Christopher Steele, the former British spy who created the anti-Donald Trump Russia “dossier,” used unverified information he found on a CNN website where users generated their own content, he told a court last year.
Fox News reported Saturday that Steele, testifying in a defamation lawsuit filed by Russian entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev last year, said that he obtained information about one of Gubarev’s companies on “something called CNN iReport.” (The lawsuit was dismissed in December.)
As Fox News noted, CNN iReport, which is now apparently out of service, invited members of the public to submit their own content as a form of citizen journalism. The service contained a disclaimer (original emphasis):
The views and content on this site are solely those of the iReport.com contributors. CNN makes no guarantees about the content or the coverage on iReport.com!
iReport.com is a user-generated site. That means the stories submitted by users are not edited, fact-checked or screened before they post. Only the stories marked “On CNN” have been vetted by CNN for use in CNN’s global news coverage.
Lots of people argue about what constitutes news. But, really, it’s just something that happens someplace to someone. Whether that something is newsworthy mostly depends on who it affects — and who’s making the decision. On iReport.com, that is you! So we’ve built this site and equipped it with some nifty tools for posting, discovering and talking about what you think makes the cut. – READ MORE