CNN ignores its own role in spreading the "hands up, don't shoot" lie

That’s a lesson Don Lemon himself seems to have missed. Last August, when he was in Ferguson, he told viewers that there were rumors that there were many more witnesses who had not come forward because they were “afraid to speak out now.” But the interview Lemon ran with a Ferguson resident made clear he wasn’t talking about witnesses who feared spoiling the narrative being pushed by residents and CNN; he meant witnesses who feared the police. The DOJ report made clear that was not the fear that prevented reliable witnesses from coming forward.

The genuine fear experienced by witnesses is an aspect of the story which, until Stelter mentioned it Thursday night, has received scant coverage from the media. Maybe that’s because it so clearly implicates the networks who ran with the bogus story in the first place. It’s a topic that needs to be talked about more widely if CNN and others are to have any hope of avoiding the same pitfalls when covering similar racially explosive stories in the future.