A day after three CNN staffers have resigned in the wake of an erroneous report last week linking a Trump ally to a Russian investment fund CNN has another Russia coverage scandal to deal with.
A new video capturing a man identified as CNN Health supervising producer John Bonifield is not going to make the man’s boss (Jeff Zucker) happy.
“Just to give you some context,” Bonifeld says in the recording, “President Trump pulled out of the climate accords and for a day and a half we covered the climate accords. And the CEO of CNN said in our internal meeting, he said good job everybody covering the climate accords, but we’re done with that, let’s get back to Russia.”
Bonifeld acknowledged at another point in the video that the Russia investigation “could be bullshit. I mean, it’s mostly bullshit right now. Like, we don’t have any big giant proof.”
Indicating that the reason for the unending coverage of the Russia investigation was ratings, Bonifeld added that “[CNN’s] ratings are incredible right now.”
The resignation on Monday of the three staffers involved in the false report followed frantic efforts by CNN to clean up after the mess, retracting the story with a statement that “story did not meet CNN’s editorial standards and has been retracted. Links to the story have been disabled. CNN apologizes to Mr. Scaramucci.”