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In CNN's buildup to the Trump inauguration on Monday, anchor Jake Tapper uncorked a lecture about how five Big Tech executives in attendance "control so much of the information that we receive."

Was that a warning? Or an expression of jealousy? The leftist media hate that the American people have gone around them for information, and they can't help but bitterly complain that when Republicans win, people have chosen "misinformation" over the golden chalice of information that is CNN.

Tapper warned: "We're about to enter an era of deepfakes, and all sorts of misinformation and the degree to which those five gentlemen play a role or do not play a role, will be pivotal in terms of where the American people are four years from now, in terms of understanding what is true and what is false."

So, he'll judge the American people by how they vote.

He said all this despite CNN just being found liable for defamation in a Florida courtroom for a nasty 2021 hit piece that appeared on "The Lead with Jake Tapper." In his testimony for the trial, Tapper claimed he didn't follow his own ratings, which no one believes.

Last December, CNN's Clarissa Ward appeared for 12 minutes on the Tapper show to reveal they had happened upon a prisoner in Syria's capital Damascus after dictator Bashar al-Assad was deposed. He claimed his name was Adel Ghurbal, but fact-checkers assessed his actual name was Salama Mohammad Salama, who was actually a lieutenant in Assad's air force. No wonder he was faking out CNN.

After airing the footage for the first time, Tapper gushed Ward's report was "just absolutely remarkable" and "another" case of "vital, vital journalism." Later, they had to admit: "We have subsequently been investigating his background and are aware that he may have given a false identity." CNN provided misinformation. So why are they arrogantly lecturing the Big Tech billionaires?

At Joe Biden's last State of the Union speech, where he bumbled and called the murdered college student Laken Riley "Lincoln," Tapper downplayed Biden's decline, a constant CNN spin for four years: "Um, his presentation, his enunciation, of course, is not as clear as it once was a decade or two ago. His mind did seem fairly sharp!"

Just 10 days after the Hamas holocaust of Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, Tapper delivered fake "breaking news" that the Israelis had bombed a hospital and killed an estimated 200 to 300 civilians. That's what the Hamas terrorists ("the Palestinian government") claimed. Anderson Cooper noted it could have been a Hamas rocket that fell short, but Tapper quickly shot back: "Yeah, I know. I mean, this is always a very difficult situation, because right now, we have reports of hundreds killed and there's no reason to doubt that."

There was every reason to doubt that. It was a Hamas rocket, and it was a Hamas hoax. It's not unfair to argue Tapper found Hamas more credible than he finds American conservatives.

Days later, as the truth came out, Tapper shamed the Arabs for believing Hamas, asking his colleague Christiane Amanpour: "If it is true that the Israelis were not responsible, then what does that say of the willingness of these Arab leaders to just automatically believe whatever the Palestinians say even if what they're saying isn't accurate?"

That's shameless stuff.

CNN loves to call Trump a "convicted felon," and now they are "convicted defamers." They didn't just fail in one isolated story. They fail often enough to suggest they should be humble and not prancing around lecturing other people about misinformation.

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Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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