SATIRE (unless it isn't)
THE HOAX FILES · 39
Koi-Gate: Zoom In, Crop Out
Feeding koi fish, cropped until it looked like a crime.
CNN
CNN showed Trump dumping fish food. The prime minister of Japan did it first, and the shot cut him out.
As printed on the graphic:
Trump Killed Japanese Koi Fish Hoax
What they sold
November 6, 2017, Akasaka Palace, Tokyo. President Trump and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe feed koi. CNN posted a video framed tight on Trump as he dumps the rest of his box into the pond. The internet ran with it: the boorish American who can't even feed fish properly.
What the record shows
Wider footage shows Abe dumping his box first. Trump followed his host. Mediaite: "'Koi-Gate': CNN Falls for Misleading Trump Story About Fish Feeding Buffoonery." PolitiFact: "Donald Trump and the fish food dump: How early reports got it wrong." Snopes and NPR set the record straight too. As for the graphic's "killed koi" line, FNN found no evidence any fish died. The joke ran on the idea that he'd overfed them.
The damage
FNN analysis: it's the smallest story on this list and maybe the most telling. Nothing was at stake, and the crop still happened. If the framing gets bent over fish food, readers wonder what happens on the stories that matter. Gallup's 2017 trust: 41%, still in the 30s and 40s, years before the collapse.
Closer
They cropped out a prime minister to dunk on fish food. Fish food. Wake up.
Sources
CNN receipt link coming