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]

It's not worth my time. I come here mainly for the news and have said so previously. Every so often, and not that often, I comment. As for bias, I've voted for Republicans and I've voted for Democrats and I don't vote in primaries because I don't adhere to any party line. Good evening.

[Minty]

Let's give him The Joker Award!

[MightyMouseToSaveThe Day]

Too funny. I had a bet going with my husband that you were a situational moderate to fit your situational ethics. Thanks for confirming my hunch! Definition of situational moderate: someone who can't formulate a position without the NY Times, Washington Post, and CNN telling her what to think. Thanks for my chuckle of the evening.

[equus]

I never watch CNN (don't have standard cable), never read the Washington Post, and rarely read the Washington Times. I doubt you could figure me out if you tried.

Glad you're lightening up though.

[equus]

Whoops, meant New York Times, not Washington Times. Don't get it and don't buy it. Occasionally go online to look at an article.

By the way, you might want to examine yourself, that you get so hot and bothered by an online comment, and actually discuss it with your husband! Yegads, at least my life is more interesting than that.

[Mia T]

CNNs of Commission _{Q ERTY8} ^BUMP!