Mark Thompson, You Have a Problem

Mark Thompson, the CEO of CNN, has a serious problem that came into sharp view yesterday. His network is suffering from institutional arrogance. We need them, it seems, but they do not need us.

Yesterday, CNN anchors and fact checkers lied to the CNN audience.

A network that once ran “this is a banana” ads and laments disinformation and misinformation, engaged in what amounts to institutional arrogance — an unwillingness to hold itself accountable for getting a story wrong.

On Tuesday, at 2:51 pm, CNN ran an exclusive story that the Defense Intelligence Agency’s preliminary assessment showed the United States only set Iran back by perhaps two months.

The story never noted that the DIA report was rated as “low confidence.”

But here are Kate Bolduan and Sara Sidner insisting CNN had always reported the intelligence was rated as low confidence.

Bolduan and Sidner then trotted out CNN fact checker Daniel Dale to back them up that CNN had always referred to the report as low confidence.

It is a lie. And it must be called a lie because they are not telling the truth and we should hold them to the standard they hold others to.

In fact, here is Natasha Bertrand’s original on-air reporting. She never once referred to the report as low confidence.

You can read the full transcript of her interview here. She never once mentions the “low confidence” assessment despite CNN”s anchors claiming otherwise. Likewise, the original written report did not mention that either.

On Wednesday, at 8:31 am, CNN updated Bertrand’s report and included a statement from Pete Hegseth that he claimed the report was low confidence, but that was attributed to Hegseth, not to sources or the actual intelligence report.

Hegseth, who is also at the NATO summit, said Wednesday the assessment was “a top secret report; it was preliminary; it was low confidence;” adding that there were political motives behind leaking it and that an FBI investigation was underway to identify the leaker.

The US military has said the operation went as planned and that it was an “overwhelming success.”

Again, that matters because CNN claims it always noted in its reporting that the intelligence report was of low confidence. But that is not true.

CNN’s original reporting did not mention that. Its follow-up reporting attributed the claim to Pete Hegseth, but CNN did not treat it as fact but as a claim from the Secretary of Defense.

To not apologize, acknowledge the mistake, or even explain the evolution of the story — instead to lie to viewers and claim CNN had always been truthful and then use that to claim Trump was lying, is not only institutional arrogance but behavior CNN holds others accountable for.

The network position now is that CNN can ask questions of others, but no one can ask questions of CNN.

Perhaps Mr. Thompson and his network will conclude my clips are just “cheap fakes.” The problem is the cheap fakes were always real and so is CNN’s current dishonesty.

How can the network hold Donald Trump accountable when it cannot hold itself to the standard it expects of others? A democracy needs a free press and a press willing to lie to the public to protect itself is not a press that is truly free because it is captive to an arrogance that breeds distrust.