The Babylon Bee is an openly satire site. CNN is not, but it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference.

CNN has been racing to the ratings bottom for years now, and their latest ridiculous attacks on the satiric website the Babylon Bee are sure to help them along the way.

The wildly popular Christian satire site has come under fire from CNN before, but this time, it’s CNN that reads like satire.

It all started with an article the Bee, a self-described “Trusted Source For Christian News Satire” site, published that poked fun at the Democrats’ reaction to President Trump ordering the strike on Iranian terror master Qassem Soleimani.

The satiric piece entitled Democrats Call For Flags To Be Flown At Half-Mast To Grieve Death Of Soleimani is hilarious, and like all good satire, it works because it’s an exaggeration of something that is actually happening.

CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan read a tweet about how popular the piece is and immediately took issue with the Bee. It seems, much to his and CNN’s chagrin that the Bee‘s article received more social media engagement than top stories at the New York Times and CNN had over the course of a full week.

To put this in perspective, this is the same number of engagements the top NY Times and CNN stories on Facebook had over the past week. A lot of people sharing this "satirical" story on Facebook don't know it is satire. https://t.co/HnDjuqw2si — Donie O'Sullivan (@donie) January 5, 2020

Normal people do not find this surprising . . . except perhaps the fact that the NYTimes and CNN have their stories shared half a million times over the course of a week.

Having a disclaimer buried somewhere on your site that says it’s “satire” seems like a good way to get around a lot of the changes Facebook has made to reduce the spread of clickbait and misinformation. — Donie O'Sullivan (@donie) January 5, 2020

I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. O’Sullivan seems to be engaging in some sort of wild conspiracy theory. The Bee is “burying” the fact it’s a satire site to circumvent Facebook rules in order to do what exactly? And for whom? Tinfoil hat territory here.

The data I pulled on Facebook engagements is from @BuzzSumo btw — Donie O'Sullivan (@donie) January 5, 2020

The problem, of course, is that the Bee is immensely popular on the right, so it must be crushed.

Interestingly, O’Sullivan doesn’t seem to have the same problem with the Onion.

After all, as Babylon Bee founder Adam Ford pointed out, people often are mislead by Onion articles, too, and think them real until they learn they are satire.

“A CNN reporter is taking shots at the Bee because our articles get shared a lot and some people think they’re real (which will always happen with satire). After thinking ‘how adorable,’ I thought, ‘well surely this guy has chirped at the Onion for the same thing…” Babylon Bee founder Adam Ford responded. “There are websites dedicated to chronicling reactions from people who think Onion stories are real. Foreign leaders have famously been fooled by Onion articles. And this guy’s bio says he ‘covers disinformation’ for CNN. Surely he has taken the Onion to task as well, yes?” He continued, “As it turns out, Mr. O’Sullivan HAS tweeted about the Onion. But it looks like he’s quite the fan!”

As it turns out, Mr. O'Sullivan HAS tweeted about the Onion. But it looks like he's quite the fan! https://t.co/MMLRP8J8n0 pic.twitter.com/8iFA3CQlHi — Adam Ford (@Adam4d) January 6, 2020

The response to O’Sullivan’s Twitter meltdown has been hilarious.

I can't believe this thread isn't satire. https://t.co/CX3bcJcg9T — David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) January 6, 2020

why is a CNN reporter having a public meltdown over a satire site — Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) January 6, 2020

You guys should definitely keep focusing your energy on Babylon Bee and people sharing a joke article is in no way a reflection of the garbage state of your profession. https://t.co/FuzhjfcpPg — Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) January 6, 2020

Following 15+ years of beloved and acclaimed Jon Stewart-style "news" shows, it is fall-down-funny watching people get their knickers in a twist now over a single conservative satirical website. https://t.co/uhQkYAUBKi — ?'? ? ??????? ???? (@BecketAdams) January 6, 2020

The only difference between Babylon Bee and CNN is that the Babylon Bee knows it’s a parody. https://t.co/NlaVVjXfgp — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) January 6, 2020

This is a point that the Bee picked up,too, with its recent post entitled “CNN Attacks Babylon Bee: ‘The Internet Is Only Big Enough For One Fake News Site’.”

[Featured Image: YouTube]



