CNN Yanks Story After Reporter Claims ISIS Flag Was Seen At London Pride

[kpete]

There must be some red faces today at CNN. Earlier in the day a CNN reporter in London filed a report about an “ISIS” flag spotted at a gay pride parade in London. It later turned out that the black and white flag, which did vaguely resemble the terrorist group’s banner — from a distance — but upon closer examination (upper right corner) it turned out to be a mock-up full of images of sex toys. CNN has since taken the video down and there is no mention of the story, although if you search for “gay pride” on CNN’s web site you’ll find an item headlined ‘Woman says she spotted ISIS flag at gay pride parade’ next to an image from the video but when you click on the link the page says “This video is no longer available.” You can, however, watch a version of the video posted on YouTube:

http://deadline.com/2015/06/cnn-yanks-report-on-isis-flag-at-gay-pride-parade-1201460692/

...........

CNN quietly removed the story from its site but the below mirror of the clip has gained over 700K views since last night.

A man trolling the violently homophobic Islamic State at a London gay pride event got extra troll points Saturday for duping CNN. CNN reporter Lucy Pawle was at the event when she stumbled upon that man, who to her bewilderment, everyone seemed to be ignoring. Turns out his fake “ISIS flag” was made up of images of dildos, Mediaite discovered. Pawle tells CNN anchors that she was leaving work when she happened upon the annual London Gay Pride festival. She was shocked to see a man dressed in black and white carrying what she called “a very bad mimicry” but a “very clear attempt to mimic the ISIS flag.” Taking a closer look, she could tell the writing was not Arabic. No one else seemed to be concerned about it, so she went to the event organizer and the police, both of whom seemed to brush her off.

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2015/06/cnn-yanks-story-after-claiming-isis.html

[BumRushDaShow]

1. The internet is forever. That has already gone viral. nt

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. And it was the topic of a screamingly funny thread here on DU yesterday....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026914423

CNN got rightfully punked by both the over eager reporter and the guy who made the flag.

[BumRushDaShow]

13. Yeah - That's where I first saw mention of it

and posted there...

It's a perpetual problem with them trying to be "first" with a news story and far too often getting it wrong due to their biases and attempt to find something that can be spun. And then ironically, when they do wait to "confirm" a report of a potentially news-worthy story, they end up waiting so long to finally report on it, that the event is no longer "breaking".

[Sunlei]

2. I see a lot of future primary political fun with the tiny pictures on twitter and cell phones.

[DeadLetterOffice]

3. Twitter was awash with this yesterday.

I mean seriously, how can you mistake this for Arabic???
https://twitter.com/BuzzFeed/status/614908054346309632/photo/1

[Fred Sanders]

4. CNN. No apologies, hide the evidence of the fearmongering agenda. So Fox of them.

Jeff Zucker is also all in on fearmongering using Islam as the new Constant Enemy...it is evil.

Again.

In Canada the media has no problem giving voice to those that see that agenda, including leading politicians.

Cowardly of political leaders not to say the same in America, a far worse nation and media charged deliberately with politically incited Islamaphobia.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-politics/justin-trudeau-rolls-dice-in-accusing-stephen-harper-of-deliberately-fostering-prejudice-against-muslims#__federated=1


Michael Den Tandt: Trudeau stakes a claim for pluralism and liberty

Monday evening in Toronto, Justin Trudeau delivered a 40-minute speech in which he attempted to provide a coherent, internally consistent philosophical frame for all his future policies and decisions. It was, essentially, a manifesto. It’s fair to say that no Canadian politician has delivered a speech quite like this, in recent memory.

De facto, Trudeau is attempting relieve the Conservative party of what remains of its intellectual high ground. In the process of calling out the Harper government for what he flatly termed anti-Muslim fear-mongering, the Liberal leader provided the most complete account yet of his political aspirations and motivation. Conservative partisans should not be surprised to discover that, once again, he has an eye to grabbing their lunch money; this time, the ideal of individual liberty itself.

[Kber]

5. She clearly needs to get out more

On an only slightly serious note, wtf would CNN send a reported to cover a cultural event who so clearly knows so little about the history and current state of gay culture?

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. They didn't send her; she said she saw the march by chance, as she was leaving work

And then saw the flag, took a couple of photos with her phone, and called CNN without having thought things through.

She went off half-cocked (sorry, couldn't resist the pun).

[jberryhill]

8. That was A lie, incidentally

She saw a tweet of it, asked where it was, and then headed out to "find" it. That was also in her Twitter timeline last night, if she hasn't scrubbed it by now (along with her initial denial of the report when it was pointed out to be nonsense).

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. To give Pawle her due, she was retweeting the people telling her about the dildos

So she's not trying to brush her mistake under the carpet.

[jberryhill]

9. Her reaction was... Mixed

check this and replies....

https://mobile.twitter.com/lucypawle/status/614852983784886272

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. Someone addressed her denial of having reported it:

@lucypawle
Oh honey, you must be new to the Internet. We screenshot & save things elsewhere. It's on YouTube


Lol...
Closing your eyes and yellling nonononononono does not make things go away in real life, esp in the Internet....

[jberryhill]

14. It's not clear what, specifically, that was in response to

The user to which she was responded as been deleted, so we don't know specifically what she was denying.

However, her report of having stumbled onto it is simply not true. She was alerted to it by another Twitter user.

[Orrex]

12. The best part IMO comes at about the 0:13 mark

When the intro commentator falters as though she's just now seen the flag for the first time and instantly recognized the imagery, but she knows that she has to go on with the story.

Magical!