As we all know, CNN likes to give non-stories prominent placement on its Web site — at the moment, for example, the fact that Tom Cruise and Matt Lauer argued on “The Today Show” this morning has one of the top slots. But one of today’s other efforts managed to take news that isn’t to a whole new level.
Here’s the story:
Oprah Winfrey, it turns out, went to the luxury store Hermes in Paris after it closed. Hermes didn’t let her in, and asked her to come back the next day.
Yeah, that’s about it.
But the incident put Winfrey in a snit and, even though Hermes subsequently half-apologized, she vowed to discuss the incident on her show. Why? One of her spokespeople suggested it was her “‘Crash’ moment” — “a reference to the film in which racism unfolds in complex, subtle and surprising interactions,” as the Washington Post‘s Robin Givhan puts it in her story on the matter.
We’ll grant that the racism charge gives the story some teeth — kind of — but, at the very least, if you’re going to do a story at all, you’ve got to get it right. And CNN didn’t. Consider this passage from the CNN.com story: “The New York Post, in its Monday Page Six gossip column, reported [Winfrey] was turned away because the store had been ‘having a problem with North Africans lately.'” (Allegedly, they said as much to Winfrey.) CNN follows that up with a denial from Hermes — classic “he said/she said” stuff. But, as Ghivan points out, the Page Six item was simply false. And not just according to Hermes — Winfrey’s people themselves have denied it. (CNN, like Ghivan, does mention that the store’s security cameras also disprove the Page Six story, according to Hermes.)
But why is the Page Six claim in the CNN story in the first place? Ghivan mentioned it as part of a meta-piece on the reaction to the incident, but CNN includes it in a straight news story — despite the fact that the claim has been dubbed false by all parties involved. There are some minor discrepancies between Hermes’ and Winfrey’s stories, but that ain’t one of them.
So as we deal with the end of the pro basketball season, we’d just like to thank CNN for its own version of a double-double: giving us a non-story, and then getting even that wrong. Admittedly we’re no Oprah, but next time we go out to the store and find that it’s closed, we’re gonna put out a press release and see what happens.
You never know. Wolf Blitzer might call.
–Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is a writer at CJR Daily.