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Christiane Amanpour’s biased reporting causes..backlash to..selection as host of ABC’s This Week
Daily Caller ^ | 7-30-10 | Benjamin Kerstein

Posted on 07/31/2010 10:27:13 PM PDT by STARWISE

Title:

Christiane Amanpour’s biased reporting causes a backlash to her selection as host of ABC’s This Week

###

This Sunday, former CNN war correspondent and television host Christiane Amanpour will take over as host of ABC’s venerable public affairs show “This Week.” Her selection for the post, however, has caused a surprisingly potent backlash. Putting aside issues such as the suitability of a foreign affairs reporter for a show on domestic politics and reports of behind-the scenes opposition to her appointment, most of the criticism has concentrated on Amanpour’s political views and her allegedly biased reporting.

In one form or another, this kind of criticism has dogged Amanpour for a very long time.

Amanpour’s career took off during the Bosnian wars and, according to many of her colleagues, this was well deserved. In a New York Times profile published at the time, they were almost unanimous in their belief that Amanpour is a gifted war correspondent.

Dominic Robinson, a CNN producer, is quoted as saying, “In TV, she’s the best. She knows what she wants and how to get it. She’s really hot.” Another observer put it in vaguely politically incorrect terms, saying, “She gives great war.”

Nonetheless, many of her peers also expressed strong misgivings about Amanpour’s style. They were concerned because, in a way many journalists do but prefer to pretend they do not, Amanpour openly took sides in the Bosnian conflict. The Times profile quotes an anonymous “insider” who “has doubts about Amanpour’s commitment to objective journalism.”

“I have winced at some of what she’s done, at what used to be called advocacy journalism,” he said. “She was sitting in Belgrade when that marketplace massacre happened, and she went on the air to say that the Serbs had probably done it. There was no way she could have known that. She was assuming an omniscience which no journalist has.”

Indeed, Amanpour herself openly admitted to her biases. In 1996, she told the British newspaper The Guardian,

It drives me crazy when this neutrality thing comes up. Objectivity, that great journalistic buzzword, means giving all sides a fair hearing—not treating all sides the same—particularly when all sides are not the same. When you’re neutral in a situation like Bosnia, you are an accomplice—an accomplice to genocide.

*snip*

Amanpour’s dedication to advocacy journalism has been criticized in other areas as well, especially the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Middle East in general. The most bitter of these critiques was occasioned by Amanpour’s 2007 documentary series God’s Warriors.

The series examined religious extremism in three parts — on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, respectively. Many Jews and other supporters of Israel were outraged both by the format of the documentary, which equated Judaism and Christianity with radical Islam, and the content of the episode on Judaism, which many considered to be inaccurate, biased, and perhaps worse.

Citing such lines as “Six thousand miles from Israel’s settlements, in the heart of Manhattan, defiance of international law comes dressed in diamonds,” some charged that the series was all but openly anti-Semitic.

One did not have to go this far, however, to see that something was deeply troubling about it. “By its very structure of equating the three different situations,” wrote critic Jonathan Tobin, now executive editor of Commentary magazine, “the series was nothing short of a brazen lie.”

Rest @ link


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: abc; abcantisemitism; abcvsisrael; abcvsjews; antisemitism; bias; christianeamanpour; thisweek
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To: STARWISE

Aside from her flaming liberalism, I can’t stand her droning monotone.


21 posted on 08/01/2010 4:48:45 AM PDT by Justice
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To: STARWISE

I think she’s really Antonio Banderas in drag.......


22 posted on 08/01/2010 4:55:58 AM PDT by Hot Tabasco (Peanut butter was just peanut butter until I found Free Republic.........)
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To: STARWISE
I haven't seen her in years. Actually didn't even know she was still around. But, all I can say is: Amanpour is a poor excuse for a reporter, a woman, a human being. Is there actually any country, any issue that her biased opinions have helped? Does she really believe her type of reporting has been effective at all - anywhere on anything?

Truly, these media people are so full of themselves, and think they are righting what they consider wrong. But, actually, they don't ever solve any problem or help anything.

Today's reporters, or so called journalists, are all "non-achievers," who couldn't make tea if you gave them the boiling water and tea bags. They would spend too much time faulting the water quality or the quantity of tea in the bag.

23 posted on 08/01/2010 5:20:54 AM PDT by CitizenM ("Do you miss me yet?" Yes, George, we do.)
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To: RedWhiteAndBlueBlood

“Tantamount to the U.N. electing Iran to the Commission on Women’s Rights. Sheesh.”

I was thinking something along the lines of Hamas mediating Israel/Palestinian peace talks.


24 posted on 08/01/2010 5:29:10 AM PDT by EQAndyBuzz (Helter Skelter. The Revolution is Upon Us.)
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To: STARWISE
She is arrogantly and blatantly liberal.

I would say she's more anti-American than liberal. She's the enemy. Without a doubt.
25 posted on 08/01/2010 6:09:53 AM PDT by nhwingut (Palin/Bachmann '12)
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To: STARWISE
Somebody once posted here that her REAL name is something else. She changed her name to C. A. for some kooky political reason. Can anyone confirm this?
26 posted on 08/01/2010 6:18:02 AM PDT by April Lexington (Study the constitution so you know what they are taking away!)
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To: nhwingut
I would say she's more anti-American than liberal. She's the enemy. Without a doubt.

I haven't seen as much of her since I don't have/haven't had cable service (no point in feeding a monster hard-earned cash). But I'll keep an eye out.

Up until now, my impression of her has been that she's an internationalist, a floating-cocktail-party lotus-eater and NWO/Bilderberg minion, and hardcore CFR material. Her husband's a U.S. diplomat or something.

27 posted on 08/01/2010 6:34:05 AM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: STARWISE; Irisshlass; informavoracious; larose; RJR_fan; Prospero; Conservative Vermont Vet; ...
+

Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:

Add me / Remove me

Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.

28 posted on 08/01/2010 6:36:51 AM PDT by narses ( 'Prefer nothing to the love of Christ.')
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To: STARWISE

As women step up, men stand down.

This should cause ratings to really go up!/s


29 posted on 08/01/2010 6:48:05 AM PDT by Jack Hydrazine (It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine!)
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To: STARWISE

She’s not liberal, she’s Leftist! Big dif!


30 posted on 08/01/2010 6:48:38 AM PDT by Jack Hydrazine (It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine!)
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To: STARWISE
She is arrogantly and blatantly liberal.

No.

She's a foreigner, born and raised in Iran and educated in England.

She has no business running a show about American politics, because her knowledge of the subject is a fusion of oriental prejudice and eurotrash posturing.

Calling her "liberal" implies that she belongs on our political spectrum, when clearly she does not.

31 posted on 08/01/2010 6:52:55 AM PDT by Jim Noble (If the answer is "Republican", it must be a stupid question.)
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To: EQAndyBuzz

Amanpour was born in Iran to her father, Mohammad, an Iranian airline executive and her British mother, Patricia. The Amanpours led a privileged life under the government of the Shah of Iran.


32 posted on 08/01/2010 6:53:19 AM PDT by Jack Hydrazine (It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine!)
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To: STARWISE

I wonder how long they’ll stick with this “experiment”. Tapper was doing better than Stephonolopous was in terms of ratings. There’s NO WAY she’s going to do as well as Tapper. I’m sure this first show will have an uptick in viewers, but so did Katie Courics first show - and then it went downhill from there, quickly.


33 posted on 08/01/2010 7:39:38 AM PDT by OldDeckHand
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To: OldDeckHand
Nobody cares...no one watches the Sunday shows...I record Cris Wallace...may watch 5 minutes...The networks use it to get a little news for Sunday night bash of conservatives
34 posted on 08/01/2010 7:49:44 AM PDT by Hojczyk
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To: STARWISE

and ignorant to what most of this country stands for.


35 posted on 08/01/2010 8:18:37 AM PDT by television is just wrong
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To: Bokababe; kronos77

Balkans bump


36 posted on 08/01/2010 1:36:47 PM PDT by Dragonfly
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To: joan; Smartass; zagor-te-nej; Lion in Winter; Honorary Serb; jb6; Incorrigible; DTA; vooch; ...

Thanks for catching this, Dragonfly!

....“She was sitting in Belgrade when that marketplace massacre happened, and she went on the air to say that the Serbs had probably done it. There was no way she could have known that. She was assuming an omniscience which no journalist has.”.....

37 posted on 08/01/2010 3:13:50 PM PDT by Bokababe (Save Christian Kosovo! http://www.savekosovo.org)
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To: STARWISE
"She is arrogantly and blatantly liberal.

She's much more than that.

Christiane Amanpour was born in Iran to an Iranian father and English mother. She has always been a cheerleader of any and all Muslims.

She made her name & career on the Bosnian war when Iran & Saudi Arabia were supplying the Bosnian Muslims with illegal arms -- but they didn't have to worry about being exposed because they had Christiane as their very public pro-Muslim cheerleader.

About ten years ago, she did a special on Iran and why the US should normalize relations with Iran -- it was anything but "objective", it was a virtual commercial for Iran.

Her marriage to former Clinton Press Secretary Jamie Rubin is nothing more that window dressing for anyone who might call her "anti-Semitic" or "pro-Muslim", which she most definitely is.

Thanks for posting this, as I will no longer be watching This Week as long as she is on it! I detest that woman!

38 posted on 08/01/2010 3:27:19 PM PDT by Bokababe (Save Christian Kosovo! http://www.savekosovo.org)
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To: Bokababe

I wouldn’t watch C. Amaputz do anything much less a news show. She is a news entertainer—she would fit right into Geoebbel’s propaganda unit.


39 posted on 08/01/2010 6:01:57 PM PDT by eleni121 (But now, he that has a moneybag take it; without a sword let him sell his garment, and buy one.)
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To: Bokababe

But liberals love her, they are all in kumbaya mode with islam and hope to become friends. Dhimmitude is way life for the liberal.


40 posted on 08/02/2010 7:49:11 AM PDT by montyspython
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