WHAT ELSE IS CNN HIDING?

Iconoclast ^ | April 12, 2003 | Stephen Rittenberg

[clintonbaiter]

April 12, 2003: In Friday's New York Times Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive, wrote an op-ed piece that must surely be a prime candidate for this year's Moral Idiocy Award in Journalism. He tells, with a mixture of pride and self-pity, how pained he was for having to deceive CNN's world-wide audience for twelve years about how bad the Saddam regime really was.

He tells of knowing about assassinations, inhuman brutality, pervasive terror on a par with Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany, but not breathing a word about this to the world at large. He visited Baghdad thirteen times. "Each time I visited, I became more distressed by what I saw and heard -- awful things that could not be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff."

Instead of closing down CNN's Baghdad Bureau, he and the rest of the journalists at CNN decided that it was better to go on broadcasting to the world a fairy tale about Iraq. Making us think that Iraq was just another misguided little Arab country that doesn't know any better.

I've heard Big Lies before but this makes Goebbels look like a rank amateur.

Jordan's ridiculous rationalization for not telling the truth about what kind of regime Iraq really was -- that he wanted to protect the staff safety -- wouldn't pass muster with anyone with a shred of journalistic responsibility. All he had to do to make his staff safe was to fire them and close the Bureau, then assign one or two individual reporters to keep their ears open for a couple of years, and then have them come home and write their story -- the true story of the regime.

What possible journalistic value could broadcasting half-truths, lies and varnished news have? The net result is that CNN succeeded not in informing its public but in dis-informing it. CNN's stupid policy of news access at all costs -- even if it's not news -- has dealt its own credibility a serious blow....

[equus]

You know, you seem to have no compassion or feeling for a man whose own staff would be murdered if he went public. He would have needed government support in such a case. He can only go public now. If he did not give this information to our government, privately, I would be concerned. As has been often said, there is much the public doesn't know. And perhaps shouldn't know. That's what government is for in situations like this.

Lighten up a little and try and open your heart rather than defaulting to your brain's little party line. These are human beings--all of them.

[MightyMouseToSaveThe Day]

Are you serious? Those of us who are outraged with CNNs admission don't need to "lighten up". You need to get some moral fiber. You think moral culpability starts/ends with telling the government? What about personal accountability? Why do you think CNN should be absolved from moral and ethical behavior. It's nonsense to say that CNN had no other choice than to perpetuate lies for 12 yrs. Ill-informed nonsense and typical of liberals' defense when confronted with unethical actions. CNN took the easy way, the expedient way, out of a difficult moral dilemma. They could have closed up shop in Iraq, removed their staff from harms' way, and written their expose 12 yrs ago. Why didn't they? Simply because they cared more about getting a oneup on the other networks and making money.

[kitkat]

Your recap of the NPR broadcast with Eason Jordan is great. Good catch. Thank you.

[MightyMouseToSaveThe Day]

Here's what I don't understand: this admission is so damning, why did CNN feel the need to reveal it now--especially when they've successfully kept the secret under wraps for 12 yrs? What benefit did Jordan expect to derive from this late-breaking confession? Enlighten me?

[KingKongCobra]

He was cleansing his soul. I sense that he can not sleep well with his demons.

[Cicero]

"THE LIBERAL MEDIA DOING A MEA CULPA!"

That's not how I read it. Ask yourself. Why would this turkey make such an open admission in the New York Times? The obvious answer is that CNN wants access in Iraq in the future, and therefore needs to butter up the new government when they come into office The first step in that direction is to say that they never really liked Saddam all that much, but they stayed in Iraq in order to do as much good as possible (gag).

This way he gets all the bad news out right away and can use the next year or two to get into the good graces of the Iraqis--he hopes. Watch Howell Raines start to butter up the Iraqis too. He wants access for his reporters, and needs to undo any bad will caused by the Times's negative twist on the war.

[Cicero]

See # 26.

[Vision Thing]

What else is CNN hiding?

I'm sure they'd like to hide their dwindling ratings from their advertisers.

[Husker8877]

"...CNN took the easy way, the expedient way, out of a difficult moral dilemma. Why...? Simply because they cared more about getting a oneup on the other networks and making money..."

They had one other MAJOR reason: If they told the truth, it would benefit GWB (and the republicans in the 8 years of the Clinton morasse). And that was something that they would not do at ANY expense.

God, I hate the Clintons and what they tried to do to this country!

[spodefly]

If Al Gore was president, CNN could happily continue on with their Bagdad Bureau filing year-upon-year of stories about Saddam's birthday parties, the wonderful Iraqi "elections", and the many great Socialist triumphs of his regime.

[okie01]

"I would think after the confessional no one would take anything CNN had to say as newsworthy fact. In my view they are finished. They slit their own throat with this expose'."

You are correct. CNN did themselves irrepairable damage by issuing what amounts to a confession of journalistic deceit.

So, ask yourself, "Why did they do it?" Eason Jordan is, himself, an Executive VP. His mea culpa had to be approved at the very top. These are not stupid people. Arrogant, perhaps, but not stupid.

They are obviously engaged in damage control -- via the Clintonian device of releasing dirt on themselves before somebody else digs it up.

If they felt the need to take this hit, there is an even bigger one somewhere out there that they are absolutely desperate to avoid.

There is Cuba, of course. There is also China...

[GeorgiaYankee]

Here's what I don't understand: this admission is so damning, why did CNN feel the need to reveal it now--especially when they've successfully kept the secret under wraps for 12 yrs? What benefit did Jordan expect to derive from this late-breaking confession? Enlighten me? >>>>>>>>>


My opinion:
One word: PRE-EMPTION. Eason Jordan was not the only one who knew this. CNN Baghdad bureau staffers knew it, including the Iraqi staffers who were kidnapped and tortured. He needed to put the story out before them, WITH HIS PROTECTIVE SPIN!! This was DAMAGE CONTROL, not a soul-cleansing confession.

[Cookie123]

This guy did not operate in a vacuum, that's for sure. WHO in the AOL/TIME/CNN hierarchy - with their extensive ties to the Democratic Party and the Clintons - was authorizing this approach to news-gathering in Iraq?

[Saundra Duffy]

Is this story being reported nationally? The American people have a right - and a need - to know. CNN was helping Saddam to keep the people of Iraq - and the whole world - in darkness about his evil deeds. CNN has blood of the innocents on its hands.

[aruanan]

WHAT ELSE IS CNN HIDING?

Well, there was all that stuff about the Clintons back in the 90's.

[PhilDragoo]

Megaphone for a Dictator
CNN’s Coverage of Castro’s Cuba, 1997-2002 Executive Summary
May 9, 2002

Five years ago, CNN became the first U.S.-based news organization with a full-time news bureau in communist Cuba in nearly 30 years. As an independent and highly-regarded news organization, CNN’s mission was to transmit the reality of Castro’s dictatorship to American audiences. In 1997, then-White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry told reporters that “reporting of truth about the conditions in Cuba would further...peaceful, democratic change in Cuba.” CNN officials also had high hopes. Incoming Havana bureau chief Lucia Newman assured viewers “we will be given total freedom to do what we want and to work without prior censorship.”

CNN’s Havana bureau now has a five-year track record that can be evaluated, and the results are not good. Media Research Center analysts reviewed all 212 stories about the Cuban government or Cuban life that were presented on CNN’s prime time news programs from March 17, 1997, the date the Havana bureau was established, through March 17, 2002. MRC’s analysis found that instead of exposing the totalitarian regime that runs Cuba, CNN has allowed itself to become just another component of Fidel Castro’s propaganda machine.

On FNC's Fox & Friends on May 14 Rich Noyes discussed the MRC's study of CNN's Cuba coverage, "Megaphone for a Dictator"

Major findings:

CNN gave spokesmen for the communist regime a major advantage, broadcasting sound bites from Fidel Castro and his spokesmen six times more frequently than non-communist groups such as Catholic church leaders and peaceful dissidents.

CNN’s stories included six times as many sound bites from everyday Cubans who voiced agreement with Castro and supported his policies than quotes from Cuban citizens disagreeing with the government. This left American audiences with the impression that Castro’s communist government is overwhelmingly popular among the Cuban public.

CNN provided very little coverage of Cuba’s dissidents, who were the focus of only seven of the 212 Cuba stories broadcast during the past five years, or about three percent of CNN’s total coverage. That’s fewer than half as many stories as CNN produced in just the first three months of 2002 about alleged human rights abuses by the United States against prisoners held at its base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

CNN also practically ignored Cuba’s lack of democracy, a topic which was featured in only four stories (or just under two percent). One of those reports, in January 1998, consisted of Lucia Newman trumpeting Cuba’s rigged election as superior to those in the U.S. because they have “no dubious campaign spending” and “no mud slinging.”

Much of CNN’s coverage of Cuba focused on the tiniest slices of everyday life, which created the sense that Cuba was basically a normal country, not one in the grip of a dictatorship’s secret security apparatus. Instead of focusing on the regime’s human rights abuses, CNN showed Cubans waiting for ice cream cones, profiled a promising young ballerina, and interviewed a 94-year-old guitar player.

On CNN, Castro was treated more as a celebrity than a tyrant. Rather than revealing the dirty secrets of his dictatorship to the world, CNN reported on Castro’s 73rd birthday celebrations and, in February 2000, featured the dictator’s office in the “Cool Digs” segment of CNN’s Newsstand.

The MRC report concluded that “CNN could have used its unique bureau to add to the American public’s knowledge of the only totalitarian state in the Western hemisphere. But instead of enlightening the public about the regime’s repression, CNN’s Havana office has mainly provided Castro and his subordinates with a megaphone to defend their dictatorship and denigrate their democratic opponents.”

If CNN is interested in improving its coverage, the MRC report included the following suggestions: 1) increase the amount of Cuba news; 2) commit to doing real investigative journalism in Cuba; 3) broadcast regular reports on the welfare and status of political prisoners held by Castro; and 4) promote the reporting efforts of Cuba’s independent journalists. But if CNN cannot or will not commit to improving its coverage, it should close its Havana bureau rather than perpetuate the fiction that it is helping Americans better understand the realities of Cuba under Castro.

[auggy]

"It is distressing to learn that CNN collaborated with Saddam Hussein in his brutality. They have the blood of thousands on their hands. "

Did you read the article. They didn't tell anyone, because they were ,"afraid" it would cause the deaths of Iraqis.?

They must think this let them off of the hook.Dum-bass Liberals.

[VOA]

bump

[Jorge]

Glen Beck really did a number on CNN for this on Friday. Wish I could have taped it!

[Yankee]

FOX news played a clip of Iraqi UN Ambassador Al-Douri leaving his residence for JFK to catch a flight for Paris.

At the very end of the clip, Al-Douri called out "Goodbye Richard, goodbye my friend", then walked up and exchanged kisses on both cheeks with a man that FOX identified as CNN reporter Richard Roth.

A picture worth a million words, IMHO.