Barbara Walters took CNN’s Don Lemon to task on Monday’s “The View” over CNN’s highly rated but heavily critiqued coverage of the missing Malaysia Flight 370.

“You’ve covered this more than any other story that I can remember!” Barbara Walters exclaimed. “CNN would not do this if it were not for the ratings.”

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Lemon, who was serving as a guest host on the program, defended his reporting.

“I think you’re probably right, but the audience interest is there,” Lemon countered. “I don’t know if we would do it just for the ratings; we do a lot of things that don’t rate well, but we still do it.”

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“I think it is a mystery when you have something as big as a giant ‘triple seven’ disappear in this day and age with so much technology where everything is tracked and have no trace of it for five weeks,” he added.

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