Conservative supporters Margaret Thatcher expressed outraged on Monday after CNN marked the death of the the former British prime minister by airing a photo of her with former BBC television presenter Jimmy Savile, a suspected pedophile.
In a CNN Starting Point segment soon after the news of Thatcher's death broke on Monday, the morning show displayed the black and white photo of Thatcher and Savile appearing together at an event in the 1980s to support the NSPCC children's charity. CNN showed the photo at least four times during the five-minute segment.
Scotland Yard announced that in 2012 that it had launched an investigation about a year after Savile's death in October 2011 into allegations that he had sexually abused hundreds of children.
Wall Street Journal Social Media Editor Neal Mann noted on Twitter that CNN "obviously didn't get the memo" when it ran the photo of Thatcher with Savile.
"That is the picture CNN chose to run for Margaret Thatcher’s obituary? A pedophile?" Michelle Malkin's Twitchy website asked, accompanied by a list of tweets by conservatives slamming CNN's decision.
"Whoever's doing the Thatcher montage on CNN is either an idiot or a sly lefty. Repeated images of Thatcher with Pinochet and Saville...," David Tumilty wrote.