On April 18th, the founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, made a stunning allegation against CNN, claiming that he had personally witnessed the outlet’s news crew trying to “create conflict” amid the Ferguson riots.

The riots that occurred in Ferguson, Missouri, that played out in roughly three waves between August of 2014 and August of 2015 were a dark chapter for the city, all of which stemmed from the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014.

Of course, with riots come heavy news coverage – which CNN was obviously among the many outlets on scene trying to capture whatever footage they could that would attract eyeballs.

And from what Dorsey claimed in a Twitter post on April 18th, CNN – who fancy themselves as the “most trusted name in news” – went as far as to try and stoke additional unrest for their cameras to catch.

The comment from Dorsey stemmed from a post made by CNN host Brian Stelter, where the Reliable Sources host shared a Washington Post article denigrating Fox News’ Tucker Carlson with a caption reading, “Tucker Carlson is always selling the same thing, [Philip Bump] says: ‘He’s selling doubt…’”

In a sort of quippy response, Dorsey replied to Stelter, “And you all are selling hope?”

This response from Dorsey led to Humanity Forward CEO Sarah Idan getting in the mix, replying, “Even [CNN] sometimes sell false news. I know this from covering Iraq events in 2019. People need to understand every media is prone to either mistakes or deliberate corruption. Do your own investigation before believing what they’re selling you.”

Responding to Idan sharing her experience of catching CNN doling out lies, Dorsey claimed, “I know this from being on the streets of Ferguson during the protests and watching them try to create conflict and film it causing the protestors to chant ‘Fuck CNN.’”

Newsmax foreign correspondent Alex Salvi, which said outlet has been highly critical of Fox News host Tucker Carlson in the past, had taken a screenshot of Dorsey’s original response to Stelter, alleging that Dorsey was “defending [Tucker Carlson.” Dorsey had responded directly to Salvi, saying, “not defending a thing. Holding up a mirror.”

This is hardly the first time that CNN has been criticized for peddling spin and propaganda, nor is it even the first time that CNN host Stelter was caught up in the callouts either.

Earlier in April, Stelter was participating in an event hosted by the University of Chicago where a college freshman questioned Stelter’s maligning of Fox News as being a vector for “disinformation” when CNN has a lengthy track record of doing the same thing.

The young man matter-of-factly pointed out that CNN “pushed the Russian collusions hoax, they pushed the Jussie Smollett hoax, they smeared Justice Kavanaugh as a rapist, and they also smeared Nick Sandmann as a white supremacist and yes – they dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop affair as pure Russian disinformation.”

 

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