Syndicated news giant CNN sent out a public apology for its article published on November 30 about the trial of Officer William Porter, the first of six Baltimore officers who will be going to trial for the death of 25 year old Freddie Gray in April.
The CNN article called Gray “the son of an illiterate heroin addict” when referencing Gray’s mother, who suffers from drug addiction. After the relentless backlash on Twitter, CNN retracted the article, apologized and said that the statement made in the article was taken out of context.
The article, written by CNN reporter Ann O’Neil, was described as “a mistake” by CNN President Jeff Zucker on behalf of the editorial team, who wanted to magnify Gray’s difficult past.
“The digital team removed it last night and inserted an editor’s note to be completely transparent. The editorial intent as the digital team has laid it out to me was to make clear he had a difficult upbringing. But clearly it did not come across that way when it was written and published. We recognize that. It did not work and we removed it. And were transparent about that. That was a mistake.”
