An attempted terrorist attack caused massive chaos during Monday morning’s rush hour in New York City, but some CNN viewers could be in the dark because the network spent an inordinate amount of time covering an anti-Trump story about the president’s soda consumption while details of the chaotic situation unfolded.
At 8:45 a.m. ET a law enforcement official told reporters, including the Associated Press, that a man had a pipe bomb strapped to him when it went off on a New York City subway platform. That was roughly the same time that CNN was in the middle of a segment that featured the chyron, “NYT Report: Trump drinks a dozen diet cokes per day,” while a large graphic promoting Tuesday’s Election Night in Alabama took up a significant portion of the screen.
Viewers quickly took notice. Media crisis guru Yossi Gestetner tweeted, “More than an hour after the pipe-bomb story broke, CNN was busy with Trump’s diet Coke,” while another viewer asked, “Why are you talking about this!”
8:45, more than an hour after the pipe-bomb story broke, CNN was busy with Trump’s diet Coke. Note the ticker at the bottom right of “NYPD responding” pic.twitter.com/x2miM3LnLm
— Yossi Gestetner (@YossiGestetner) December 11, 2017
“Astonishing how quickly CNN pivoted from NYC explosion to ridiculous story Trump drinking a lot of Diet Coke,” Newsbusters Senior Editor Rich Noyes tweeted.
