CNN’s John King took political correctness to a new extreme yesterday during his highly criticized and erroneous coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing investigation.
“I'm trying really hard not to be angry, but there's such righteous indignation,” Glenn said on radio this morning. “When I saw John King yesterday on CNN – and I presented it as laughter yesterday because the staff was laughing because it was so – it was a clown show.”
After reporting that a suspect had been identified in video footage, King went on the air around 1:45PM to report “an arrest had been made” in connection with the bombing. He attributed the report, which turned out to be completely false, to two unnamed sources – one in law enforcement and another who had spoken to a colleague of his. But political correctness soon got in the way of the story:
KING: I want to be very careful with this because people get very sensitive when you say these things. I was told by one of the sources, who is a law enforcement official, this was a dark skinned male. The official used some other words. I'm not going to repeat them until I get more information.
“He's not going to use ‘other words,’” Glenn asked. “What are those other words? Foreign national, Saudi, Arab? And who is offended by this, John? CNN, look at yourself in the mirror. Who is offended by this? Saudis? Foreign nationals that are bad? Al-Qaeda? Muslim terrorists?”
Once it became clear no arrests had been made, King returned to the air to say, “Clearly there was confusion or some misinformation.” But the damage was already done.
“So they get on and they flush their credibility down the toilet,” Glenn said. “Because John King comes in and says, ‘I've got breaking news, We had just confirmed by a Boston police authority that they have just taken in a suspect, and he's going to be brought to court, and I don't want to use some of the language that they use to describe this individual, I'm going to say he's a dark skinned man.’”
When you take into consideration the story TheBlaze broke this morning – that the Saudi student who had been questioned in connection with the bombings may now be deported because of “terrorist activities” – it becomes clear that sometimes the truth is sensitive, sometimes the truth is unpleasant, but it still must be reported.
“Truth is offensive sometimes, but when the truth is said because it's true and because it's important to know,” Glenn said. “It's important to know and we have a foreign national with wild connections. The President was meeting with some of those connections last night. This has been a lie from the very beginning. It's important to say those things, even if they are offensive.”
