CNN Facts First ad: 'It's only a matter of time before someone gets hurt'

ajc.com

Credit: Rodney Ho

Credit: Rodney Ho

Posted Saturday, January 27, 2018 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog

CNN three months ago debuted a "Facts First" ad campaign featuring an apple and noting that people can't just say it's a banana.

Now they have flipped the idea with a banana peel, one that one could, um, slip on.

“Some people might try to tell you that this an apple,” the narrator says.

“It might even start as a joke.”

“But when they say it over and over and over again, and people start to believe it, it’s only a matter of time until someone gets hurt.”

This ad came out just a few days after a Michigan man was arrested by the FBI for making 22 threatening calls to CNN earlier this month, saying he planned to come down to Atlanta headquarters and shoot up some employees because they were "fake news."

CNN evening anchor Don Lemon laid the blame on President Donald Trump and his repeated use of the term "fake news" directed at CNN.

"We are not the enemy. We are not trying to silence you. It is the job of the free press to report the facts, to ask questions, tough questions, ones you don't like, even if you don't like the facts or those questions. No many times you attack us as fake news, we will continue to do our jobs. When you make that baseless and incendiary charge, people are listening to you, some very dangerous people."