Ex-CNN producer calls for network to ‘step in’ and stop Don Lemon’s ‘dangerous’ rhetoric
Lemon suggested every American is in danger of getting shot at any time
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}[Editor's note: This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255)]
A former CNN producer urged his former employer to "step in" and stop Don Lemon from "offensive" and "dangerous" rhetoric on the heels of the tragic mass shooting at a Boulder, Colo., grocery store that left 10 dead this week.
The left-wing host said Tuesday all Americans were at imminent risk of death during a partisan screed calling for more gun control.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Every single one of us is just playing the odds at this point. The odds that in a country of 325 million souls that we won’t be the ones who get hit by the next bullets that start flying. We won’t be the one that gets that phone call about someone you love who did. That phone call that changes your life," Lemon said as CNN’s on-screen graphic matched his spoken words.
"But with every deadly shooting in this country, the odds get worse and worse. Are you really willing to keep playing those odds? Haven’t we learned after this year of pandemic, a year of loss of life, isolation, mass death of nearly 550,000 Americans that life is just that precious? If not now, when? When will we ever learn? I don’t want to have to say those words again," Lemon said as he took long, drawn-out pauses between words for dramatic effect.
Former CNN digital producer Steve Krakauer took notice and called for his former employer to "step in" to make Lemon stop spouting "dangerous" rhetoric.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Someone at CNN needs to step in. This hyperbole isn’t just offensive, it’s actually dangerous," Krakauer wrote.
CNN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Krakauer weighed in when NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck blasted Lemon in a series of tweets that specifically singled out the "insane" on-screen graphics during the CNN host’s melodramatic monologue.
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"I know I say it all the time, but I'll say it again -- with people like Don Lemon in such a prominent position, if you're on the right, CNN truly hates you. They hate what you think, how you vote, and how you live your lives," Houck wrote to accompany images of chyrons that said, "Too many on the right don’t have the courage to stand up for our lives, but they’ll take away for vote," "As pandemic restrictions are being lifted, the mass shootings are starting again and America is mourning again" and "Why are we willing to tolerate an obscene loss of life?"
"But Don Lemon is totally a journalist, you guys," Houck sarcastically wrote to caption another image of a CNN chyron that declared, "The 2nd Amendment doesn’t require us to submit to a lifetime of mass carnage."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Houck also took particular exception to Lemon's remarks about "playing the odds."
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Lemon later urged viewers who might be dealing with mental health issues to call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Houck blasted the move as "absolutely insulting."
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"As someone who's struggled with depression and suicide, it's offensive for Don to so callously say in this chyron that ‘every single one of us is just playing the odds at this point,’" Houck wrote. "Before a break, Don brings up the National Suicide Prevention Line....absolutely insulting."