CNN and Jake Tapper have apologized for an “unacceptable” chyron that appeared on screen during The Lead on Monday, during a conversation about President-elect Donald Trump’s support from white nationalist Richard Spencer. The banner read: “Alt-Right Founder Questions If Jews Are People.” Tapper said he was “horrified” at the banner while show was being substitute-hosted by Jim Sciutto. Tapper said he was “furious” and that his “staff has heard from me.”
On the show, Sciutto characterized Spencer’s words as “hate-filled garbage.” In a statement, CNN called the chyron label “poor judgment” and said “we very much regret it and apologize.” The cable-TV network took heat for the text because it seemingly normalized the anti-Semitic opinions of a neo-Nazi and elevated it to a political conversation about whether it would be politically expedient for Trump to denounce such terrible opinions. Read more.
A very bad-taste line, but the problem is not the line on CNN, it is that some people who state such garbage are on the streets and outside of the sewers where they obviously belong. If anything, publicizing their views elicits outrage and causes people to simulate indignation (OK, perhaps it might bring some people to actually feel indignation, but I am not deluded enough to take that for granted).