It's wrong to cover up news about atrocities

New York Daily News ^ | 4/18/03 | A.M. Rosenthal

[kattracks]

When I became editor in charge of news coverage at The New York Times, the man who had been a predecessor of mine, the blessed Mississippian Turner Catledge, gave me one piece of advice: Don't tell editors of other papers and networks how to run their operations. You will have plenty to do running your own.

Now and then, I do complain about the press - usually for not giving its audiences enough reporting on human rights unless a dictator, as in Iraq, is slaughtering his people or, as in Sudan, enslaving them. Even when Saddam Hussein and his fascist party in Iraq are proven dead and buried, coverage of human rights in other tyrannies will likely remain paltry.

Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive, recently wrote an op-ed piece for The Times, infuriating editors and columnists throughout America. It was about a decision he made 12 years ago not to run a certain kind of human rights story from CNN's bureau in Baghdad - the torture of Iraqis.

"Each time I visited, I became more distressed by what I saw and heard," he wrote, "awful things that could not be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff."

One of the Iraqi cameramen working for CNN was beaten and subjected to electroshock torture in the basement of a secret police headquarters, Jordan wrote, because he refused to confirm the "ludicrous suspicion that I was the CIA's Iraq station chief."

In a letter to his staff on Monday after his decision became a controversy, Jordan listed three options he says he had:

1. Never tell such horror stories. 2. Tell the stories sooner, but more people would be killed. 3. Tell the stories after Saddam's downfall.

He chose option 3 and "could not imagine doing anything else."

His critics brought up another option - report the atrocities at the time and close the Baghdad bureau. He rejected that. He says the Iraqi police would have tracked down CNN's sources.

I called him and asked if he had anything further he wanted to say. He sent me a copy of his letter to the CNN staff. He felt it fleshed out the op-ed piece. I did not see much new flesh.

I thought of Tommy Atkins. He was a Polish Jew whose father managed to get him out of Poland on the last train before the German invasion. He joined the British Army and changed his name as an embrace of Britain. After the war, he returned to Poland to search down the men who had betrayed his father to the Nazis. He did not find them.

He was brilliant, witty and brave. He became a news assistant to the American correspondents of The Times in Poland. He gave us history lessons about Poland and was our interpreter and friend. One day, he did not turn up in the hotel room we used as an office. I drove by his home and saw a couple of secret police cars parked outside. The Polish government refused to tell me where he was incarcerated or what the charges were.

The crime turned out to be selling secondhand clothes his aunt had sent him from America - about as serious as spitting in the street. I talked to the editor of the major Communist paper, told him I knew he was also a colonel in the secret police and asked for help. He said he could not help me but not to worry - they were not beating him every day, even though he was a Jew.

After I was expelled from Poland - the Communist regime said I was probing too deeply into the government, party and leadership - he was freed. It was a signal to other Poles to stay away from foreign correspondents. Foreign friends smuggled him out, and he lived the rest of his life in America, heaven to him.

I have met torture victims of many dictatorships, including prisoners in the Soviet gulag. They all wanted their stories told, not filed away until the tyranny that persecuted them might be overthrown.

I think - I know - the CNN decision was terribly wrong.

Originally published on April 18, 2003

[Drango]

... I know - the CNN decision was terribly wrong.

Yes, but other than a few scattered columns such as this, the press has largely given them a pass on the issue...

NO BLOOD FOR RATINGS

[SkyPilot]

Kudos to A.M. Rosenthal. He is a very well known and respected man in journalistic circles.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

CNN now admits it's willing to cover up negative news about a regime in order to maintain access to the regime.

I wonder when CNN will open the clinton vault.

[fightinJAG]

The things is CNN is STILL reporting as if its not quite sure that Saddam Hussein committed atrocities, as if it's not quite sure the Iraqis might have been okay with continuing under the Butcher of Baghdad's tyranny.

[Conservative Me]

In a letter to his staff on Monday after his decision became a controversy, Jordan listed three options he says he had:

1. Never tell such horror stories. 2. Tell the stories sooner, but more people would be killed. 3. Tell the stories after Saddam's downfall.

---

Interestingly enough, he never considered the number of Iraqis that may have been saved, had Saddam's regime been overthrown sooner. Inciting public outrage is a sure-fire way to get things moving, i.e. Somalia (sp?).

[expatpat]

I wonder when CNN will open the clinton vault.

Excellent point!