CNN Comes Up Short On Reporting Palin Bikini Photo Fraud and Other Rumors

  • A CNN reporter this week didn’t seem to know or care that a fake photo showing a bikini-clad, rifle-toting Sarah Palin had been widely debunked days earlier as a fraud, the latest in series of incidents involving apparent misstatements or inaccurate reporting by the news network.

    “(John) McCain has been really good about painting (Barack) Obama as this lightweight … They don’t want that to come back on Sarah Palin, and people say, yes, she looks good in a bikini clutching an AK-47, but is she equipped to run the country?” CNN’s Lola Ogunnaike said in response to a question on the network’s “Reliable Sources” show, which aired Sunday.

    CNN correspondents and analysts have also recently misrepresented Palin’s stance on incorporating creationism into Alaska’s school curriculum and falsely reported that she cut funds for people with special needs in the state budget.

    The infamous fake bikini shot first appeared during the early days of the Republican convention. But it was widely debunked within 24 hours, with bloggers and others quickly exposing the fraud by finding the original shot, reportedly taken in 2004 in Athens, Ga., by an amateur photographer of his then-girlfriend.

    During the show, Ogunnaike went on to compliment Us Weekly’s coverage of Palin, which has been widely attacked as unfair by critics and reportedly thousands of Us Weekly readers.

    Ogunnaike’s remarks are among several apparent misstatements made recently by CNN reporters.

    On Monday night, senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said Palin wants “to have creationism taught in public schools.” But numerous stories –- including CNN’s own reporting from last week — have noted that Palin has made no effort to try and include creationism in the state school curriculum.

    The morning after Toobin’s remarks on creationism, CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin reported that Palin vetoed funds not only for so-called “earmarks,” but “even for people with disabilities.”

    But Factcheck.org, a non-partisan group affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, is among those that have reported that Palin “did not cut funding for special needs education in Alaska by 62 percent.”

    In fact, the group said in a posting published on Newsweek’s Web site, “She didn’t cut it at all. She tripled per-pupil funding over just three years.”