As the month of August wraps up, the cable news outlets are all touting their ratings and claiming to have had a record month. 

CNN is crowing about their ratings and especially touting Don Lemon and Anderson Cooper's shows on the network. 

But, a closer look the Nielsen ratings, shows that CNN might be cheating a bit when it comes to the ratings. 

As Hurricane Harvey was bearing down on Texas on Friday night, CNN went wall to wall with news coverage. But the network did not code their special coverage as Hurricane Harvey coverage, but rather CNN Tonight.

By doing that, they bolstered the net ratings for Don Lemon's show. 

And that wasn't the only time they did that in August. 

When President Trump gave his prime time address about the strategy in Afghanistan, CNN coded it as AC360 instead of the speech. Again, this helped prop up Anderson Cooper’s ratings.

Then CNN turns around and brags what great ratings Cooper and Lemon are pulling in. 

This is why you rarely see FTVLive report on the cable news ratings. Networks like CNN manipulate the numbers and then shout "Look at our ratings."

It's almost like that news is.....ummmmmmmm.....Fake. 

Just saying....