CNN SCRUBS TRUMP STORY: On Thursday, CNN published a damning report alleging ties between the President’s associates and a Russian investment fund. Last night, CNN pulled the story altogether with a complete retraction, not a correction. The original story said the Senate Intelligence Committee was investigating a “$10-billion Russian investment fund whose chief executive met with a member of President Donald Trump’s transition team four days before Trump’s inauguration.”

“That story did not meet CNN’s editorial standards and has been retracted,” CNN said in an editors note posted in place of the story. “Links to the story have been disabled.”

I’ve given many lectures about the difference between “fake news” and “wrong news.” Not everyone agrees with me, but I insist that one of the distinctions is accountability. Fake news sites never correct a falsehood, while news sites that get it wrong (as CNN did here) will correct or retract.

That’s not to downplay “wrong” news. A lie travels around the world before the truth is even out of bed, and often businesses and reputations are at stake, not to mention the notion of an informed electorate. People still think President Bush served a plastic turkey as a photo-op to troops in Baghdad, despite the New York Times correcting that canard albeit a week later.