Last week, Parkland shooting survivor Colton Haab claimed that CNN scripted a question for that disastrous town hall event, an allegation backed up by Haab’s father Glenn. Glenn Haab offered an email thread as proof that CNN had tried to keep his son from asking the question he wanted to. It didn’t sound that far-fetched to a lot of people, as CNN has been caught pulling crap with town hall questions before. But CNN, for its part, denied the allegations.
While CNN made a lot of mistakes last week, it appears that they were telling the truth about Haab:
https://twitter.com/BecketAdams/status/968622236482658305
Shooting survivor’s father admits email changes in CNN spat. https://t.co/XXMEwoHTvh
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) February 27, 2018
More from the Tampa Bay Times:
The network says Glenn Haab, the father of Marjory Stoneman Douglas junior Colton Haab, doctored emails to push a claim that the network told his son what to say at the forum. Colton Haab backed out of the Feb. 21 event.
CNN denies scripting any remarks and released an email exchange between a CNN producer and Glenn Haab that it says Glenn Haab altered. The altered email was sent to other news outlets, including Fox News.
Haab acknowledges omitting some words from the email but says he didn’t do it on purpose.
Compare the emails (tweet via the Tampa Bay Times):
https://twitter.com/eliza_relman/status/967214553858822144
Omitting a key phrase from an email sure doesn’t sound like an accident.
"Didn't mean to"?
— Blank Frank (@FrankieBSF) February 27, 2018
So he "accidentally" deleted the exact one phrase in one sentence that changes what was meant, and left everything else neatly intact? And sent it to Fox News?
— Frontward Fairly (@frontwardfairly) February 27, 2018
But he didn't do it on purpose….. yeah right. pic.twitter.com/FTyIhQm3Jw
— Savage Lucy Westenra (@LucyWestmorela3) February 27, 2018
But even if it wasn’t on purpose — and that’s a big if — it still isn’t a good look at all. Not only has Glenn Haab damaged his credibility, but he’s damaged his son’s as well.
If nothing else, this episode demonstrates that there can be bad actors on both sides of an issue. It appears that, at the very least, Haab owes CNN a big apology.
https://twitter.com/BecketAdams/status/968622600661426176
Twitchy made a mistake in taking Haab’s claim at face value. For that, we apologize.
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