NEW YORK (AP) — CNN and host Jake Tapper have both apologized for an on-screen banner that Tapper said was “unacceptable” and “horrified” him when it appeared during his show on Monday.
The vacationing Tapper quickly responded to outraged viewer comments with several Twitter posts explaining that, despite his absence, he was “furious” and his “staff has heard from me.”
The offending phrase appeared during a discussion among Jim Sciutto, subbing for Tapper on “The Lead,” and two journalists about President-elect Donald Trump’s support from the alt-right. The segment focused on white nationalist leader Richard Spencer, whose anti-Semitic declarations Sciutto characterized as “hate-filled garbage.”
The on-screen phrase during the segment stated, “Alt-Right Founder Questions if Jews are People.”
CNN issued a statement calling that caption “poor judgment and we very much regret it and apologize.”
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Who is apologizing for what exactly. I can read this more than one way - I can read it as apologizing to the Nazis for saying they questioned whether Jews are people; I can see them apologizing to Jews for letting that chyron cross their screen, and so forth and so on.
I guess its general purpose apology but I’m kind of trying to figure out if we are apologizing to Spencer for publicly putting his beliefs out there.
Why?
Unless something specific was said by Spencer during the segment…either live or recorded…to support the chyron, then CNN’s acknowledgement is appropriate. If Spencer was quoted by someone else during the segment, then the quote should have been attributed on-screen.
This is not to defend Spencer or any other deplorable of his ilk. But I think, based on my reading of the facts that are contained in this article, that CNN did the right thing
The question is, did he question that Jews are people, or didn’t he? If he didn’t, what did he say, or, who said that? Why is Tapper outraged?
ETA: If “garbage” == “not people”, there’s a lot of apologizing that had better happen, and if it is, there’s a lot of apologizing that needs to happen. It’s inflammatory language.