Thirty whole minutes of hardcore pornography – that turned out to be CNN’s Thanksgiving special, much to the shock of viewers who had tuned in to watch ‘Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown’.
This was a story The Independent carried on Friday that was widely shared on social media.
According to The Independent, the scheduled programme was replaced with half an hour of ‘adult entertainment’ starring transsexual film star, Riley Quinn.
The Independent cited a tweet by Twitter user @solikearose:
The user has since made their profile private, citing ‘weirdos sending hate mail in the wake of #bourdainporn’ as their reason.
Now while jokes about Anthony Bourdain and his ‘unknown parts’ began doing the rounds on the internet, there may be a chance the story was incorrect to begin with.
According to The Independent, only viewers in Boston witnessed this gaffe, perhaps by RCN, a local cable TV provider that transmits CNN's broadcasting in all of the east coast in United States.
Another publication, The Verge, however pointed out that the original story, highly cited by subsequent publications, was based solely on @solikearose’s tweet. RCN responded to the tweet to say they had received no such reports from the area.
In a statement, RCN said they were looking into the matter, but had not found evidence of any such tampering:
We are in the process of researching this incident but see no evidence our CNN network feed was compromised last evening in Boston.Jeff Carlson, SVP and general manager of RCN Boston
CNN too released a statement blaming RCN for the supposed mishap.
The RCN cable operator in Boston aired inappropriate content for 30 minutes on CNN last night. CNN has asked for an explanation.
However, there seem to be no reports – other than the initial tweet that is now inaccessible – that the incident ever occurred. Social media chatter surrounding the incident is largely based on The Independent’s story and not on first-hand experience.
Other news publications too carried the story, but with the same details.
Whether or not The Independent’s report is accurate, The Verge’s stance does raise a pertinent question – is this is how fake news spreads?
(With inputs from The Independent and The Verge)
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