MaxedOutMama
Friday, December 03, 2004
CNN Lies Shamelessly
Tom Carter is reporting on CNN's horror over learning they had been used by the military (or some military person) to work the Fallujah terrorists. Actually, I think Tom was being way, way too kind and civilized. Since M.O.M. is neither an officer or a gentleman, M.O.M will indulge herself in an undignified yet righteous rant.
First, as Tom notes in his rational fashion, the tactic was only going to work if CNN felt no responsibility to clear its reporting with military authorities. In other words, they were hoist by their own petard - i.e. victims of their lack of any sense of responsibility to our military forces. Had, for instance, CNN stopped to clear broadcasting of this story with the Pentagon, one suspects they would have been told not to air news of troop movements.
Second, as M.O.M. notes in her enraged fashion, CNN has a long history of appearing to favor the interests of the Baath party or their own profit over journalistic integrity, so M.O.M. can only laugh joyously at their predicament. M.O.M. sneers at CNN's protestations at being "used".
Did CNN object to being "used" back when they were reporting in 1999 and 2000 that 50,000 children a year were dying in Iraq due to the UN sanctions? CNN aired footage of the staged funeral marches and protests occurring in the streets of Baghdad then. CNN also aired footage of the protests in Europe over our abusive backing of this baby-killing policy and wrote stories on France's noble protests at the UN at this violation of human rights. CNN spent remarkably little time airing the testimony of Baghdad doctors after the invasion, when we learned that bodies of children were stored in morgues for weeks and that Saddam Hussein was deliberately staging these morality plays in the knowledge that they would be aired across the globe.
After the invasion a CNN editor admitted they knew of terrible abuses and torture, but they couldn't air the truth about it due to fears for their staffers. Ah! But not airing the truth of these stories is not the same thing as serving as Saddam Hussein's international propaganda arm, now is it? If CNN really had any corporate values dedicated to journalistic truth, it seems to me that once they had concluded they were forced to report lies to stay in Baghdad, they would have decided to get out of Baghdad, and then told the world why!
Before CNN can credibly start blathering on about the Pentagon's perfidy in using it as a disinformation tool, it seems to M.O.M. that CNN ought to sit down and review its Iraqi coverage for the last eight years and list every story in which they were reporting untruths about Saddamn Hussein's Iraq, and then list every story which they knew or suspected was untrue when they broadcast it. That might cause M.O.M. to watch CNN or read its website again. Nothing else would.
Furthermore, M.O.M points out with some bitterness that CNN contributed to the international climate which caused Saddam Hussein to believe that he could survive an attack by the US, due to international pressures. The Duelfer Report has laid out Saddam Hussein's strategy to remove the UN sanctions and inspection programs. It was not an irrational one. CNN was a tool Saddam Hussein was using to achieve that goal. Therefore M.O.M. lays some of the blame for the civilian and military casualties now occurring in Iraq at CNN's door, and M.O.M. glories in this moment of poetic justice.
Finally, M.O.M. is convinced that CNN must think its viewing public is either remarkably stupid or has very little memory. M.O.M. isn't that stupid, and she isn't that gullible, and she remembers, and she is no longer part of CNN's viewing or reading public. M.O.M. remembers when the Clinton administration was under attack in the UN for the deaths of children in Iraq. She remembers when the US agreed to an easing of the sanctions. She remembers that the Bush administration gave up on the UN, massed troops and told Saddam Hussein to get out or face being deposed. She remembers the news stories after the invasion saying that Saddam thought the war would last a long while and that international pressures would force the US to withdraw. She remembers how we got to the situation in which this military action was initiated. M.O.M. thinks that more than a few body bags in Iraq should have CNN's name imprinted right on them.
M.O.M. thinks that the blogging world was right to call CBS on the forged memos, but M.O.M. wonders why CNN is not being held accountable for far greater violations of journalistic integrity that were committed knowingly over a long period of time? M.O.M. thinks this is a perfect opportunity for bloggers to contribute their views on what journalistic integrity is. Clearly CNN doesn't understand the meaning of those two words when used together.
For those who don't have as good a memory as me, here are links:
Burns criticizes media coverage of Iraq.
Burns describes intimidation, etc
Brit Hume's FNC panel denounced CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan for withholding knowledge he had of Saddam Hussein's brutality. Morton Kondracke recalled that last year Jordan had insisted “that CNN never made journalistic compromises to gain access,” but that “is a flat lie.” Columnist Charles Krauthammer observed: “It's a classic example of selling your soul for the story. He clearly gave up truth for access.”
Plus, an excerpt from Jordan's op-ed, what he told a radio interviewer last year in maintaining CNN was not at all compromised, a link to Franklin Foer's New Republic story on media outlets trading truth for access and an example from the MRC archive of how CNN's Nic Robertson insisted that Iraqis have “reverence” for Saddam Hussein.
Eason Jordan's confession and previous denials, other CNN reporters knowing lies
From Baghdad, on CNN's American Morning on October 14, 2002, Robertson asserted: “Iraqi reverence for President Saddam Hussein is rarely more expressive than when their leader calls a referendum. 'To paint for the President for this special day is important,' explains artist Abdul. 'It shows our love to him.' Amid even bolder demonstrations of devotion to the Iraqi leader, students at Baghdad's fine arts school, too young to vote in the last referendum in 1995, appear eager now.”
and
Jordan: “The writer clearly doesn't have a clear understanding of the realities on the ground because CNN has demonstrated again and again that it has a spine; that it's prepared to be forthright; is forthright in its reporting. We wouldn't have a team in northern Iraq right now if we didn't want to upset the Saddam Hussein regime. We wouldn't report on the demonstration if we didn't want to upset the Saddam Hussein regime. We wouldn't have been thrown out of Iraq already five times over the last several years if we were there to please the Saddam Hussein regime. So the story was lopsided, unfair and chose to ignore facts that would refute the premise of the article....
“[W]e work very hard to report forthrightly, to report fairly and to report accurately and if we ever determine we cannot do that, then we would not want to be there; but we do think that some light is better than no light whatsoever.”
More on those children dying from lack of medicine, more on sanctions:
The Iraqis also load up buses of foreign journalists for tours of alleged weapons sites or street protests. But the demonstrations aren't terribly convincing. One journalist described to me an anti-American demonstration held last April in Baghdad to celebrate Saddam's sixty-fifth birthday. She saw the same high school students pass by several times, simulating an endless stream of angry protesters.....
"Everyone knows they're a sham," says the journalist. "But CNN in Atlanta is telling Nic Robertson that he has to file a story. He doesn't have anything else to work with. So he shows the demonstration."
Nobody better exemplifies this go-along-to-get-along reporting strategy than the dean of Western reporters in Baghdad, Arraf. In a segment last month, answering viewer phone calls, Arraf rebutted the charge that Saddam's vanity construction projects have diverted money that could have been used to feed his starving people. Sanctions, she said, have "tied his hands in some respects." Later in the same segment, repeating Saddam's constant refrain, she told viewers, "If there's been anything that's been essentially agreed over the last decade, it's been that the sanctions that are in place, held in place by the U.N. and U.S., haven't been working."...
First, as Tom notes in his rational fashion, the tactic was only going to work if CNN felt no responsibility to clear its reporting with military authorities. In other words, they were hoist by their own petard - i.e. victims of their lack of any sense of responsibility to our military forces. Had, for instance, CNN stopped to clear broadcasting of this story with the Pentagon, one suspects they would have been told not to air news of troop movements.
Second, as M.O.M. notes in her enraged fashion, CNN has a long history of appearing to favor the interests of the Baath party or their own profit over journalistic integrity, so M.O.M. can only laugh joyously at their predicament. M.O.M. sneers at CNN's protestations at being "used".
Did CNN object to being "used" back when they were reporting in 1999 and 2000 that 50,000 children a year were dying in Iraq due to the UN sanctions? CNN aired footage of the staged funeral marches and protests occurring in the streets of Baghdad then. CNN also aired footage of the protests in Europe over our abusive backing of this baby-killing policy and wrote stories on France's noble protests at the UN at this violation of human rights. CNN spent remarkably little time airing the testimony of Baghdad doctors after the invasion, when we learned that bodies of children were stored in morgues for weeks and that Saddam Hussein was deliberately staging these morality plays in the knowledge that they would be aired across the globe.
After the invasion a CNN editor admitted they knew of terrible abuses and torture, but they couldn't air the truth about it due to fears for their staffers. Ah! But not airing the truth of these stories is not the same thing as serving as Saddam Hussein's international propaganda arm, now is it? If CNN really had any corporate values dedicated to journalistic truth, it seems to me that once they had concluded they were forced to report lies to stay in Baghdad, they would have decided to get out of Baghdad, and then told the world why!
Before CNN can credibly start blathering on about the Pentagon's perfidy in using it as a disinformation tool, it seems to M.O.M. that CNN ought to sit down and review its Iraqi coverage for the last eight years and list every story in which they were reporting untruths about Saddamn Hussein's Iraq, and then list every story which they knew or suspected was untrue when they broadcast it. That might cause M.O.M. to watch CNN or read its website again. Nothing else would.
Furthermore, M.O.M points out with some bitterness that CNN contributed to the international climate which caused Saddam Hussein to believe that he could survive an attack by the US, due to international pressures. The Duelfer Report has laid out Saddam Hussein's strategy to remove the UN sanctions and inspection programs. It was not an irrational one. CNN was a tool Saddam Hussein was using to achieve that goal. Therefore M.O.M. lays some of the blame for the civilian and military casualties now occurring in Iraq at CNN's door, and M.O.M. glories in this moment of poetic justice.
Finally, M.O.M. is convinced that CNN must think its viewing public is either remarkably stupid or has very little memory. M.O.M. isn't that stupid, and she isn't that gullible, and she remembers, and she is no longer part of CNN's viewing or reading public. M.O.M. remembers when the Clinton administration was under attack in the UN for the deaths of children in Iraq. She remembers when the US agreed to an easing of the sanctions. She remembers that the Bush administration gave up on the UN, massed troops and told Saddam Hussein to get out or face being deposed. She remembers the news stories after the invasion saying that Saddam thought the war would last a long while and that international pressures would force the US to withdraw. She remembers how we got to the situation in which this military action was initiated. M.O.M. thinks that more than a few body bags in Iraq should have CNN's name imprinted right on them.
M.O.M. thinks that the blogging world was right to call CBS on the forged memos, but M.O.M. wonders why CNN is not being held accountable for far greater violations of journalistic integrity that were committed knowingly over a long period of time? M.O.M. thinks this is a perfect opportunity for bloggers to contribute their views on what journalistic integrity is. Clearly CNN doesn't understand the meaning of those two words when used together.
For those who don't have as good a memory as me, here are links:
Burns criticizes media coverage of Iraq.
Burns describes intimidation, etc
Brit Hume's FNC panel denounced CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan for withholding knowledge he had of Saddam Hussein's brutality. Morton Kondracke recalled that last year Jordan had insisted “that CNN never made journalistic compromises to gain access,” but that “is a flat lie.” Columnist Charles Krauthammer observed: “It's a classic example of selling your soul for the story. He clearly gave up truth for access.”
Plus, an excerpt from Jordan's op-ed, what he told a radio interviewer last year in maintaining CNN was not at all compromised, a link to Franklin Foer's New Republic story on media outlets trading truth for access and an example from the MRC archive of how CNN's Nic Robertson insisted that Iraqis have “reverence” for Saddam Hussein.
Eason Jordan's confession and previous denials, other CNN reporters knowing lies
From Baghdad, on CNN's American Morning on October 14, 2002, Robertson asserted: “Iraqi reverence for President Saddam Hussein is rarely more expressive than when their leader calls a referendum. 'To paint for the President for this special day is important,' explains artist Abdul. 'It shows our love to him.' Amid even bolder demonstrations of devotion to the Iraqi leader, students at Baghdad's fine arts school, too young to vote in the last referendum in 1995, appear eager now.”
and
Jordan: “The writer clearly doesn't have a clear understanding of the realities on the ground because CNN has demonstrated again and again that it has a spine; that it's prepared to be forthright; is forthright in its reporting. We wouldn't have a team in northern Iraq right now if we didn't want to upset the Saddam Hussein regime. We wouldn't report on the demonstration if we didn't want to upset the Saddam Hussein regime. We wouldn't have been thrown out of Iraq already five times over the last several years if we were there to please the Saddam Hussein regime. So the story was lopsided, unfair and chose to ignore facts that would refute the premise of the article....
“[W]e work very hard to report forthrightly, to report fairly and to report accurately and if we ever determine we cannot do that, then we would not want to be there; but we do think that some light is better than no light whatsoever.”
More on those children dying from lack of medicine, more on sanctions:
The Iraqis also load up buses of foreign journalists for tours of alleged weapons sites or street protests. But the demonstrations aren't terribly convincing. One journalist described to me an anti-American demonstration held last April in Baghdad to celebrate Saddam's sixty-fifth birthday. She saw the same high school students pass by several times, simulating an endless stream of angry protesters.....
"Everyone knows they're a sham," says the journalist. "But CNN in Atlanta is telling Nic Robertson that he has to file a story. He doesn't have anything else to work with. So he shows the demonstration."
Nobody better exemplifies this go-along-to-get-along reporting strategy than the dean of Western reporters in Baghdad, Arraf. In a segment last month, answering viewer phone calls, Arraf rebutted the charge that Saddam's vanity construction projects have diverted money that could have been used to feed his starving people. Sanctions, she said, have "tied his hands in some respects." Later in the same segment, repeating Saddam's constant refrain, she told viewers, "If there's been anything that's been essentially agreed over the last decade, it's been that the sanctions that are in place, held in place by the U.N. and U.S., haven't been working."...
Comments:
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I agree with most everything you said, and you make me feel like a wimp! All I can say in my defense is that I guess I was trying to be "restrained." And thanks for the reference.
Len, I am not implying that there is a conspiracy in any way. I just think the journalistic "ethics" at CNN were focused toward maintaining their presence regardless of what that required. As one of the people who was watching this coverage and was somewhat misled by it, I have to believe that it did influence the world's perception of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, and that influenced the global political willingness, over time, to deal strongly with Iraq.
Imagine what would have happened if South African press coverage during the apartheid period had not covered apartheid, the suppression of protests, and the living conditions in places like Soweto. Without that understanding, would the world have settled on the sanctions to maintain the pressure for reform? It seems to me that Saddam Hussein was winning the publicity war and he knew it. He could have paid off foreign regimes all he wanted, but it wouldn't have done much good if the civilian populations around the world hadn't seen the regime as a basically stable place in which the real abuser of the population was outside forces, mainly the US.
I wonder if the average person around the world really understands even now what happened under Saddam Hussein. In the Arab press I have read estimates of the casulties under Saddam as high as 6 million, although I suspect that might be a deliberate inflation in an implicit comparison with the Holocaust. But still - very large numbers of people died.
Imagine what would have happened if South African press coverage during the apartheid period had not covered apartheid, the suppression of protests, and the living conditions in places like Soweto. Without that understanding, would the world have settled on the sanctions to maintain the pressure for reform? It seems to me that Saddam Hussein was winning the publicity war and he knew it. He could have paid off foreign regimes all he wanted, but it wouldn't have done much good if the civilian populations around the world hadn't seen the regime as a basically stable place in which the real abuser of the population was outside forces, mainly the US.
I wonder if the average person around the world really understands even now what happened under Saddam Hussein. In the Arab press I have read estimates of the casulties under Saddam as high as 6 million, although I suspect that might be a deliberate inflation in an implicit comparison with the Holocaust. But still - very large numbers of people died.
Tom:
Hey, you ARE an officer and a gentleman. I applaud you for it, even while I felt driven to write what I wrote.
Don:
Yes, it was a rant - but sometimes a person has a right to get outraged. Ethics have no meaning if they don't impose obligations as well as giving rights; CNN seems to think a lot about their rights, but very little on their obligations.
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Hey, you ARE an officer and a gentleman. I applaud you for it, even while I felt driven to write what I wrote.
Don:
Yes, it was a rant - but sometimes a person has a right to get outraged. Ethics have no meaning if they don't impose obligations as well as giving rights; CNN seems to think a lot about their rights, but very little on their obligations.
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