EXCLUSIVE: The Daniel Dale Plot Thickens — CNN REALLY Doesn't Want You To Think They're Sidelining Him
When Burning One Reporter Failed, They Gaslit Another
Hey, remember about 2 weeks ago when I observed that CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale hadn’t been on the air to fact-check Trump for 3 months? And CNN wouldn’t say why?
Well, that wasn’t the full story — they just wouldn’t say on the record.
And me being a good guy, I didn’t use the stuff I was told before we made the off-the-record agreement. After all the fervent phone calls and vociferous things I couldn’t say, I asked how much of it I could use, and they were like none of it.
So even if I technically could have used some of it, I never want anyone to feel burned — so I didn’t.
This is what I wrote, in part:
It has been over three months since Dale fact-checked Trump on the air. The reason I noticed is because Dale makes for good content, and I hadn’t seen him in awhile, so I checked several online resources.
When I discovered the gap, My first thought was that it would turn out to be something like a leave of absence or some kind of medical issue, but the fact that he’s been racking up several fact checks per week online sort of argued against that.
Still, I reached out to CNN just to see if there was some ready explanation, and they declined to provide any information on the record.
I also went on Jim Acosta’s show to talk about it:
Fast-forward almost 2 weeks, and Oliver Darcy’s Status took my research and confronted CNN about it. Fun fact: Natalie Korach used to work at Mediaite with me for a hot minute, and she cited my reporting in her article.
Only this time, CNN felt compelled to give a statement:
The timing may be entirely coincidental, and CNN flatly disputed any suggestion that Dale has been sidelined as an effect of the merger. “There is no truth to this,” a CNN spokesperson said in a statement to Status. “Daniel is a multiplatform reporter whose regular fact checks of the President are an important part of CNN’s political coverage. Like all CNN reporters, his on-air appearances are determined by the news of the day—any suggestion otherwise is false.”
They gave the same statement to my colleague Sarah Rumpf at Mediaite. The suggestion in question — which I never made and still have not — is that Dale was sidelined in order to protect Paramount’s planned merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s parent company.
So here’s the exclusive:
