In a segment not likely to be seen often in the world of battling cable news outlets, Fox News anchor Shepard Smith defended his employer’s rival CNN over president-elect Donald Trump‘s charges that they’re a “fake news” organization.
“President-elect Trump today told CNN’s Jim Acosta that his organization amounts to fake news. CNN’s exclusive reporting on the Russian matter was separate and distinctly different from the document dump executed by an online news property,” Smith said, referring to CNN’s reporting versus that of BuzzFeed News, which released the entire contents of a Russian dossier that contained details of unverified “personal and financial” information that could potentially compromise Trump.
“Though we at Fox News cannot confirm CNN’s report, it is our observation that its correspondents followed journalistic standards,” Smith continued. “Neither they, nor any other journalists, should be subjected to belittling and delegitimizing by the president-elect of the United States.”
On Wednesday, CNN issued a statement responding to Trump’s comments, which he made during his first press conference as president-elect:
“CNN’s decision to publish carefully sourced reporting about the operations of our government is vastly different than BuzzFeed’s decision to publish unsubstantiated memos,” CNN’s statement said. “The Trump team knows this. They are using BuzzFeed’s decision to deflect from CNN’s reporting, which has been matched by the other major news organizations.”
“We are fully confident in our reporting,” the statement continued. “It represents the core of what the First Amendment protects, informing the people of the inner workings of their government; in this case, briefing materials prepared for President Obama and President-elect Trump last week. We made it clear that we were not publishing any of the details of the 35-page document because we have not corroborated the report’s allegations. Given that members of the Trump transition team have so vocally criticized our reporting, we encourage them to identify, specifically, what they believe to be inaccurate.”
As DeadState reported on Wednesday, CNN’s Jim Acosta tried to direct a question at Trump, before it devolved into a shouting match.
“Since you’re attacking us, can you give us a question?” Acosta asked.
“Not you, not you, your organization is terrible,” Trump shot back. “I am not going to give you a question. You are fake news.”
After he shut down Acosta, Trump took a question from Breitbart, a website connected with the “alt-right” that regularly publishes false stories.
Watch Shepard Smith’s comments in the video below:
Here’s what Shep had to say about @realDonaldTrump ‘s criticism of the media #TrumpPressConference pic.twitter.com/92umEbMjD3
— Shepard Smith (@ShepNewsTeam) January 11, 2017
Featured image via screen grab
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