After crowing over Fox News’ series of awkward apologies for covering Muslim “no-go zones” in European cities, CNN was forced to eat crow over its own inaccurate coverage on the very same topic.
A string of Fox anchors apologized over the weekend for reporting on “no-go zones,” Muslim-dominated enclaves in cities like Paris and Birmingham where local laws do not apply and police are forbidden from entering. Those reports turned out to be inaccurate — no European country has allowed Muslim minority communities to exclude government and law enforcement officials.
Erik Wemple at the Washington Post noted how gleefully rival network CNN covered Fox’s faux pas. The network devoted serious airtime to Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo’s plan to sue Fox for “insulting” her city, and on Tuesday it even replayed some of Fox’s on-air apologies.
But at the same time as Fox was engaging in “no-go zone” chatter, CNN’s Anderson Cooper was interviewing guests (and fellow CNN correspondents) who were peddling the same false theory. The anchor not only failed to challenge his guests’ statements, but also referred to the zones himself.
“We’ve seen that in Sweden, obviously in England, here in France and as one of the guests earlier was talking about, there are kind of ‘no-go zones’ where police don’t even really go into,” Cooper said on January 9, two days after the Charlie Hebdo attacks. ”And again it does cut both ways.”
Cooper issued his own mea culpa Wednesday night after being called out by the Post:
“On Monday night on this program, we aired a report critical of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and Fox News for continually saying there were no go zones in England and elsewhere. I think if you are going to point fingers at other people’s mistakes, you should also acknowledge your own mistakes and we didn’t do that on the program. In the wake of the Paris attacks several guests on this program mentioned no go zones in France. I didn’t challenge them and twice referred to them as well. I should have been more skeptical. Won’t make the same mistake again.”






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