If you’ve been watching CNN at all over the last 24-hours, you’ve no doubt heard the audio clip purporting to be the exact moment Michael Brown was shot by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, MO. This morning, CNN had two former law enforcement officials on the program to comment on the validity of the audio. They were skeptical.
“I’ve told your producers that for all I know this is one of Howard Stern’s punk people,” former LAPD officer David Klinger said. “It came out, what, two weeks after the event, and so I don’t have a high degree of confidence in it.”
“But, it could be real,” he added without much enthusiasm.
Klinger noted that his first inclination is “someone is trying to punk CNN.”
CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes seemed to share Klinger’s opinion. He left open the possibility that the audio, which to him sounded dubbed, may have been manipulated by CNN’s producers before it was aired.
“My producer says that’s all we were given,” Pereira said.
“When I heard this yesterday, I thought the exact same thing: it’s a hoax,” Fuentes added.
He went on to note that, even if the tape is real, it supports the claims of both Brown and Wilson’s supporters and is not of much evidentiary value.
CNN used to be authoritative. Now, they’re just one of many mainstream news organizations trying to be first with everything, even it it’s fake.