3 CNN newsmen quit after article is pulled

NEW YORK: Three prominent CNN journalists resigned on Monday after the cable news network was forced to retract and apologise for a story on its website involving a close ally of President Donald Trump.

The article — linking Anthony Scaramucci, a hedge-fund manager and Trump confidant, to a Russian investment fund supposedly being investigated by the Senate — was removed from CNN.com late last week after the network decided it could not stand by its reporting

The resignations of Thomas Frank, a veteran reporter who wrote the story; Lex Haris, executive editor of investigations; and Eric Lichtblau, an investigative editor and reporter hired from The New York Times in April, are a black eye at a sensitive moment for the news organisation, which has emerged as a regular target of Trump and his supporters.

The president relishes dismissing the network’s coverage as “fake news”, and his closest advisers have accused the channel of bias against Trump.

It was the latest in a series of embarrassing episodes at CNN. NYT