CNN and MSNBC gushed over impeachment nearly 200 times based on a Thursday BuzzFeed report, before it was discredited by the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
CNN and MSNBC couldn’t confirm BuzzFeed’s now-debunked report claiming President Trump directed his former attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress – but that didn’t stop the networks from using it as the impetus to talk about impeachment throughout the day.
The Daily Caller reported, citing TV clipping service Grabien, that CNN and MSNBC mentioned the words “impeach,” “impeachment,” or “impeachable,” a whopping 179 times on Friday after before Mueller’s team released a statement pushing back against BuzzFeed’s alleged scoop.
“CNN mentioned impeachment 82 times while MSNBC mentioned it a whopping 97 times,” Daily Caller media editor Amber Athey wrote. “The review included only original Friday programming and ran up until each network learned that BuzzFeed’s report was in dispute.”
BuzzFeed published their exclusive late Thursday, citing two anonymous federal law enforcement officials, who alleged that the special counsel had evidence that the president told Cohen to lie about dealings regarding a potential Trump Tower in Moscow during the 2016 election. Some industry insiders were skeptical, as news organizations such as the New York Times couldn’t match the damaging claims.- READ MORE