By Becket Adams
Sunday, March 15, 2026
Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times
is a trend, and four times is CNN.
CNN staffers have spent the past few weeks worrying about
a potential merger that could hand editorial control of the network to CBS
editor in chief Bari Weiss.
They have good reason to be scared — especially after
several CNN employees this past week bungled the basic facts of the recent
ISIS-inspired bombing attempt in New York City, leading staffer after staffer
to issue the same shamefaced, totally avoidable correction. (These high-profile
embarrassments, by the way, are on top of the fact that the network has had to
settle not one but two defamation lawsuits since just 2020.)
CNN has become inexcusably sloppy, and if there are
designs to pull the brand’s credibility and ratings out of the gutter, those
currently employed by the network should be sweating.
Let’s consider the network’s coverage of that bombing
attempt.
On March 7, two terrorists tried to murder right-wing
provocateurs as they held an anti-Muslim demonstration outside New York City
Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s mansion. It’s all on video, clear as day. The would-be
bombers even shouted, “Allahu akbar!” before hurling what would, thankfully,
end up being faulty homemade explosive devices.
It’s a simple story. The motives are not ambiguous. The
identities of the perpetrators and what they did (or attempted to do) are not a
secret. The intended targets of the attack are no mystery.
The story is as clean and clear as any reporter could
hope for. Yet, for reasons that are either embarrassing or ominous, CNN
staffers just haven’t been able to wrap their heads around the top lines. The
way the cable network tells it, the story isn’t that Islamic terrorists tried
to murder demonstrators in America’s most populous city, but that Mamdani, a
progressive Muslim, was the target of political violence (which obviously isn’t
true).
Three network employees made this same bogus claim, and
all this as CNN apologized for a separate story that soft-pedaled the attack.
Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times
is a trend. And four times is, well, that’s CNN.
Our first example comes from CNN senior reporter
Edward-Isaac Dovere, who, when referring to a phone call between Mamdani and
Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, whose home was firebombed last
year by a pro-Palestine lunatic, referred to the mayor as a “now-fellow target
of political violence.”
No, Mamdani is not.
Dovere later issued an HR-speak
correction, saying his fabricated version of reality had “inaccurately
implied” that Mamdani was a target of political violence.
Well, no. Dovere didn’t imply. He said it outright.
Then there’s CNN anchor Abby
Phillip, who, a full 72 hours after the bombs were thrown, claimed there
was an “attempted terror attack against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.”
No, there wasn’t.
She later issued a
similarly worded HR-speak correction, blaming the error on her
teleprompter-script writers. I’m Ron
Burgundy?
Phillip’s correction reads hollow because, though she was
careful to note that Mamdani was not the intended target, she was also
careful to omit mentions of who the intended targets were. Her correction also
feels insubstantial because of our third example, which is when CNN contributor
Ana Navarro claimed the bombing attack was an “attempt against Mayor Mamdani in
New York, who was raised Muslim.”
What’s notable here is not just that Navarro is wrong, as
she frequently is, but that her remarks went unchecked and uncorrected by the
panel host — Abby Phillip.
It was up to one of the panel’s conservative guests, the
type that Phillip loves to correct, contradict, and “fact-check” in real time,
to set the record straight.
These three flubs come amid a separate embarrassment for
CNN, in which it published, and then retracted, a tweet that characterized the
alleged ISIS-inspired terrorists as a couple of hapless rogues.
“Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City
Saturday morning for what could’ve been a normal day enjoying the city during
abnormally warm weather,” the CNN tweet read. “But in less than an hour, their lives
would drastically change as the pair would be arrested for throwing homemade
bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home.
Here’s what we know so far.”
CNN eventually deleted the tweet and issued a note
conceding the language “failed to reflect the gravity of the incident.”
Huzzah! cried CNN cleanup man Brian Stelter, who
agreed with his PR department that the language was not great. Still, he added,
the underlying story was nonetheless “solid.”
Not quite; it’s actually worse than just a social media
mishap. As it happens, the X post was word-for-word the opening lines to the
main story the outlet posted, which has since been amended to remove the sunny
language. The since-retracted tweet was more than just a bad move by the social
media team. The lines that CNN PR claimed were unprofessional went from
reporter to editor to copy editor to web producer and then eventually to the
social media team — and it evidently didn’t occur to any of them that this
framing of a domestic terrorist attack on U.S. soil was bizarre or completely
inappropriate.
Or did it occur to them, and they published anyway? After
all, when a network makes a series of mistakes, all concerning the same basic
set of facts, and all pointing in the same narrative direction, it gives the
distinct impression of being part of an effort to mislead and confuse.
Had a pro-lifer firebombed an abortion clinic, does
anyone seriously believe that a full trio of CNN employees would get the
fundamentals of the story so drastically wrong? Be honest.
While we’re on the topic of believability, there’s even
more misconduct from CNN, if you can believe it.
On March 12, citing anonymous sources, the network
reported that “Top Trump officials acknowledged to lawmakers during recent
classified briefings that they did not plan for the possibility of Iran closing
the [Strait of Hormuz] in response to strikes.”
No need to consider the sourcing or the outlet; this
claim is completely unbelievable on its face. This is probably why CNN, in what
would be its fifth apology in a single week, updated its report to
include the following note: “CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated
to reflect additional developments and clarify that top Trump administration
officials briefed lawmakers on long-standing military plans to address a major
disruption to the Strait, according to one official, but that multiple sources
familiar with the session said there was no indication there were any near-term
solutions.”
Pentagon officials agreeing it’ll take some work to clear
the Strait is an entirely different story. This is far, far afield from the
initial report, which claimed the Pentagon hadn’t even considered the
exact scenario it has studied and debated for some 40 years.
These mistakes, and in such a short amount of time, leave
one with the distinct impression that it’s all on purpose. No single
organization can be so inept, can it?
The alternative explanation for whatever the hell
happened this week at CNN isn’t great for the brand, either, of course: Either
staffers were intentionally deceiving the public, or they were unintentionally
bumbling the facts, over and over, in a display of uncut incompetence.
Either way, it’s a bad situation all around for an
ostensibly serious news organization.
If these people aren’t already worried about their jobs,
what with the possibility of Weiss performing the equivalent of the Augean
Stables labor, they should be.
CNN is due for a thorough cleaning, and there’s no news
organization more deserving of one.
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