CNN Spokesman Slammed for Mocking ‘Standard’ Journalism

WFB: Corporate communications gurus are supposed to solve problems. CNN spokesman Matt Dornic transcended the bounds of his job description on Wednesday by needlessly creating one.

Dumbfounded journalists pounced on Dornic after he attempted to shame a Fox News reporter for practicing “standard” journalism by reaching out to potential sources.

It began when Dornic derisively posted screen shots of innocuous LinkedIn messages sent by Fox News reporter Brian Flood to CNN employees requesting interviews and accused the reporter of trolling for quotes.

“After all these years of covering CNN, Brian still has to troll LinkedIn for anonymous quotes (from employees of literally any department) to use in his hit pieces,” Dornic tweeted. “We’ve been forwarded over a dozen of these in the past 24 hours.”

Mainstream journalists were shocked that Dornic, the official spokesman for a self-described news network, would react in such sneering fashion to a reporter reaching out to sources for comment.

“This is a …totally normal way to report,” wrote Ben Smith, media columnist for the New York Times. “Possibly not at CNN? But certainly everywhere else. Not a lot of people at Fox who do original reporting, but don’t really get the objection.”

Heather Kelly, a Washington Post reporter who previously worked at CNN, concurred. “This [is] a way reporters get sources,” she wrote. “It’s a tool I and many other reporters at CNN would frequently use to do our jobs.” read more