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| 2003-04-11 |
| O.K., that's the motto of the New York Times, not CNN. But the following article raises some really big questions about decisions made by the news media as to what they choose to tell us. It's by Eason Jordan, a CNN executive. Over the last dozen years I made 13 trips to Baghdad to lobby the government to keep CNN's Baghdad bureau open and to arrange interviews with Iraqi leaders. 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. For example, in the mid-1990's one of our Iraqi cameramen was abducted. For weeks he was beaten and subjected to electroshock torture in the basement of a secret police headquarters because he refused to confirm the government's ludicrous suspicion that I was the Central Intelligence Agency's Iraq station chief. CNN had been in Baghdad long enough to know that telling the world about the torture of one of its employees would almost certainly have gotten him killed and put his family and co-workers at grave risk. The rest of the article describes other things that some might call "news" that CNN knew, but didn't report. So you tell me. Did CNN look evil dead in the eye and flinch away, following the path of least resistance -- and continued access to a news source that was good for their ratings? Or did they act responsibly? I can't make up my mind. |
| Posted by:Patrick Phillips |
| #25 The most appalling part of this miserable confession, is that Eason glides right past the two murders, that CNN has blood on its hands. In his own words: "We also had to worry that our reporting might endanger Iraqis not on our payroll. I knew that CNN could not report that Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday, told me in 1995 that he intended to assassinate two of his brothers-in- law who had defected and also the man giving them asylum, King Hussein of Jordan. If we had gone with the story, I was sure he would have responded by killing the Iraqi translator who was the only other participant in the meeting. After all, secret police thugs brutalized even senior officials of the Information Ministry, just to keep them in line (one such official has long been missing all his fingernails). Still, I felt I had a moral obligation to warn Jordan's monarch, and I did so the next day. King Hussein dismissed the threat as a madman's rant. A few months later Uday lured the brothers-in-law back to Baghdad; they were soon killed." |
| Posted by: Erik 2003-04-12 03:27:42 |
| #24 before its revealed by other sources , cnn does what good p.r. people say you should do in the face of bad news--jump out in front and spin the story--unlike "good germans" cnn had the CHOICE to get out and split--what a fucking bullshit lackluster performance in assisting evil for profit--can these pricks be indicted in something other than the court of public opinion--will someone bring this before a belgium prosecutor please [sarcasm] |
| Posted by: HULUGU 2003-04-12 02:48:11 |
| #23 Yes Kathy, you are right. The Arab world fell in love with CNN after GWI, and CNN hid these atrocities to protect its reputation with the Arab govts/pundits. "If it was on CNN, then it was true, if not, then it wasn't true" Plus you can bet that all these CNN types were wined and dined by various Ministers of Information. Tough to give up the chauffered ride to and from the airport, as well as the swift kiss-ass imigration procedures. Gives you a big head. WLS talk radio afternoon show (Not Rush, but Chicago local) had all the goods on this story. listeners were all over it too, but NPR only talked about anarchy in Baghdad. BTW, it s true that many of these atrocities were already known in the small press and to us on Rantburg, but the other big boys, like Peter Jennings, just spiked them. |
| Posted by: michael 2003-04-11 20:44:15 |
| #22 Your average guy and gal (who don't, alas, read Rantburg) assume that if such horrors existed in Iraq, CNN and other news organizations reporting from there would certainly report it. The lack of such reports is interpreted as evidence that the horrors either did not exist or were hidden. Ditto for other regimes which currently inflict similar horrors, such as Cuba. By not reporting this, they aided and abetted it. If we (meaning the general public) knew about it and did nothing, shame on us. But in this case they conspired to hide it, so shame on them. They wanted to look like they had global reach, by reporting from Baghdad directly. To do it, they made their reporting not only irrelevant but complicit in the atrocities that were committed in front of their eyes. |
| Posted by: Kathy 2003-04-11 20:13:26 |
| #21 Krauthammer was on Hume today. Same deal w/the Palis. And go read instapundit. A bit from reader Sage McLaughlin: "The really moral thing to do, obviously, would have been to pull out of Iraq years ago, instead of allowing Iraqis on CNN's payroll to be tortured so that they could maintain the status symbol of "access" to the regime. This is nothing more than an attempt to preempt the likely damage to CNN's reputation caused by the (accurate) perception that they have been complicit in Hussein's enslavement of the Iraqi people since at least 1991." |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-04-11 19:47:57 |
| #20 I agree 100%, Yank, on your "tourist" comment. CNN -- The Collaborators' News Network. |
| Posted by: Dar 2003-04-11 14:30:41 |
| #19 Re: filing cabinets full of goodies. I am sure that we will find some. I wonder how much big stuff we will find in the Iraqi ministries after we bombed them so thoroughly. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-04-11 13:31:17 |
| #18 reading this article I kept seeing that CNN saw brutal stuff and didn't report it. In response Iraqi officials seemed to think they were CIA even to the point of trying to get them killed. Cause and Effect. Somehow CNN just couldn't put that together? A reporter who doesn't report is just a tourist. |
| Posted by: Yank 2003-04-11 12:54:36 |
| #17 Tresho, and others - Agreed, to anybody who pays serious attention to such issues, none of this is news. But, it should not require that much work for people to stay informed. I as a citizen who wants to say informed shouldn't have to spend countless hours on the internet, using search engines and following link after link, or reading a series of books, to find what could have been trumpeted on page 1 of NYT or WaPo in 20 point type. This is not an effective use of the power of the big media. Salman Pak should have been front page news when it originally broke months or years ago - where was it? That's just one example, I can come up with ten more. Public opinion is a precious and powerful thing, and it is not served well by media decisions such as this. I know news outlets slant coverage to promote their interests, and always have, and while I don't like it, I can live with it. I can't however, live with the cynical opportunism shown here. If the news media have become nothing but ratings whores, fine, let us know that. What we have now is a huge betrayal of the public trust. These days, I'm much better informed than I was in the 90s, due largely to the internet. Very few people get all their news this way. We can't let the fact that we internet news junkies are super-informed cloud the overall picture, which is that the mainstream media must do a better job at getting vital stories like this into the world at large. It isn't that hard, if you see your job as getting news out, instead of getting ratings. Your actions define your choices. |
| Posted by: Jeff Brokaw 2003-04-11 12:01:27 |
| #16 leaving aside the journalistic ethics angle, there is the shear atrocity angle of this. Apparently this has now swayed Mikey Kaus, a fence-sitter, into the idea that human rights concerns alone may have justified the war. His editor at Slate, Michael Kinsley, continues to defend his anti-war stance - as far as he is concerned the legal and multilateralism questions havent changed (of course we'd win and i never fell for that quagmire stuff, he says) He omits discussion of the reaction of the iraqi people, either as justification, or in how it impacts the prudential questions. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2003-04-11 10:43:55 |
| #15 Nothing that the cited CNN article mentioned should have come as a surprise to anyone who's been following commonly available news and information about Saddam's regime since 1990 or so. Of course any news organisation in a totalitarian society will have conflicts of interest. Dan Rather interviewed Saddam Hussein last month and lived to tell about it. He was criticized for throwing softball-questions to the Great Leader. All news coverage from officially approved sources in dictatorships is suspect, and has always been so. Think of that when news comes (or doesn't come) for places like the People's Republic of China, Cuba, N. Korea, Syria, etc, etc. |
| Posted by: Tresho 2003-04-11 10:18:37 |
| #14 RG, Thanks for the link. As you say, I guess there are always conflicts of interest. |
| Posted by: mjh 2003-04-11 10:01:46 |
| #13 [Murdoch Puts China Billions Over Books] [Patten sues over scrapped book deal] [Google Search] I'm not defending CNN in anyway, they are a commercial enterprise and have conflicts of interest. But I do think that Fox is no better especially when I watch from here in the UK. They seem to have an attitude of "Bush is always right" and are the closest thing you have to a government mouthpiece. You may not like the leftist slant from the other companies but most of us here don't like the rightist slant of Fox news. If all their reporters were replaced by Ariel Fleischer there would be as much varietly in content and opinion. |
| Posted by: rg117 2003-04-11 09:41:40 |
| #12 Ben, Call me dense, but I don't see how CNN's actions saved any lives...who would have died/been more likely to die if CNN had broadcast this story and why? I repeat, if CNN was not able to effectively report objective facts...then they should not have lobbied to maintain their presence in Baghdad. They should have pulled their reporting staff out en masse and publicized the reasons why they were doing so. Frank G, amen on your last point there. One of the main reasons the anti-war crowd got any traction is that atrocities were not reported as they happened. The crackdown in Havana has been going on for several weeks now and there has not been any mention on CNN... |
| Posted by: mjh 2003-04-11 09:33:31 |
| #11 btw - this is part and parcel of CNN's reporting from Havana - or have you seen any reporting by Lucia Newman on the Castro crackdown on counter-revolutionaries (i.e.: people who desire to live free from dictatorship - teachers, poets, businessmen,...)? I've seen none, but they do have a Havana bureau open, don't they? Wonder what stories had to be suppressed to keep it open? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-04-11 09:23:17 |
| #10 RG: I don't know that what you're saying is a fact, actually is any sort of fact - source? I seem to recall frank Fox reporting on China's poor record on SARS, The downing of our surveillance plane, crackdown on dissidents, lack of effort in restraining NKorea, and help in supplying Saddam, particularly fiber optic comm lines. Doesn't sound like censorship, does it? I admit that not all aspects of Fox are as good as they could possibly be, but I prefer their news reporting to the leftist slant I get from Jennings, Rather, even Brokaw/MSNBC, and especially CNN |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-04-11 09:17:46 |
| #9 I am not sure either. To tell, then, would have gotten people killed, and that is bad. To maintain access required they lie now, but when the regime falls, leaves them in a position of witness. Those stories would get told, later, when it was safer to tell them. The stories would still get out, and CNN would have the information, would be able to bear witness. |
| Posted by: Ben 2003-04-11 08:56:02 |
| #8 As the filing cabinates of Baghdad are opened and people talk, the bigs news will be bribery of Western politicians and journalists along with the related matter of WMC. Why do you think the French, Germans, Russians and others have been so frantic? |
| Posted by: George H. Beckwith 2003-04-11 08:34:33 |
| #7 Phil B, I disagree on several points: 1.) Would the world have taken any notice? You imply no...but I sure as HELL would have. Iraq has been a topic of scrutiny for the past 12 YEARS, as UN resolutions and congressional bills can attest(given eight of those were pretty pathetic). There has been speculation as to the cruel and oppressive nature of the regime and CNN had proof of that cruelty and oppression, and they did not report it. For what good? For their f-ing ratings? I would say ratings do not come without credibility, and this revelation has completely destroyed CNN's credibility in my eyes. 2.) "There were lots of similar stories around for years and they hardly made the front page." Where? When? Is this just a sweeping generalization to bolster your argument or is this a fact. You present zero evidence. 3.) "This is a war between liberal, free societies and their enemies"-this I agree with. In this situation, however, CNN not reporting seems more like a collusion with the "enemy" to report facts only the enemy wants known. What good is it for CNN to retain access to Iraq, if they are only going to be allowed to release news that is complimentary to the regime!? That IS "liberal" in the moral equivalency, biased press sort of way, but not in the traditional sense. I know Phil's just the messenger. But I am seriously pissed here. There is no justification for a "news" organization concealing the information that CNN concealed. I will never watch CNN again. Oh, and rg117, out of curiousity...where is this policy of not criticising China in any way you attribute to Rupert Murdoch? Is this conjecture or is there proof out there somewhere I can reference. |
| Posted by: mjh 2003-04-11 08:32:52 |
| #6 You're praising FOX news for some reason but you're completely ignoring the fact that Rupert Murdoch has had a policy of, for example, not criticising China in any way which got him access to the lucrative Chinese market. Criticising CNN is fine but your 'Go Fox' is completely hypocritical. |
| Posted by: rg117 2003-04-11 07:52:38 |
| #5 Al-Jazeera may be the freest of the Arab media, but that's like saying Charles Manson was better than Ted Bundy because he had less victims. They have an agenda, and should never be allowed to pretend otherwise. CNN should hang their heads in shame. They can rationalize all they want but it was all about access. They didn't report news that would inflame against the regime - they're no different or better than Al-Jazeera. Go Fox |
| Posted by: Frank G 2003-04-11 07:43:13 |
| #4 slightly OT, but last night it was reported that Al Jazeera was refusing to show images of celebrating Iraqis. |
| Posted by: anon1 2003-04-11 06:12:39 |
| #3 If you consider a news organisation's role is to report news, you have to determine whether events like this are 'anecdotal' or 'representative'/'microcosmic'. I'd say, given the fact that this was standard MO for the regime, they had a definite duty to report these incidents, and to hell with the consequenses. To function within the state's terror apparatus like this, without acknowledging the fact to viewers, is collaboration and an extreme breach of the trust put in them to broadcast objectively. If you can't report without self-censorship, you shouldn't be reporting at all. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2003-04-11 05:20:03 |
| #2 After thinking this over a bit this AM, I have come to the conclusion that CNN actively collaborated with the Iraqi regime to retain access. It is also unlikely that this is an isolated event. They could have packed up and left, which would have led to the public questioning CNN as to why they had left. The story could hav been 'reluctantly' aired, and this would have then exposed the rest of the newsie cockroaches to the light of day as well. CNN would have looked good; with their tactics exposed, the Iraqi's practices could have been stopped, or at least been seriously curtailed; and some shred of integrity would have been retained by the newsies. Now they (CNN et al) show themselves to have no guts, no integrity, and no morals, this too-late, now-that-its-safe mea culpa notwithstanding. |
| Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2003-04-11 04:49:10 |
| #1 One of the bastions of liberal western democracies is that we trust the press to tell us the truth. We may not like its bias, but we trust the facts as reported. CNN was clearly wrong in not reporting this stuff, but having said that would the world have taken any real notice. There were lots of similar stories around for years and they hardly made the front page. The stories only become front page in the context of the war. I hope one of the consequencies of this war is that CNN and others publish all the news and do not censor for moral, humanitarian or ratings reasons. If I have one message for CNN and others is that not publishing is ALWAYS a win for the despots. Publishing is ALWAYS a win for free societies. This is a war between liberal, free societies and their enemies. Collateral damage is regrettable, but unavoidable. |
| Posted by: Phil B 2003-04-11 04:38:44 |