If you haven’t been keeping up with the never ending war between CNN and President Trump, you may want to strap yourself in for the most recent debacle. (which one, right?)

On July 2, President Trump shared a video of an old guest appearance he had on WWE, the World Wrestling Entertainment.

In this video, President Trump can be seen beating down WWE owner Vince McMahon, in classic wrestling fashion, but with a very specific twist — the CNN logo was photoshopped on McMahon’s face.

Now, many disagree with him sharing the video, saying that it’s in “poor taste” or that it’s “unpresidential,” and of course CNN believes the same and more.

In response, CNN went on a tirade of news segments, calling the president a “wimp” and labeling the twitter post as “an incitement to violence.”

The president remained bulletproof during the CNN backlash, and it seemed the news organization was running out of options — that is, until it decided on doing something that crosses a line that no journalist should ever go beyond.

CNN decided to hunt down the originator of the video, an anonymous Reddit user, and find out all of his personal information.

They held his identity over his head as blackmail, threatening to bring it out into the public in a twisted, media-led witch hunt.

The following is what was posted on the CNN website:

“CNN is not publishing [his] name because he is a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology. . . CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.”

Now, I want everyone to pay very special attention to the last part of that article because I’m going to call it what it is — it is an underhanded incitement to harassment.

Let me explain; I am very familiar with internet culture, and on the internet, the tactic of revealing an anonymous user’s personal identity is called “doxxing.”

The goal of doxxing is typically retribution, harassment or humiliation.

Of course, once the victim’s personal details are publicly revealed, there’s no telling what other internet users may do with them.

Nobody knows this more than CNN, who have run segments on the dangers of doxxing.

In one article, CNN calls doxxing a tactic “in which trolls use public platforms to threaten someone’s safety by exposing personal information.”

And yet here they are, doing the exact same thing.

They maintain that they reserve the right to publish his identity, which is true, but the important part is why they would want to publish his identity.

Reading back over the article, the reason becomes very clear — they want to discourage others from speaking against their news network.

And here is where I want to make my point. This isn’t something that only affects CNN’s credibility, it puts a blemish on the integrity of journalists everywhere.

The media has enough trouble these days with trust, and with the blatant act of blackmail that CNN has committed, it only fans the flames of that distrust.

We, as journalists, have a responsibility to the people. We are at their service, providing them with relevant, and important, news.

We are not the mafiosos who threaten the lives of private citizens. Our job is to report accurate news in a fair and unbiased manner.

Many people will hate us as journalists, even going so far as to threaten our lives, but we are supposed to stand strong against the opposition, take it on the chin and continue on reporting.

CNN wasn’t reporting the news; they were quite literally hunting down a man who whimsically opposed them, and they successfully silenced him, blurring the line of ethical journalism with blatant disregard for the first amendment.

This has caused a divide between the media and the public, making our jobs that much harder and making it difficult to inform the public with accurate news. Where do we, the honest reporters of the world, go from here? We are forced to apologize for the actions of one media giant, because we are guilty by association of the career field.

I can tell you all this: I will never stoop to that level. Upon choosing this career, I made a commitment to work for the people. And I can only hope that journalists everywhere will see the actions of CNN, and completely stand against it.