Replies

On the way back to Baghdad, I explained to other reporters what I thought had happened, and wrote a report that was broadcast on CNN that night. The next day, Brent Sadler, CNN's chief reporter at the time in Baghdad (he is now in northern Iraq), came up to me in a hallway of the al Rasheed Hotel. He had been pushing for the interview with Saddam and had urged Mr. Johnson and Mr. Jordan to come to Baghdad to help seal the deal. "Petah," he said to me in his English accent, "you know we're trying to get an interview with Saddam. That piece last night was not helpful."

So now we will learn of reporters, not just executives, who knowingly decided to air propaganda, or urged their colleagues to do so.

Joe Scarborough had the reporter from New Republic on tonight and showed the quotes from the female CNN reporter on matters like Saddam's last "election. CNN had bent over backwards to be his mouthpiece, as she assured viewers that the "election" was an affirmation of the love the people of Iraq had for Saddam (gag).

In a separate piece, this same female had reported on prisoners being released, and editorialized that this showed how the charges of human rights violations were pretty much over-blown. So it's much more than wanting to protect lives by keeping mouths shut. They actively worked to present lies to their viewers world-wide. Something some of us suspected for years, but it sounded kind of nuts and Pravda-ish.