CNN got caught spreading fake news… again.
The liberal media network pushed a blatant lie about Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his donation of medical supplies to hospitals fighting the coronavirus pandemic.
Musk accused the left-wing media giant of skimming on the details, ignoring journalistic practices, and bulldozing a story through to readers that the CNN editors hadn’t even bothered to fact check.
As is often the case, critics checked the facts for them.
It turns out CNN based the story on an opinion piece in The Sacramento Bee newspaper that accused Musk of failing to deliver ventilators to hospitals he had promised.
The accusation was false — and CNN could have debunked the claim if its journalists had bothered calling the hospitals in question and asked.
But instead, CNN just parroted the story, allegedly from a quote from California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office.
Also lost in all that was the fact that no one had ever reached out to Musk himself to explain his side of the story.
So Musk spoke up for himself and debunked the attack.
Through a series of tweets, Musk not only proved he’d done what he’d said… but also that several hospitals had thanked him for sending the medical equipment he promised.
Below are a couple of photos of messages exchanged between Tesla and medical officials:
Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital in Los Angeles also tweeted Musk, thanking him for his help.
@elonmusk @Tesla Thank you for the 20 critically needed medical devices to help fight #COVID19! #Tesla #MLKCH #MLKCHfrontlines #SouthLAStrong pic.twitter.com/qMu50Crely
— MLK Community Healthcare (@yourMLKCH) April 9, 2020
In his tweets, Musk expressed amazement that CNN was still in business — and asked Newsome to clarify the story.
The Horn editorial team