CNN’s town hall on gun control and safety following the Parkland shooting received “fake news” backlash after Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivor Colton Haab claimed CNN tried to script his question. CNN denied these claims and said that the student’s father, Glenn Haab, sent doctored email exchanges between CNN and himself to media outlets. When the dust settled from this back-and-forth, it turns out Haab did, in fact, alter the emails.
Haab admitted to deliberately leaving out words in emails to CNN producer Carrie Stevenson that he sent to Fox News and Huffington Post, according to the Associated Press. After cries of “fake news”, CNN released the email exchanges between both parties as proof.
“It is unfortunate that an effort to discredit CNN and the town hall with doctored emails has taken any attention away from the purpose of the event,” the network said in a statement. According to Glenn Haab, he didn’t have any “malicious” intent by omitting the words.
As reported over the weekend, Colton Haab proposed questions to ask which included arming teachers. His father then emailed a four-page document with a roughly 700-word speech as well as a series of questions for his son to ask.
In the CNN version of the email, Stevenson states, “This is what Colton and I discussed on the phone that he submitted. He needs to stick to this.” Glenn’s altered version deleted the words “that he submitted” making it seem as though he was being fed a question.