story. They feel slighted, therefore they have to diminish the impact of the contents because they were not roped in,” Slager observed.

That is not the only reason, which we’ve also written about, but it’s a big one.

Why? Because “major credible news organizations” (cough) like CNN absolutely can’t stand it when well-respected writers who they can’t control get their hands on a big story before Big Media gets the chance to falsely frame it to either help Democrats, hurt Republicans – or both.

Facts first, and all that.