Reporter Jon Gabriel says that, in effect, CNN has now bodyslammed itself:
Furious over a silly video President Donald Trump posted Sunday, the flailing network sicced Senior Editor Andrew Kaczynski on its creator. He tracked down an anonymous Reddit user who first posted the GIF of Trump tackling a wrestler whose head was replaced with a CNN logo. Kaczynski then found out the person’s real name and threatened to release it if he misbehaved again. . . .That’s right: a Senior Editor for CNN is blackmailing an American citizen for daring to criticize them.
This isn’t Kaczynski’s first attempt at destroying a private citizen’s life. As a BuzzFeed reporter, he gained notoriety for publicizing a lame joke Tweeted by a 30-year-old PR director named Justine Sacco. As Sacco was boarding a plane from London to Cape Town, South Africa, she poked fun at many people’s poor understanding of the continent. Kaczynski decided the joke was racist and helped gin up a digital lynch mob while she was in the air for 11 hours sans internet. By the time Sacco landed, she was mobbed by reporters, was fired from her job, and had to go into hiding.
Kaczynski’s insanity was just the latest in CNN’s string of horrible decisions related to Trump.[Trump Has Driven CNN Stark, Raving Mad. Ricochet.com, June 5, 2017—Emphasis and picture added]
He goes on:
Kaczynski’s insanity was just the latest in CNN’s string of horrible decisions related to Trump. Last week, CNN accepted the resignations of three star journalists over their retracted story falsely connecting a Trump associate to a Russian bank. Before that, CNN’s parent company helped fund a performance of Julius Caesar, in which a Trump stand-in isassassinated. In the past month, the network retracted another anti-Trump story proved false by James Comey’s testimony, fired Kathy Griffin for posing with an effigy of Trump’s decapitated head, and censured host Reza Aslan for wishing rape on a Republican congressman. Not to mention the Project Veritas videos catching CNN employees mocking Americans and admitting that the endless Russia allegations are a big nothing-burger.[Links added by me]
In the meantime, while the thing is being referred to on Twitter by the hashtag #CNNBlackMail, I can't help wondering if it qualifies as actual blackmail—which would be a matter for the police in whatever city Senior Editor Andrew Kaczynski is operating from.
As
This isn’t Kaczynski’s first attempt at destroying a private citizen’s life. As a BuzzFeed reporter, he gained notoriety for publicizing a lame joke Tweeted by a 30-year-old PR director named Justine Sacco. As Sacco was boarding a plane from London to Cape Town, South Africa, she poked fun at many people’s poor understanding of the continent. Kaczynski decided the joke was racist and helped gin up a digital lynch mob while she was in the air for 11 hours sans internet. By the time Sacco landed, she was mobbed by reporters, was fired from her job, and had to go into hiding.
These are all horrifying hateful people (right, something Reza Aslan tweeted
