ANOTHER ‘Editing Mistake’? CBS News Again Airs Italy Hospital Footage in U.S. Coronavirus Segment By Tyler O’Neil

https://pjmedia.com/trending/another-editing-mistake-cbs-news-again-airs-italy-hospital-footage-in-u-s-coronavirus-segment/

It’s not just your imagination: left-leaning outlets seem to be exaggerating the coronavirus crisis in the U.S. On Saturday, CBS News appeared to run footage from an Italian hospital in a segment about an outbreak in Pennsylvania. This came exactly two weeks after CBS News ran the same footage in a segment about the outbreak in New York on March 25.

CBS News acknowledged the March 25 “mistake” in a statement to the Daily Caller on March 30. “It was an editing mistake. We took immediate steps to remove it from all platforms and shows,” a spokesperson told the Daily Caller. The network did not say whether or not it would issue an on-air correction or retraction.

On Saturday, the misleading footage appeared on CBSN, the network’s streaming video news channel.

“In Pennsylvania, cases are skyrocketing at the rate of 1,000 a day,” a reporter narrates as the notorious footage from the Italian hospital appears on-screen. “Governor Tom Wolf is appealing to citizens to help.”

The misleading footage first appeared in a March 22 segment on Sky News discussing the outbreak in Italy. COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, spread quickly through northern Italy, overwhelming hospitals. While the pandemic is spreading rapidly in the U.S., it has not yet overwhelmed American hospitals to the same degree.

Some Twitter users went through the footage from Sky News and CBS News, identifying key markers from the Italian hospital scene which exactly correspond with the footage CBS News ran.

If CBS News really “took immediate steps to remove [the clip] from all platforms and shows,” why did it emerge again on Saturday? Is it just me, or does this seem like something other than an “editing mistake”?

Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.

Comments are closed.