CNN slammed for treatment of Biden sexual assault allegations after old Larry King clip surfaces

CNN, which has already drawn fire for its reluctance to cover a claim of sexual assault against Joe Biden, failed to uncover its own archive footage in which his accuser’s mother called into Larry King’s old show in what some critics are calling “journalistic misconduct”.

The Intercept reported earlier that Tara Reade said her late mother once called into CNN’s “Larry King Live” to discuss her daughter’s “experience on Capitol Hill,” where the alleged encounter with Biden took place. Reade didn’t recall other information, such as the date or even year and The Intercept managed to dig up a transcript of the call, but not the video.

Tucked away among hundreds of thousands of hours of old archive footage was the long-forgotten clip which came to light Friday.

But rather than CNN’s team of investigative reporters, it was the Media Research Center’s NewsBusters, a conservative group that seeks to expose liberal bias, who exhumed the footage from its own vault.

“It’s truly despicable that this footage existed and yet CNN failed to do its own due diligence within its own archives,” NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck told Fox News.

CNN didn’t even mention the tape’s newfound attention during its Friday night primetime lineup. CNN’s “Reliable Sources” newsletter didn’t think it was worth including, either.

#BREAKING: HERE is the video from August 11,1993's 'Larry King Live' described by @TheIntercept (and Tara Reade) as allegedly featuring her mother calling in and alluding to Reade's sexual assault claims against @JoeBiden (blog here by @ScottJW) https://t.co/fCgEqBnX7n pic.twitter.com/V5FGHskv56

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) April 24, 2020

CNN has largely ignored Reade’s claims, drawing criticism from media watchdogs that often contrast it with how the liberal network handled allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh with hundreds of stories and countless segments. CNN finally published its first story on Reade’s claims on April 17, weeks after they were made, when correspondent MJ Lee framed the story as Democratic leaders and allies of Biden being “asked to respond to an allegation” against the 2020 Democratic frontrunner.

“Perhaps they thought doing the bare minimum with help from the horribly biased MJ Lee would have done the trick and made the concerns about their on-air silence go away,” Houck said. “Now they’ve poured gasoline on the fire. Once again, we see a case of how the worst kind of media bias is the bias that you don’t see, or bias by omission.”

The resurfaced CNN clip from 1993 appeared to show Reade’s mother alluding to “problems” her daughter faced while working as a staffer for the then-Delaware senator. Reade later told Fox News it was indeed the voice of her mother on the clip. Biden’s presidential campaign has adamantly denied Reade’s allegations but the video could be cited as evidence supporting Reade’s allegation – even though her late mother, in the clip, does not specifically refer to a sexual assault claim.

CNN did not immediately respond to a series of questions, including whether the network knew the footage existed.

“Larry King may have had the biggest scoop of his CNN career this evening … And it’s an open question whether his former employer will say a word about it,” New York Post reporter Jon Levine tweeted.

Houck credited The Intercept’s report and the MRC’s “truly exemplary TV news archive” for being able to locate the clip so quickly.

“While unsurprising given how fundamentally unserious of a network CNN has become, it’s gratifying for the MRC but shameful for CNN that they hadn’t unearthed this long ago,” Houck said.

DePauw University professor and media critic Jeffrey McCall told Fox News that The Intercept reporter Ryan Grim “used to work for the Huffington Post, so he is presumably not some sort of Republican or conservative operative pushing a smear on Biden,” but he blasted CNN for its clear bias.

“That CNN couldn’t pull this clip out of their own archives, even after Reade mentioned it in a recent interview, seems to demonstrate that CNN just lacks hustle to investigate this story or just wants to keep the story buried,” McCall said. “Either way, this comes off as journalistic misconduct.”

Biden has made multiple appearances on CNN since Reade came forward, but anchors Anderson Cooper, Brooke Baldwin and Jake Tapper have all ignored Reade’s during separate interviews.

Read more