As a conservative citizen activist residing in San Diego, I have always been impressed with the news coverage of KUSI’s wonderful team. Its reporters always gave us a fair hearing and covered our stories honestly.
So, it was with great interest that I read the story, which went viral, KUSI had offered CNN a reporter to give the cable news network perspective on the area’s functional and effective border wall…but was rejected.
A San Diego television station accused CNN of dropping an appearance by one of its reporters after learning that person’s reporting does not fit an anti-border-wall narrative — an allegation the cable news network denies.KUSI this week that CNN had asked whether one of its reporters could appear on the network and talk about the local debate surrounding the border wall and government shutdown.
In addition to the coverage on its news show, KUSI prepared a detailed article with videos on its previous coverage of the local barrier and how the immigration crisis affects the San Diego area.
We believe CNN declined a report from KUSI because we informed them that most Border Patrol Agents we have spoken to told us the barrier does in fact work.We have continuously been told by Border Patrol Agents that the barrier along the Southern border helps prevent illegal entries, drugs, and weapons from entering the United States, and the numbers prove it.
The story received a great deal of attention, especially after it was mentioned by President Donald Trump.
CNN responded, dismissing the charge as a “Non-story”.
The Associate Press claimed that KUSI was backing off its claims.
Now, KUSI is hitting back, disputing that is it backing off. News Director, Steve Cohen, issued a statement discrediting reports that KUSI has “backed off accusation” about CNN’s border wall coverage.
KUSI is standing by its reporting on its dispute with CNN after an article from the AP indicated their news director appeared to be backing off…. [The] AP ran a report headlined “TV station backs off accusation that CNN played politics.” Their report quotes KUSI news director Steve Cohen as saying, “It’s certainly plausible that they didn’t want it for the viewpoint, or they just didn’t want it. Both are plausible conclusions. I made one rather than the other.”However, KUSI is standing by its original reporting. After the AP report, Dan Plante––the reporter at the center of all this-–appeared on Fox News and criticized CNN for not wanting to hear the truth from them.
In the AP story, Cohen said he never spoke to anyone about CNN about why Plante wasn’t used.
“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.”
Between these two news organizations, I know which one I’m going to believe.
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