CNN's Silence About Torture Is Criticized

The New York Times ^ | April 15, 2003 | JIM RUTENBERG

[Pharmboy]

A recent acknowledgment by Eason Jordan, CNN's chief news executive, that he withheld some accounts of Saddam Hussein's brutality for years to protect the lives of Iraqi sources came in for some withering criticism yesterday.

Several journalism professors and commentators said Mr. Jordan had compromised CNN's journalistic mission so the cable network could continue to report from Iraq. In an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on Friday, Mr. Jordan revealed his knowledge of the Iraqi regime's use of torture and murder, information that he said he could not divulge until the fall of Saddam Hussein. Today, Mr. Jordan said the issue was not about access, but about life and death.

"It's very simple," he said. "Do you report things that get people killed? The answer is no."

According to the article, Mr. Hussein's secret police subjected an Iraqi CNN cameraman to weeks of electroshock torture in the mid-1990's as they tried to elicit confirmation that Mr. Jordan was an operative of the Central Intelligence Agency. (Mr. Jordan called the allegation against him ludicrous.)

Mr. Jordan also wrote that Uday Hussein, Mr. Hussein's eldest son, told him in 1995 that he intended to assassinate two brothers-in-law who had defected to Jordan, as well as King Hussein of Jordan. Mr. Jordan said he told this to the king, who shrugged it off. The two brothers-in-law were later assassinated.

The revelations were harshly criticized by commentators, both conservative and liberal, including Rush Limbaugh and Juan Williams. Bill McLaughlin, an associate professor at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, said CNN could have found a creative way to report the anecdotes Mr. Jordan had collected without jeopardizing people in Iraq.

Bob Steele, director of the ethics program at the Poynter Institute, said CNN had traded its ability to report the truth for a continued presence in the Baghdad. "In essence, he was caught over a long period of time dealing with the devil," he said.

Mr. Jordan said that CNN had made no such deal, nor would it, and that CNN's reporting about the regime was fair and tough-minded.

Mr. Jordan's admission pointed up a problem that many news organizations wrestled with in the months leading up to war, and during it.

Until the first statue of Mr. Hussein fell, Western journalists in the Iraqi capital often could not report detailed accounts of government brutality for fear of jeopardizing interview subjects.

In the end, Mr. Jordan said he came to a conclusion that others had as well: for all of the restrictions and dangers in Baghdad, it was better to be there than not.

Some of Mr. Jordan's colleagues at other networks indicated sympathy for his predicament. "If we thought that we were endangering somebody we had hired to help us to report, that would be something that we would weigh very heavily," said Michele Grant, BBC's director of development in the United States.

Alex S. Jones, director of Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, said Mr. Jordan was being unfairly singled out. "I think every news organization has to make those kinds of calls from time to time," he said.

[Pharmboy]

Alex S. Jones, director of Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, said Mr. Jordan was being unfairly singled out. "I think every news organization has to make those kinds of calls from time to time," he said.

Thanks for weighing in on this one. Why don't you STFU.

And while I am in a bilious mood, what did the Times know and when did they know it?

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[IncPen]

I want to know what distinction CNN makes between the lies they covered up in Iraq in the 1990s and the lies they covered up for Clinton at the same time

And, what's the difference then, between Baghdad Bob and Mike McCurry?

[goodnesswins]

"In the end, Mr. Jordan said he came to a conclusion that others had as well: for all of the restrictions and dangers in Baghdad, it was better to be there than not."

Yeah...uh huh... better to be there and witness totalinarinism.....than to REPORT IT. This is what "journalism" has come to......THEY are the story....not what's HAPPENING around them.

[Savage Beast]

"for all of the restrictions and dangers in Baghdad, it was better to be there than not"

Uhhh... Why?

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

And, what's the difference then, between Baghdad Bob and Mike McCurry?

Seems to me, there is little difference.

Now on to Clinton and Saddam. Any difference there? Perhaps not as much difference as one might think at first...

[Zebra]

"for all of the restrictions and dangers in Baghdad, it was better to be there than not"

Uhhh... Why?

Ummm, just a guess, but could it be the craven quest for ratings?

[A Citizen Reporter]

Then CNN lost that battle.....BIG TIME. Although CNN managed to get itself eventually booted out of Baghdad, Fox News beat them over the head with a hammer, on the ratings. And for the first time in 12 years I will take this opportunity to say to CNN......neener, neener, neener. BWAHAHA!

[bart99]

"withheld some accounts of Saddam Hussein's brutality for years to protect the lives of Iraqi sources"
===== ===== ===== =====

I wish there was a congressional investigation about the press's role in aiding and comforting an 'enemy'...... I mean this happened during the Gulf war (with Arnett) and was still going on during this recent conflict at Baghdad Bob's hotel and all the 'minders' that conrolled the press. So their reporting was 'biased', giving aid and comfort etc.

Unfortunately, 'freedom of the press' would win out, I guess. But...... this should simply not be a topic for analysis by other journalistic analysts, but should be something significanntly more. I wonder how CNN is reporting the recent executions in Cuba.

Oh.... I feel like going on a rant.

Didn't Jordan feel any comlicity in KNOWING that 5,000 children a year (for 12 years) were dying because the UN oil for food program money was being diverted?? I think he knew. I wonder.......

Oh well..... just hoping more (like truthful and accurate reporting) will come of this situation with the press reporting in these regimes across the world.

[bart99]

I'll learn to spell next week *L*