CNN's 'New Day' Stumbles After Ebola Gag on Twitter

October 16th, 2014 6:14 PM

TVNewser's Chris Ariens spotlighted in a Thursday post how the anchors and crew at CNN's New Day possibly had a little too much fun. Network senior producer John Griffin uploaded a picture of the morning show cast on Twitter sitting at their desk. Two unidentified men in medical scrubs with full face shields stood behind Alisyn Camerota, who is smiling; Chris Cuomo, is who covering his face with both hands; and Michaela Pereira, who appears to be horrified by the suited personnel.

Ariens asserted that the eyebrow-raising photo was "from the 'things not to tweet' file." He linked to a post at the Mediaite website, which contended that "the photograph seems especially tone-deaf, given the criticism of cable news as feeding hysteria over Ebola." They also reported that "Griffin took the picture, but then CNN brass immediately asked him to delete it."

Both TVNewser and Mediaite linked to the Inside Cable News blog, which noted that the senior producer's Tweet was deleted "within an hour or so…and not before New Day anchor Chris Cuomo RT'd [re-Tweeted] it." The website also put up a poll asking, "Mocking Ebola: A-OK or No Way? As of 6 pm Eastern, nearly 71% had voted "no way."

This isn't the first Twitter gaffe for the CNN morning newscast. Back in March 2014, New Day's official account had to apologize after erroneous Tweeting that soccer legend Pele had died.