CNN Denies Staging Muslim Demonstration Shot

On Sunday, London-based “anarcho-capitalist” @markantro took a video of what appeared to be CNN staging a Muslim demonstration and posted it on Twitter. According to @markantro, who witnessed the event firsthand, CNN was “creating the narrative,” a charge that CNN denies.

https://twitter.com/markantro/status/871419204846669825

Here is a non-lopsided version of the video shared by UK Daily Mail columnist and right-wing provocateur Katie Hopkins.

https://twitter.com/KTHopkins/status/871487298721992705

Here’s how the shot looked to the viewers:

https://twitter.com/KTHopkins/status/871625097064456192

CNN insists that the shot was not staged, but that the police had merely let the demonstrators go through the cordon to show their signs. A message Hopkins received from a source, however, seems to indicate otherwise.

https://twitter.com/KTHopkins/status/871667514744459265

There was a “Muslim Mothers” demonstration in London over the weekend. Sources told Mediaite they were already very near the location and the police simply allowed them to move behind CNN reporter Becky Anderson and the crew so they could get a good shot.

Via Fox News:

“This story is nonsense,” a rep for CNN told us via email. “The group of demonstrators that was at the police cordon was being allowed through by officers so they could show their signs to the gathered media. The CNN crew along with other media present simply filmed them doing so.”

A source with knowledge of the situation added that the network was part of an “assembled group of media” in the area where the shot in question occurred.

“You can clearly see at the beginning of the video on social media that a group of press photographers is asking the demonstrators to stand in front of them so that they can see them,” the source said. “There’s nothing sinister going on there.”