Just days after the Turner Broadcasting System CEO claimed that CNN "is a serious news network," it aired a childish report on "Anderson Cooper 360" about convicted murderer Amanda Knox, which appears to have been written by Amanda's parents. Next up: "The Charles Manson story, reported by Squeaky Fromme."
Amanda, you may recall, was charged, along with her Italian boyfriend and another of her acquaintances, of sexually assaulting and murdering her English roommate, Meredith Kercher, in Perugia, Italy, in 2007. Amanda and her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted, the convictions reversed and then the reversal reversed.
Among the evidence for her guilt is that the murder weapon was found -- freshly bleached -- in the apartment of Amanda's boyfriend with Meredith's DNA on the blade and Amanda's DNA on the handle.
CNN's case for Knox's innocence consists primarily of making snarky remarks about the prosecutor. This is going to be a long series if CNN plans on vindicating Knox by smearing all those who say she is guilty -- the judges, forensic scientists, police, the other man also convicted of the murder -- as well as the man falsely accused of the murder by Amanda.
According to CNN, the prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini, was a total jerk for diligently investigating Meredith's murder, proving he had caved to media pressure. Then -- his jerkiest move – he briefly fell for Amanda's lies.
Thus, according to CNN's Drew Griffin: "As the media circus grew, so did the pressure on police to solve the case. On the night of Nov. 5, the police interrogated Amanda all night and into the next morning."
Actually, Amanda didn't show up that night at the police station until nearly 11 p.m. for a voluntary interview with Raffaele. When she told the cops she was present during Meredith's murder and she knew who the murderer was, yes, they did want to chat a bit longer, the beasts.
CNN's Griffin: "It was during this session Amanda confessed she was at the house that night. Her boss, Patrick Lumumba, was there as well. At that point Amanda Knox officially ceased to be a witness. She became the suspect."
Manifestly, Amanda did not become "THE suspect": Patrick Lumumba did -- for the sole reason that Amanda had accused him of the murder. Griffin skipped over that detail with the strange statement: "Her boss, Patrick Lumumba, was there as well."
Except he wasn't. Only Amanda said he was.
Until that night, Amanda had been lying to the police, claiming she was at her boyfriend's apartment all night the evening Meredith was murdered. It was only when Amanda found out Raffaele was no longer backing her alibi that she turned around and accused an innocent man of murdering Meredith.
For anyone other than Amanda's parents and CNN producers, that would raise suspicions.
Griffin tries to soften the blow, claiming: "Almost immediately after police say she confessed to her crime, Amanda Knox recants."
Except she didn't. The next morning, she wrote out her confession from the night before. (Her story that night couldn't be used by the police because Amanda was not yet a suspect, only a witness, no different from the other friends and roommates voluntarily providing information to the police.)
Far from "almost immediately" recanting, Amanda again falsely accused Lumumba, in writing this time, and did not retract her story for the next two weeks as Lumumba sat in jail, waiting for DNA tests to prove him innocent.
Griffin: "She tells her parents she broke under stress. In court, she would tell jurors how a police officer struck her from behind, how she was denied water, food, a translator, and how she says under pressure by police she was asked repeatedly to dream up, imagine scenarios for how it could have happened."
No. 1: The police had absolutely no reason to pressure Amanda into fingering Lumumba, who had no connection to Meredith and would have been about the 160,000th person on any list of possible suspects.
No. 2: Is CNN aware that there have already been lengthy proceedings in this case? Had they checked the record, they would have discovered that Amanda dropped her claim in court about the police hitting her, her lawyers never filed a complaint about it, and Amanda is currently being sued for slander by the police for ever having made the allegation. (Maybe it was Lumumba who hit her!)
Next, Griffin goes into full sneer-mode at the idiocy of police for believing Amanda.
Griffin: "That's not all that wouldn't make sense because it turns out virtually everything Amanda Knox told her interrogators the night of her so-called confession was a lie. Amanda Knox in this statement told police she was in the house the night of the murder and saw her boss, nightclub owner Patrick Lumumba, and Meredith Kercher go into Meredith's room, and she heard screams. ... Police apparently didn't bother to check the facts about Lumumba."
The dolts! But wait -- what on earth is CNN talking about? The police promptly investigated Lumumba's alibi -- which, unlike Amanda's, held up -- and tested the DNA. They released him the day after the DNA evidence came in, clearing him -- but implicating another of Amanda's acquaintances, Rudy Guede.
On balance, isn't CNN's heroine Amanda a little more to blame for putting Lumumba in jail by falsely accusing him of murder? He certainly thinks so. In court, Lumumba's lawyer called her "Lucifer-like, demonic, satanic, diabolic," pursuing "borderline extreme behavior" and "devoted to lust, drugs and alcohol."
Guede, by the way, was later convicted, whereupon he said both Amanda and her boyfriend were involved in Meredith's murder.
But as Alan Dershowitz has said, the American media just adore Amanda -- at best, a liar and terrible person, at worst, a murderer -- because she's pretty.
That's how a "serious news network" operates.