3 CNN Journalists Resign After Retracted Story on Trump Ally
CNN’s president, Jeffrey A. Zucker, has invested enormous resources into political
and investigative coverage of the Trump White House, and he was deeply upset by last week’s reporting errors, according to two people briefed on the network’s discussions over the weekend who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUMJUNE 26, 2017
Three prominent journalists at CNN resigned on Monday after the cable news network was forced to retract
and apologize for a story on its website involving a close ally of President Trump.
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 in April, submitted resignations on Monday morning.
The president relishes dismissing the network’s coverage as “fake news,”
and his closest advisers have accused the channel of harboring a bias against Mr. Trump.
Mr. Zucker helped lead an internal inquiry that found the story was published despite concerns expressed by CNN’s standards team, the people said.
The network fired Kathy Griffin, a host of its New Year’s Eve special, after she published
a photograph in which she appeared to brandish a facsimile of Mr. Trump’s severed head.
The resignations are a black eye at a sensitive moment for the news organization,
which has emerged as a regular target of Mr. Trump and his supporters.