Following yesterday's guilty verdict in the Steubenville Rape Case, several CNN reporters including Candy Crowley, Poppy Harlow and Paul Callan have come under some heavy criticisms for being sympathetic towards the co-defendants during their coverage, describing the students as "very good students" with "promising futures." CNN's post-verdict commentaries have been compared to a comedy sketch that aired in 2011 about an athlete who "overcame" rape charges and an online petition calling on the anchors to issue an apology has already broken 53,000 signatures on Change.org.
However, it is worth mentioning that CNN anchors are not the only people who have pitied the co-defendants. In the wake of this debate, the single topic blog Public Shaming has been highlighting dozens of tweets and comments on Facebook and Reddit from many others vocalizing their support of the boys.