Mediaite writes about CNN’s morning show questioning the reporting of one of CNN’s evening shows.
Monday night, “CNN Tonight” aired an audiotape purported to capture the shooting of Michael Brown. The tape was brought to CNN by St. Louis attorney Lopa Blumenthal, (at right with anchor Don Lemon) who says a former client gave it to her. Lemon repeatedly said that CNN could not verify the authenticity of the tape.
TVNewser has learned CBS News received the same audio earlier this week from Blumenthal, but chose not to run it because it could not be verified.
This morning on “New Day,” two guests on CNN doubted the veracity of it.
“I’ve told your producers that for all I know this is something one of Howard Stern’s punk people had been doing. I look at this and my first inclination is someone is trying to punk CNN,” said former LAPD officer David Klinger. CNN analyst Tom Fuentes also doubted its authenticity: “When I heard this yesterday, I thought the exact same thing: it’s a hoax.”
WaPo’s Erik Wemple reported yesterday on how CNN got its hands on the audiotape. When asked about its authenticity, a CNN spokesperson told Wemple, “[W]e interviewed the caller’s attorney off camera and she answered key questions that gave us confidence to put her on the air live with Don. And we did confirm the caller lived close enough to the shooting to have heard the shots.”
Now it appears, there are doubts inside CNN.