CNN being sued for 1.3 billion dollars

I was looking through Reuters today and stumbled upon this article: http://www.reuters.com/article/televisionNews/idUSPEK30866720080424

CNN is being sued $1.3 billion – one dollar for every person in China – for allegedly making remarks that offended the Chinese people.

A Chinese primary school teacher and a beautician have filed the suit against the big Turner Broadcasting-owned media company stemming from Jack Cafferty’s comments made regarding the Chinese government.

Cafferty said the United States imported Chinese-made "junk with the lead paint on them and the poisoned pet food" and added: "They're basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years".

I can only say, “Wow!” Have we not learned anything from attacking a group of people over the years. CNN is backing up Cafferty’s comments, pulling out the “opinion card” and saying that the comments were about the government and not the people. But if this was the case, then at the time he should have made that clear. What’s even worse is that these comments comes amid the Olympic and Tibet controversies. Bad timing right?

This doesn’t mean that you can’t talk about these critical issues, but it also doesn’t give somebody the ability to rant on about a subject without facing the heat. Make sure you know what you are saying and who you are saying it too.

The Chinese Ministry is asking for an apology, and whether CNN chooses too take that route is still undetermined. But this could potentially end up blowing in CNN’s face