CNN is losing viewers about as fast as the national debt is increasing. To combat this, CNN has sunk to a new journalistic low by swiping the charred personal journal of a dead Ambassador in the remains of the burned out compound in Libya without notifying the State Department or Administration officials. Instead, CNN and its dishonorable employees acted like a younger brother finding their big sister’s diary.

Just when the media learns it has the lowest respect rating in more than a decade, CNN finds a way to carve a little deeper into disgrace. To make it worse, the Stevens family asked CNN not to report on information found in the dead man’s diary – but of course CNN did it anyway. Anderson Cooper was part of the sick cabal responsible.

Family members and State Department officials said CNN agreed during the Sept. 14 conference call to hold off on using the diary until the family had a chance to review its contents.

But family members and U.S. officials were surprised when CNN anchor Anderson Cooper appeared to use the information from the journal by attributing it to a source familiar with Mr. Stevens’s thinking.

In that broadcast, Mr. Cooper said the ambassador was worried about security threats in Benghazi and said he believed he was on an al Qaeda hit list.

A spokesperson for CNN said the network didn’t report directly from the journal, but corroborated the information through other sources. Mr. Stevens’s purported concerns about his safety came as questions were raised by the Obama administration’s congressional critics and others about the adequacy of security in the area.

Mr. Cooper addressed the question of the journal and the CNN reports in his Friday evening broadcast. He disclosed the station had the journal and that some of the information he reported on Wednesday originated from Mr. Stevens’s personal writings.

The State Department was not happy with CNN’s actions:

Mr. Reines, Ms. Clinton’s adviser, said: “Given the truth of how this was handled, CNN patting themselves on the back is disgusting.” He said it took repeated prodding to get CNN to agree to return the journal. “When the seniormost levels of CNN were finally reached, they needed to be convinced to do the right thing.”

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Twitchy also has more on this.

So CNN has decided that a ratings boost is more important than any National Security concerns - since it didn’t bother to give a heads up to the State Department until they weeded through it - and, naturally, ratings ALWAYS come before decency. Keep it classy CNN.

Thanks to Jcoff for the heads up.

Update (LC): Linked by Hot Air and The Other McCain – thanks! Also linked by American Power – thanks!