PRESSTITUTE ALERT: CNN's Silence About Torture Is Criticized

NY TIMES ^ | 4/15/03 | JIM RUTENBERG

[Liz]

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.

[Liz]

Yawn. Ho-hum. So CNN witheld information which biased its news reports? No surprise here.

Happily, the rest of the world now knows how craven and deceptive liberal's are.

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[The G Man]

NO BLOOD FOR RATINGS!!

[Wright is right!]

"and that CNN's reporting about the regime was fair and tough-minded."

Now that statement simply doesn't pass The Guffaw Test.

Michael

[Mind-numbed Robot]

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.

Same conclusion reached by France, Germany, and Russia. As far as CNN's credibility, it was already zilch among the coherent. The others will never notice.

[trebb]

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

Of course, this only counts if those who might get killed are part of their staff or information network. If it's only soldiers or other innocent Americans.....well they would have to think twice about depriving the people of their right to know...

[Grampa Dave]

CNN's silence re the torture of the Iraqis is typical of the silence of the elitist left wing mediots.

We never heard them complain about the over 100 million innocents murdered by the various communists. In fact the NY Slimes and ABCNNBCBS still love and adore Fidel Castro a Communist mass murderer. A mass murderer who would have allowed the Russians to have destroyed many of our cities in 1962.

So CNN's silence is typical of the elitist maggots who control the media in America and around the world. They never get excited about mass murder and torture unless it is a wet dream about America doing it.

[Temple Owl]

bump

[jimkress]

BUMP!

[Liz]

Hate America is their motto. Scumbags.

[Grampa Dave]

Hate America is their Company Culture.

No one will be hired nor allowed to stay as an employee of CNN unless they hate America, Conservatives, Christians and of course President Bush 24/7/365.

[Liz]

Nice take.

These media scumbags make me sick.

[Liz]

CNN - the Christian No-No network - follows in the footsteps of ABC - the Anybody But Christians network.

[Liz]

As far as CNN's credibility, it was already zilch among the coherent. The others will never notice.

Heheh. Good one....very good.

[Grampa Dave]

You and I would never get past our resumes at ABCNNBCBS if we had sent them in.

[Liz]

(CNN's statement) doesn't pass The Guffaw Test.

Nor does it pass the ROTFLMCO test.

[kcvl]

I didn't see Ambassador "Combover" hug and kiss anyone but, Richard Roth, CNN "reporter" the night that he left New York...

[johnb838]

Ambassador "Combover"

That's Ambassador "Khomovar" for you infidels...

This is another coup for Fox -- first network to get tossed out for not mouthing the ba'athist line.

[backhoe]

-When the Dungeon Doors Swing Open...--

[laotzu]

"Mr. Jordan said he came to a conclusion that others had as well..."

The best argument of any four year old is "well....he started it!!..he did it first!!"

Hey! Eason!! My big brother can beat-up your big brother.

Curious how CNN has done no reporting on the abuses of their good buddy Fidel. They do have a branch office in Cuba, just like in Badgag. I'm sure is just a coincidence.