This Thursday’s CNN town hall had quite an emotional ending with Anderson Cooper ranting about “the phony online outrage machine”.
Why the outrage you ask? Because CNN invited Greta Thunberg as a guest to the coronavirus town hall.
Naturally, inviting a climate change activist who is no way qualified as an expert in science or a medical profession (Thunberg hasn’t even finished high-school) ended up attracting widespread criticism and pushback from viewers.
During the segment, CNN ended up criticizing President Trump wherein Cooper said that the US president must listen to scientists and “liberate” them.
Viewers quickly pointed out the fact that CNN itself had to listen to scientists and avoid bringing unrelated celebrities and teenage activists on a platform that wasn’t intended for them.
Not only did CNN shoot itself in the foot by inviting Thunberg to the COVID-19 town hall, it made matters worse when Cooper had a meltdown at the end of the show.
Ever since word came out that Thunberg was going to be a part of the town hall, several people ended up criticizing the decision on the internet.
Addressing the obvious criticism for inviting an environmental activist to the town hall, Cooper expressed no solid viewpoints or arguments that support CNN’s decision to call on her, instead suggesting that people weren’t really criticizing CNN and saying that the outrage was fake.
After the taped interview with Thunberg played, Cooper went on to do the exact opposite of what you would expect from an impartial news network.
Cooper ranted, saying, “So, we taped that interview earlier today, as I mentioned, and I just wanted to take a moment to point out a kind of surreal, absurd drama that played out over the last 24 hours online and amazingly in some reputable news sources.”
He then went on to complain that “someone with a blue check on Twitter saw the initial ad and was outraged and claimed that we had booked Greta Thunberg to be an expert on a coronavirus panel with other health experts”.
Diverting the topic to Trump, Cooper said, “Then, of course, Donny Trump Jr. jumped into this, which is weird because I thought he was allegedly running whatever remains of the Trump Organization. I mean, shouldn’t that, like, a really busy job since it’s, you know, allegedly such a great company.”
