ARCHIVE 11/10/07: How CNN Screwed Up With John Cena

How CNN Screwed Up With John Cena

Saturday, November 10th, 2007

The World Wrestling Entertainment website actually has the key element that my post of a few hours ago said would determine the magnitude of CNN’s gaffe in airing an out-of-context version of John Cena’s response to the question of whether he’s ever done steroids.

That element is the unedited video of the entire CNN interview – not just the question-and-answer on Cena and steroids. The video is there at http://www.wwe.com/inside/cenaoncnn/, and it establishes that CNN screwed up big-time. The interviewer didn’t lay a glove on Cena, and Death Grip: Inside Pro Wrestling represented the opposite. Cena and WWE aren’t angels but their beef is legitimate.

Upon viewing the two-minute-plus exchange on Cena and steroids, Bryan Alvarez, the respected editor of Figure Four Weekly, wrote, “… The comment about not being able to say he hasn’t [used steroids] but nobody being able to prove he has comes about halfway in. I think I understand what he’s trying to say, but boy, he sure could have phrased it better.” That was close to (though definitely more generous to Cena than) my own first reaction. (See http://www.f4wonline.com/content/view/4466/.)
Wrestling Observer Newsletter‘s Dave Meltzer, the dean of wrestling journalism, headlined his website item “Unedited footage shows CNN did an embarrassing job in Cena interview” (http://www.wrestlingobserver.com/wo/news/headlines/default.asp?aID=21274). CNN’s manipulation, Meltzer said, “sadly ruins the credibility of what was, for the most part, a well put together piece.” And Dave is right – more right than Bryan and a lot more right than me on this one.
What happened? That’s for CNN to answer. But my original speculation that Cena’s “Absolutely not” could have been a “poison pill” deliberately inserted at the start of a filibuster response was wrong. The simplest explanation is the most accurate: WWE independently taped the interview as insurance against an abusive edit. CNN was not set up, it simply screwed up, and the only mystery is why it seemingly proceeded with the ethically dubious version of Cena’s response without realizing that the powerful and resourceful WWE would effortlessly expose it.

On the substance of the Cena interview as a whole, CNN appeared to whiff by not going into detail on the nature of his injury, a torn pectoral, which is well known to be a common injury among steroid users and just about unheard of otherwise. That said, I doubt that the smooth Cena would have had difficulty turning aside a question about it.

The big irony, as Meltzer notes, is that the Death Grip producers could have left the entire Cena interview on the cutting-room floor (as they did approximately an hour and 59 minutes of my own interview from July) and not lost a thing. Everyone would still be talking about how CNN had nailed McMahon on the loopholes of the WWE wellness policy, instead of how CNN twisted John Cena’s words.