CNN mistake fuels ‘fake news’ claims

NEW YORK — CNN on Friday had to correct a story that suggested Donald Trump’s campaign had been tipped off early about WikiLeaks documents damaging to Hillary Clinton when it later learned the alert was about material already publicly available.

The new information, CNN noted, “indicates that the communication is less significant than CNN initially reported.”

It’s the second mistake in a week by a major news organization on a story that initially had been damaging to the president but didn’t live up to scrutiny, giving Trump ammunition for his campaign against “fake news.” This time it was by one of Trump’s favorite targets.

The story, by CNN reporters Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb, was posted Friday morning and said that an email was sent to Trump and campaign officials Sept. 4, 2016, with a link to documents from the Democratic National Committee hacked by WikiLeaks. Five hours later, The Washington Post reported that the message had actually been sent on Sept. 14 and it wasn’t a tip to secret documents, since WikiLeaks had released them a day earlier.

CNN corrected its story almost eight hours later with the new information.

CNN, quoting several sources familiar with the exchange, said Donald Trump Jr. was asked about the WikiLeaks email Wednesday during private testimony before the House Intelligence Committee.

At a rally in Pensacola, Fla., on Friday evening, Trump pointed to the CNN correction as well as other corrections and clarifications issued by news organizations over the past week.

“Did you see all the corrections the media’s been making?” Trump asked the crowd. “They’ve been apologizing left and right.”

Trump singled out suspended ABC reporter Brian Ross, calling him a “fraudster” and saying he should have been fired because his error caused a dip in the stock market. “I said to everybody: Get yourself a lawyer and sue ABC News,” Trump said.

Trump also told the rowdy crowd that CNN had apologized “just a little while ago” for its reporting error.

“They apologized! Oh thank you, CNN. Thank you so much. You should have been apologizing for the last two years,” he said.

Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway tweeted to CNN reporters: “Be honest and keep explaining the much-repeated lie you let live for hours. Tell America WHY the date of the email is important. (Hint: it destroys your attempt to destroy DonaldJTrumpJr).” She also linked to an article in the Daily Caller headlined: “CNN Botches Major ‘Bombshell’ Alleging Contacts Between Don Jr. And WikiLeaks.”

CNN said its original account that the email was released 10 days earlier was based on accounts from two sources who had seen the email. Trump representatives have described the email as one of many unsolicited messages the campaign received. The Post said it had obtained a copy of the email and said its sender identified himself as Michael J. Erickson, the president of an aviation management company.

There’s no indication that CNN plans to discipline Raju and Herb, meaning it blames the error on its sources more than its reporters.

Both the CNN story and the Dec. 1 mistake by ABC News stem from investigations into the Trump campaign and possible collusion with Russian officials.

ABC suspended investigative reporter Brian Ross for four weeks without pay after he had erroneously reported that Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, had been directed to make contact with the Russians. That would have been significant news if it happened during the campaign, but ABC later corrected the report to note that the order to Flynn came when Trump was already president-elect.