KUSI Backs Off CNN Accusations

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On Friday, FTVLive told you that KUSI (San Diego) accused CNN of playing politics.

Now, it appears that have backed off those claims a bit.

KUSI in San Diego says that they got a call from CNN, asking them to provide someone to talk about the border? But, KUSI made the claims that since they were not going to give CNN the message they wanted to hear, CNN pulled the plug on the interview.

These claims were made in a story on KUSI’s newscast. In other words they did a story on CNN not doing a story.

Steve Cohen, KUSI’s News Director, said he told CNN that it might not want to talk to KUSI Dan Plante because his reporting has concluded that a border wall there has worked well, and that such a conclusion might not fit the cable network’s “narrative” against the wall. Cohen said he never got a call back and that is when he decided to inform KUSI’s viewers of the alleged rejection.

CNN said it had also reached out to reporters at other local stations about a possible segment but didn’t follow through when the plans changed. “This happens many times every single day,” the network said in a statement.

FTVLive agrees with CNN that stories plans change all the time and CNN has cited KUISI in other reports on the network.

But Cohen wanted to make sure his story fit his station’s narrative.

“It’s certainly plausible that they didn’t want it for the viewpoint, or they just didn’t want it,” he said. “Both are plausible conclusions. I made one rather than the other.”

Cohen did exactly what he accused them for doing and that was fitting the story to fit his station’s political leanings.

You can see the story that KUSI aired at this link.

H/T AP