Atlanta group protests CNN coverage of Trump

People demonstrated against CNN news coverage Saturday in Atlanta. RHONDA COOK / RHONDA.COOK@AJC.COM

People demonstrated against CNN news coverage Saturday in Atlanta. RHONDA COOK / RHONDA.COOK@AJC.COM

About 30 people gathered outside CNN's Atlanta headquarters Saturday to protest the network's coverage of President Donald Trump.

“Beware fake news” and “CNN. Criminal News Network” were some of the messages they delivered to people walking nearby and to fellow political conservatives watching the demonstration via live feed on Breitbart.com.

The protest was the second recently held outside CNN’s headquarters in downtown Atlanta.

This time it was joined by The Media Equality Project,  a group started recently by two former talk show hosts, who are friends with conservative commentator Sean Hannity.

One of the organizers — Debbie Dooley, co-founder of the Tea Party activist group Main Street Patriots — said her group was outside CNN a month ago and would be back in August and September.

“We’re going to keep on holding them accountable,” Dooley said.

She said the demonstration was not necessarily to show support for Trump but to call attention to what they see as “biased” coverage of  the president, the investigation into Russia’s meddling in last year’s elections, and Trump’s policies.

"We're here to tell CNN no more fake news," said another organizer, Melanie Morgan of the Media Equality Project. "They have to know people who are here expect fairness in journalism."

She had a list of people CNN has allegedly wronged — former Trump aide Monica Crowley and Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke.

Also, they cited stories they think were unfair. They were the tracking down of the Reddit user who created a wrestling GIF that the president retweeted, and the Russian collusion story that CNN retracted and which resulted in some CNN employees resigning.

CNN spokeswoman Bridget Leininger declined to comment on the protest.

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