CNN Uses Fake “College Republican” to Attack McCain
On Thursday morning, CNN released a story maligning Senator John McCain’s appeal to younger voters compared to Obama. It quotes a University of Southern California student named Eric Perlmutter saying, “We try to get people out to our College Republican meetings, but… we can’t seem to draw the same kind of vocal support.”
However, USC College Republican Chairman Ben Myers strongly denied this, saying, “I have never met Eric Perlmutter. I have never seen him at a College Republican meeting. He is not on our membership roster. I don’t know why someone would think he speaks for us. As far as I know, he could be a Democrat.” He went on to say that his club attracts 30-40 attendees at their regular meetings, more than the rival Democratic club on campus.
CNN called their use of a fake source an “inadvertent error,” but questions still remain regarding their apparent anti-McCain bias.
CRNC Chairman Charlie Smith said of CNN’s fake story: “This is another fallacy in a long history of CNN’s attempts to smear Sen. McCain and the Republican Party. From planting Democrats in the YouTube debates and now using bogus sources, CNN is doing everything it can to put Barack Obama in the White House and it shows. Denigrating the work of college students who want nothing more then to be part of the process is simply pathetic.”
Meanwhile, real College Republicans are excited about Senator McCain. The Where is the Red? crew is nearly halfway through its summer-long cross-country roadtrip through Republican congressional districts, campaigning for McCain and other GOP candidates the whole way. Their use of a blog, YouTube, Twitter, and other web 2.0 tools is doing a great job appealing to our generation and get them excited for GOP candidates in the fall.
Tags: CNN, College Republicans, media bias, Youth Vote
July 25th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
This honestly sounds more like poor journalism, as in they failed to properly check their sources rather than an explicit effort by CNN to mislabel the College Republicans.