Fox News and Bobby Jindal may have been getting all the heat for discussing non-existent “no-go zones,” but CNN’s Anderson Cooper has now had to apologize as well for passing the concept off as truth.
The admission is particularly ironic since CNN reported heavily on, and featured an exclusive interview with Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo who announced the city intended to sue Fox News for their inaccurate reports.
"I think if you are going to point fingers at other people’s mistakes, you should also acknowledge your own mistakes,” said Cooper, host of the network’s AC360. "In the wake of the Paris attacks, several guests on this program mentioned 'no-go zones' in France. I didn’t challenge them and twice referred to them as well."
"I should have been more skeptical," Cooper added. "Won’t make the same mistake again."
In a January 9 interview on Cooper’s program, Gary Berntsen, a retired CIA official referred to “no-go zones,” erroneously pushing the idea that there are entire urban areas in European cities under Muslim control where non-Muslims and police don’t even enter. Berntsen called them “enclaves that are completely separated from the government.”Earlier in the day, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo also perpetuated the “no-go zone” fiction when reporting from Paris.
“What’s happened in north Paris is not a secret,” Cuomo told Wolf Blitzer on-air. “We know there were riots there several years ago. There are what they call a ‘no-go zone.’ There are problems with policing, problems with dis-enfranchisement.”
Two guests the following day — CNN military analyst Maj. General James “Spider” Marks and retired NYPD detective Harry Houck — also referred to the “no-go zones.”
None of the references to or descriptions of what would amount to a severe, widespread breakdown of civil order was questioned by the CNN hosts. Though none went so far as Fox news guest Steve Emerson, who claimed that the entire British city of Birmingham was “totally Muslim.”
