The Babylon Bee, a faith-based satire website, has been accused of producing fake news by CNN anchor, Donnie O’Sullivan.
O’Sullivan took issue with The Babylon Bee’s witty article on the Iranian military general, Qasem Solemani, claiming that many that shared the article are unaware that the piece is satire.
The headline of the article in question is: “Democrats Call For Flags To Be Flown At Half-Mass To Grieve Death Of Solemani”
The article received 500,000 shares on Facebook.
O’Sullivan tweeted: “To put this in perspective, this is the same number of engagements the top NY Times and CNN stories on Facebook had over the past week. A lot of people sharing this ‘satirical’ story on Facebook don’t know it is satire.”
The anchor goes on to suggest that the Babylon Bee only classifies itself as satire to “get around a lot of the changes Facebook has made to reduce the spread of clickbait and misinformation.”
The Babylon Bee’s Editor-In-Chief responded to Donnie’s criticism by mentioning CNN’s rampant editorializing and their tendency to push a partisan narrative writing:
“The glory of CNN suddenly being concerned about clickbait and misinformation is worth basking in for a moment. I truly believe these people just don’t understand humor pointed at them and assume it must have some ulterior motive.”
Donnie O’Sullivan is not the first CNN anchor to accuse The Babylon Bee of having ulterior motives. CNN anchor Brian Stelter wrote on Twitter: “Babylon Bee is a fake news site. They call it ‘satire.'”
