Thursday, April 6, 2017

CNN reporter lies about Rays attendance

For the last few months, I have capitalized on the trend of "fake news" and created some levity among my twitter followers by calling uninformed tweets about the Rays and Rays fans "#fakeRaysNews". It's been a fun little hobby and no one has gotten too upset about it.

On opening day, however, I actually did share the woe of President Trump when I found a CNN reporter tweeting fake news about the Rays. In the opening innings of the opening day game versus the Yankees, CNN Washington DC correspondent Phil Mattingly tweeted this:




The game was a sell-out. Opening Day at Tropicana Field drew 31,042 fans. One can quibble about who which fan was there to see, the Rays or the Yankees, but the bottom line is, they were there.

Mattingly's tweet was uncalled for and intended to mislead. It is a lie. It is untruthful and coming from a respected media source, it is fake news.

It is one thing when a Red Sox fan or an Orioles fan tweets trash talk about the Rays. But to see an uncalled for comment from a CNN reporter is unusual. I am not sure Mattingly's baseball preference, but he shouldn't talk trash about other teams on his professional twitter account.