CNN's Donie O'Sullivan pushes back on ‘annoying' liberals who criticize ‘humanizing' Trump supporters
O'Sullivan said complaints from the left about humanizing such individuals miss the point and that he's grown tired of the backlash he receives from some liberal viewers.
'The thing I get a lot—a question that always normally comes from the left online—is, 'Why are you humanizing this person? Why are you humanizing this human being?'' O'Sullivan said during a wide-ranging conversation to promote his new podcast 'Persuadable.'
3 CNN correspondent Donie O'Sullivan is pushing back against progressive critics who accuse journalists of 'platforming' supporters of Donald Trump.
CNN
'I find it so… just… really… annoying!'
He also dismissed the idea that refusing to give air to false ideas has done anything to stop their spread.
'The platforming argument's just bogus because all this stuff is happening anyway,' he said.
Joining the discussion was CNN correspondent Elle Reeve, who has also spent years covering fringe movements and disinformation.
Reeve agreed with O'Sullivan's frustration over the 'platforming' debate and said the critique is both morally misguided and strategically flawed.
'I'm right there with you, dude! It's like, it's infuriating,' she said. 'Because one, it is wrong — obviously—on a top-level. We're all human beings. Dehumanization is bad. But two, it doesn't work. You lost. Look at the world. The idea that if you ignore it, it goes away has completely failed. The no-platforming concept has completely failed. It is totally bankrupt.'
3 O'Sullivan said complaints from the left about humanizing such individuals miss the point and that he's grown tired of the backlash he receives from some liberal viewers.
CNN
O'Sullivan said that approaching interviewees with a goal of changing their minds or proving them wrong is not only ineffective — it ends the conversation before it begins.
'If I want to have a constructive conversation… I just have to accept that they don't believe the 2020 election was fair. I have to accept that sometimes they think the COVID vaccine is a microchip going in under your skin,' he said.
'And if I get hung up on that, if I say, 'Well, no, you're wrong and here's why and I'm going to change your mind,' then that's the end of the conversation.'
3 O'Sullivan said that approaching interviewees with a goal of changing their minds or proving them wrong is ineffective.
CNN
Rather than confronting misinformation head-on in interviews, O'Sullivan said his approach is to understand the ecosystem that allows it to thrive.
'I've always been most interested in misinformation from a phenomena point of view — how it spreads, why people believe it, how people are making money off it,' he said.
'That's how I've approached it. I think so many of my colleagues in this space want to correct the record. It upsets them that people believe stuff that is false.'
O'Sullivan's three-part podcast, 'Persuadable,' debuts this week and explores how people form — and sometimes change — their beliefs in an age of information chaos.
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