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Does CNN's Christiane Amanpour deserve the Lowell Thomas Award?
March 12, 2009 | Stella L. Jatras

Posted on 03/14/2009 6:47:13 AM PDT by Ravnagora

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Dear Mr. Massie,

My husband and I met Lowell Thomas in 1980 when my husband was the Senior Air Attaché in Moscow. Lowell Thomas had been invited by our then U.S. Ambassador Thomas Watson, Jr. (IBM). At the time, Lowell Thomas was 88 years old and got up from his sick bed to speak to us at the Ambassador's residence. He was wearing a brocade Chinese jacket that he had acquired during his early years in China. I don't have to tell you that Lowell Thomas had interviewed Lawrence of Arabia, in Arabia - having coined that phrase. What is interesting in my case, is that my husband, after he retired, and I spent the next eight years in Saudi Arabia. Lowell grew up in Cripple Creek, Colorado, and when we visited the museum there, it dawned on my husband and me that, like Lowell Thomas, besides having been in Cripple Creek, we had also been to Moscow and to Saudi Arabia. I consider having met Lowell Thomas to be one of the most high points of my life.

I recently came across Christiane Amanpour's receiving the Marist College Lowell Thomas Award in 2008, and this is the real reason I am writing to you I hope you will bear with me regarding Christian Amanpour's receiving the Lowell Thomas Award since many of us are particularly sensitive as to her reporting on the Bosnian and Kosovo conflict.

I remember how horrified I was when CNN's Christiane Amanpour showed every hour on the hour, the two Muslim babies on a bus in Sarajevo that had been killed by a Serb sniper which occurred in 1993. I would never have known the truth had I not been watching France 2 TV where they showed the funeral of these innocent babies. Officiating was a Serbian Orthodox priest. These were not Muslim babies killed by a Serbian sniper; rather they were Serbian babies killed by a Muslim sniper but for American consumption, the Serbian Orthodox priest had been cropped from the video. It was then I realized that I was being lied to and it was then that I became very active in bring the truth to the American people. Therefore, I ask that you go to www.yahoo.com and type in my name, Stella Jatras.

In violation of International Law, the NATO Charter and without the approval of the U.S. Congress, NATO, at the urging of President Clinton, bombed tiny Yugoslavia that did not have weapons of mass destruction, never attacked us nor was it ever a threat to us. Furthermore, the bombing was based on atrocities alleged to have been committed by Serbs but in reality had been committed by Bosnian Muslim forces, many of whom were trained in Osama bin Laden's terrorists camps.

I leave you with the following quotes:

"This organized anti-Serb and pro-Muslim propaganda should cause anyone believing in democracy and free speech serious concerns. It recalls Hitler's propaganda against the allies in World War II. Facts are twisted and, when convenient, disregarded." - Yohanan Ramati, Director of the Jerusalem Institute for Western Defense. (I am still in contact with Mr. Ramati who lives in Jerusalem although his health if failing him)

"The gigantic campaign to brainwash America by our media against the Serbian people is just incredible, with its daily dose of one-sided information and outright lies....What is today's reality? The murderers of Jews, Serbs and Gypsies are back (in Croatia) from the U.S., Canada, Argentina where they fled after World War II. The Serbs fought the Nazis, they paid a terrible price for standing at the side of the allies against Hitler. Humanity owes them a debt of gratitude." - John Ranz, Chairman of Survivors of Buchenwald Concentration Camp, USA.

We have done a grave injustice to the Serbian people, our ally of two worlds wars; an ally that rescued over 500 downed American airmen in World War II at great sacrifice to themselves - and what was their reward? We bombed innocent Serbian civilians based on images that were shown such as on CNN. Because of the anti-Serb bias shown by the media, I am reminded of the following: "The Financial Times of London, on 11 July 1998, wrote: "Want to start a war? Better yet, want the U.S., Britain, France, NATO, the United Nations on your side? Call in the cameras . . . it lies in those magic initials CNN, NBC, BBC."

Unfortunately, Ms. Amanpour was and continues to be part of the anti-Serb and pro-Muslim propaganda and in view of that, I believe that Lowell Thomas would be very disappointed for Ms. Amanpour to have received an award bearing his name.

Please understand that I am forwarding my comments to you as a matter of information.

Best regards,

Stella L. Jatras

________________

Below is the press release in the fall of 2008 announcing the award.

http://www.marist.edu/publicaffairs/index.html?id=396

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR TO RECEIVE MARIST COLLEGE LOWELL THOMAS AWARD

POUGHKEEPSIE - Christiane Amanpour, chief international correspondent for CNN, is the recipient of the 2008 Marist College Lowell Thomas Award. Amanpour will be honored at a luncheon at the Metropolitan Club in Manhattan on November 14.

"Christiane Amanpour's legacy of reporting reflects Lowell Thomas's explorer's spirit," said Marist College president Dennis J. Murray. "Both have been willing to go to the far corners of the world to tell the stories of people and places that are not known or are not familiar to us. Both have a willingness to go to dangerous, war-torn countries to deliver the news of the day and help us understand the nature and toll of war."

Amanpour is CNN's chief international correspondent based in New York. In her 18 years as an international correspondent, Amanpour has reported on all the major crises from the world's many hotspots, including Iraq, Afghanistan, the Palestinian territories, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Somalia, Rwanda, the Balkans, and the United States during Hurricane Katrina.

Amanpour joined CNN in 1983 as an entry-level assistant on the network's international assignment desk in Atlanta. She worked her way up to correspondent in CNN's New York bureau before becoming an international correspondent in 1990. Her first major assignment was the Gulf War, and she has since covered wars, famine, genocide and natural disasters around the globe.

Amanpour has secured exclusive interviews with world leaders from the Middle East to Europe to Africa and beyond, including Iranian presidents Mohammad Khatami and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as well as the presidents of Afghanistan, Sudan, and Syria, among others. After 9/11 she was the first international correspondent to interview British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

Her body of work has earned an inaugural Television Academy Honor, eight News and Documentary Emmys, four George Foster Peabody awards, two George Polk awards, three duPont-Columbia awards, the Courage in Journalism award, an Edward R. Murrow award, and other major journalism awards as well as honorary degrees from the American University of Paris, Georgetown University, New York University, Smith College, Emory University, and the University of Michigan.

In 2007, Amanpour was made a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for her "highly distinguished, innovative contribution" to the field of journalism. In 1998, the City of Sarajevo named her an honorary citizen for her "personal contribution to spreading the truth" during the Bosnia war from 1992 to 1995.

Amanpour graduated summa cum laude from the University of Rhode Island with a bachelor of arts in journalism.

This is the 20th presentation of the Marist College Lowell Thomas Award, which recognizes outstanding individuals in the communications industry whose lives and work reflect the imagination, courage, ambition, and humanity of Lowell Thomas. Thomas received an honorary doctorate from Marist and was the college's commencement speaker in 1981. Marist's Lowell Thomas Communication Center is home to the college's School of Communication and the Arts and contains several galleries displaying rare Lowell Thomas memorabilia. Marist houses the late journalist's papers, film, photos, audio and videotaped broadcasts, and personal memorabilia in the Lowell Thomas Archives, located in the college's James A. Cannavino Library.

Previous recipients of the Marist College Lowell Thomas Award include Eric Sevareid, Walter Cronkite, Howard K. Smith, Douglas Edwards, David Brinkley, Harry Reasoner, John Chancellor, Barbara Walters, Charles Kuralt, Diane Sawyer, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, Mike Wallace, Charles Osgood, Cokie Roberts, Helen Thomas, Lesley Stahl, and Bill Geist. Special awards were presented in 1992 to Fred Friendly, Don Hewitt, Dallas Townsend, and Thomas Watson, Jr. to mark the centennial of Thomas's birth.

________________


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: amanpour; cnn; missinglink; serbs; unsourced; yugoslavia
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1 posted on 03/14/2009 6:47:13 AM PDT by Ravnagora
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To: Ravnagora

Of course she deserves it. She meets the qualification of being a female hyphenated-American.

Hard working, talented, non-protected-class-Americans need not even imagine they should apply.


2 posted on 03/14/2009 6:49:28 AM PDT by Cletus.D.Yokel (FreepMail me if you want on the Bourbon ping list!)
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To: Ravnagora

Christiane couldn’t hold Lowell Thomas’s 3-D glasses.....he was a Patriot, she is a TRAITOR.


3 posted on 03/14/2009 6:50:08 AM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion.....The Human Sacrifice to the god of Convenience)
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To: Ravnagora
She is not a journalist. She is a propagandist war slut.
4 posted on 03/14/2009 6:56:12 AM PDT by LimaLimaMikeFoxtrot ("If you don't have my army supplied, and keep it supplied, we'll eat your mules up, sir"-Gen.Sherman)
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To: Ravnagora

No, she deserves smallpox.


5 posted on 03/14/2009 6:56:18 AM PDT by TommyDale (I) (Never forget the Republicans who voted for illegal immigrant amnesty in 2007!)
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To: Cletus.D.Yokel

Is she American? I thought she was EU.


6 posted on 03/14/2009 6:56:25 AM PDT by Mathews (Ambition, absent a moral compass, is naked destruction.)
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To: Ravnagora

Is that some sort of boobie prize?


7 posted on 03/14/2009 7:01:21 AM PDT by Savage Beast (The Left is decadence. Hubris and denial lead to tragedy. Marxism is a Fools' Paradise.)
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There is only one thing about CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR that makes her less than remarkable.

She hates the west, and all it stands for.

In other words, just another journalist.

Oh wait a minute, I'm wrong.

She enjoys the "capitalism" part.

Especially when she benefits from denouncing it.

8 posted on 03/14/2009 7:04:48 AM PDT by Jakarta ex-pat
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To: Ravnagora

War whore


9 posted on 03/14/2009 7:06:20 AM PDT by mylife ( The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: Savage Beast

“Is that some sort of boobie prize?”

IMHO, her boobies are insufficient to merit such a prize.
:-)


10 posted on 03/14/2009 7:06:44 AM PDT by verity ("Lord, what fools we mortals be!")
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To: LimaLimaMikeFoxtrot
Well, you cannot deny her talent and her skills. If I didn't have a "dog in the fight", I would be very impressed with her reporting. And she is an extremely brave woman. I don't know if I would ever have her courage to hang out in some of the most dangerous spots in the entire world. Most likely not, though I profess myself to be an aspiring writer and freelance journalist.

What makes Amanpour so destructive is her competence. Because she is good at what she does, people who don't know the 'facts' and 'the truth' about events in the Balkans, particularly in reference to the Serbs, would be inclined to believe whatever she reports as being gospel. But those of us who "know" are not fooled by Amanpour's communication skills.

If you get a chance and it airs again, watch 'Scream Bloody Murder' on CNN Presents - a documentary she hosts on the history of Genocide.

Her interview of Richard Holbrooke in reference to the Serbian "Bullies and Thugs" represents everything that is wrong with journalism today.

Kudos to Jatras on seeing through the CNN veneer.

_____________________

11 posted on 03/14/2009 7:10:03 AM PDT by Ravnagora
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To: joan; Smartass; zagor-te-nej; Lion in Winter; Honorary Serb; jb6; Incorrigible; DTA; vooch; ...

12 posted on 03/14/2009 7:15:31 AM PDT by Ravnagora
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To: Ravnagora

She is a pig. I observed her reports in Israel and Lebanon and they were outright fabrications (I know because serious reporters were there as well.)


13 posted on 03/14/2009 7:16:18 AM PDT by richardtavor (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem in the name of the G-d of Jacob)
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To: Ravnagora

These awards have become a red light to me. Nobel prizes & the like have become a joke. Lost my respect completely!


14 posted on 03/14/2009 7:19:43 AM PDT by Mister Da (The mark of a wise man is not what he knows, but what he knows he doesn't know!)
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To: Ravnagora

“...Lowell Thomas Award?”

If that award means anti-US, anti-Isreal and pro-Terrorists and pro-Islam, then I guess so.


15 posted on 03/14/2009 7:20:41 AM PDT by CodeToad (Liberalism is Communism, and both are a mental disorder. Grow up.)
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To: Ravnagora

In before the arrival of the mind-numbed Dhimmwits!


16 posted on 03/14/2009 7:22:26 AM PDT by FormerLib (Sacrificing our land and our blood cannot buy protection from jihad.-Bishop Artemije of Kosovo)
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To: CodeToad

Beat me to it. An award usurped by libs for lib “journalists.” Sure she deserves it...with extra credit for hating America.


17 posted on 03/14/2009 7:23:06 AM PDT by Lee'sGhost (Johnny Rico picked the wrong girl!)
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To: TommyDale
“No, she deserves smallpox.”

Can we throw in clap and a prolific case herps’ ?

18 posted on 03/14/2009 7:29:32 AM PDT by Beagle8U (Free Republic -- One stop shopping ....... Its the Conservative Super WalMart for news .)
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To: Ravnagora
Amanpour is 51 years old. Her father, Mohammed, was Iranian. Mother was Patricia, British. She was raised in Iran.

During the Persian Gulf War she was criticized for emotionalism and lack of professsional objectivity, frequently slanting her news in favor of Saddam's regime. Just as her reports in the Bosnian War tilted in favor of the Muslim side.

She is married to James Rubin, a real sleaze-ball, formerly in Clinton's State Department under Mad Maddie Albright....and now, no surprise, an advisor to Mad Barry Obamamama.

The Rubins live in New York City. She is still a correspondent for CNN.

Leni

19 posted on 03/14/2009 7:30:24 AM PDT by MinuteGal
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To: CodeToad

Amanpour deserves the Al-Jazeera Muslimah Infobabe award.

Hope she starts appearing in CNN wearing a hijab.


20 posted on 03/14/2009 7:31:44 AM PDT by elcid1970 ("O Muslim! My cartridges are lubricated with pig grease!")
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