Fake News: 3 CNN Employees Resign

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Three CNN journalists, including the executive editor in charge of a new investigative unit, have resigned after the publication of a Russia-related article that was retracted.

Thomas Frank, who wrote the story in question, Eric Lichtblau, an editor in the unit and Lex Haris, who oversaw the unit, have all left CNN,” CNN’s Brian Stelter reported late on Monday.

The resignation of the journalists were tied to a Trump-Russia article that was investigated and discovered to be false by Breitbart.com.

“In the aftermath of the retraction of a story published on CNN.com, CNN has accepted the resignations of the employees involved in the story’s publication,” the CNN spokesperson said.

This comes after an internal investigation by CNN management found that some standard editorial processes were not followed when the article was published, people briefed on the results of the investigation said.

The story, which reported that Congress was investigating a “Russian investment fund with ties to Trump officials,” cited a single anonymous source; which should have prompted its review by several departments within CNN, including fact-checkers, journalism standards experts and lawyers before publication.

This breakdown in editorial workflow disturbed the CNN executives who learned about it.
However, the investigative unit members were told that the retraction did not mean the facts of the story were necessarily wrong. Rather, it meant that “the story wasn’t solid enough to publish as-is,” one of the people briefed on the investigation said.

However, CNN is still not commenting via official on-record statements from its public relations department and continues refusing to provide network President Jeff Zucker for interviews.

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