BLUB, BLUB..BURP..BLUB, BLUB, BLUB...JANE WHO?
Posted on 04/12/2003 3:59:15 AM PDT by kattracks
Edited on 05/26/2004 5:13:17 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
April 12, 2003 -- CNN exec Eason Jordan's stunning admission that he withheld information about Saddam Hussein's atrocities drew a scathing response yesterday from media watchdogs and Iraqi opposition groups.
Jordan, CNN's news chief, wrote an op-ed piece in yesterday's New York Times about horrors he learned of - but didn't report - when he visited Baghdad "to lobby the government to keep CNN's Baghdad bureau open and to arrange interviews with Iraqi leaders."
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Howlin, we're probably both right. I forgot about "The Bill Clinton/Lanny Davis Technique"...report something bad with your spin on a Friday so you can claim it's old news when the real facts come out.
Thanks for reminding me...
You are wrong.
fwiw
...and unfortunately, in just about every airport in America.
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ping list.
BLUB, BLUB..BURP..BLUB, BLUB, BLUB...JANE WHO?
Besides it wasn't HIP to protest atrocities during the Clinton administration. </sarcasm>
CNN sold it's journalistic soul for the privilege of serving as part of Saddam's propaganda machine. You can give kudos to Eason Jordan for coming clean if you want to. Not me. He did it on a Friday when the news will die on the vine. He did it in a letter to the NYT, not on television, and without having to be questioned. He makes an mid morning puffball appearance on CNN, and instead of the same "soul cleansing" tone in the NYT letter, he makes himself almost heroic, for caring so deeply about the safety of CNN employees.
Granted, other news organizations might have had to play footsie with Saddam over the years, but none of the others I know of, were willing to then present the anti-war point of view, the bash Bush position with such impact. This Mr. Jordan, and CNN could have easily found ways to present the truth of the Saddam regime through surrogates, if they had chosen to do so.
The fact that CNN honchos all through the 90s, were big time FOBs, and the fact that CNN was concealing the brutal truth of Saddam's regime which allowed Clinton to escape having to deal with it militarily, shouldn't escape us. No doubt, Bill Clinton knew all about CNN in Baghdad.
And I think it's totally illogical to presume that CNN reporters didn't know what was going on. Peter Arnett, Christianne Amanpour, and the lesser known reporters and CNN staffers in Iraq most certainly were in on the fix. From CNN corporate headquarters, they had to have been told what to report and what not to report. No one ever quit in protest, did they? If there had ever been any doubt about Arnett and Amanpour's political leanings, we know now. They probably didn't raise an eyebrow when told not to report atrocities..hellsbells, they probably agreed with the policy for their own political reasons!!
Why did Eason Jordan come forward now? He had to, and he's doing it to protect CNN as well as himself. Now that other news organizations are incountry, CNN's part in the Iraq story was bound to come out sooner or later. They don't know yet whether Baghdad Bob will be caught and who knows what he might confess, or what he might say about his close friends at CNN.
Your projectionism won't work. Nice try though.
No he didn't. He could have kept quiet about it, and so would all of the others... CBS, ABC and all of the rest bowed down before Saddam to get their reporters visas, because the news business is so competitive.
You think CBS didn't have to kiss up BIG TIME to get that interview with Dan Rather? They all did it. CNN was merely the first to 'fess up about it.
Do you really believe the US government didn't know all about this, that they had to be told by CNN?
Have you ever seen The Godfather? Ask yourself if you were a reporter interviewing a mob guy whether you'd report on stuff you were expressly told not to mention, knowing full well that these guys know your name, and where you work, and where you live, and the names and ages of your kids, and who all of your friends are...
When your own personal safety might be at stake, you might tend to make some irrational decisions.
Most networks aren't showing this part but at the begining of Combover's "I heart New York" goodbye speech in front of the Iraqi UN Mission, he thanked CNN. Fox news said they're glad he didn't thank the FNC. They said it's like a badge of honor.
About six floors above Arraf's set, not far from her office, sits the ministry's monitoring section, where rows of apparatchiks in headphones listen to recordings of Western broadcasts from Iraq. One TV reporter who glimpsed the operation four years ago describes the listeners transcribing the tapes by hand, with passages critical of the regime written in red. The ministry stores the transcripts in files, which are pulled out and analyzed when journalists apply for visas.
Look, I understand that some people the need to bash CNN, above all others. I really do. But, since the (dis)Information Ministry was keeping a history on everybody over there, everybody was kissing up. For years. It was not unique to CNN, their Baghdad Bureau notwithstanding.
Now that the regime is over with, CNN is first out of the gate to admit it. Personally, I think it took a certain amount of humility and guts to do that. They could have pressed on with the cover-up.
Did Eason Jordan try to tell the sons-in-law?
I was. Good catch!
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