BROADSIDES

April 17, 2003

Choosey Dictators Choose CNN
More reactions to revelations that for 12 years, CNN suppressed news of Saddam's atrocities in exchange for access to Saddam's regime:

Eric Fettman, New York Post
In a New York Times op-ed piece, [Eason] Jordan disclosed that over the past dozen years CNN kept a tight lid on "awful things that could not be reported, because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff ..." In return for its silence, CNN was allowed to maintain a permanent Baghdad bureau - long the only one by a U.S. network in the Iraqi capital ... But to what point - if the only way to keep the bureau working was to soft-pedal Saddam's horrors? If you can't report the truth, why have journalists there in the first place?

Former CNN reporter Peter Collins, Washington Times
In each of these meetings, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Jordan made their pitch: Saddam Hussein would have an hour's time on CNN's worldwide network; there would be no interruptions, no commercials. I was astonished. From both the tone and the content of these conversations, it seemed to me that CNN was virtually groveling for the interview ... The day after one such meeting, I was on the roof of the Ministry of Information, preparing for my first "live shot" on CNN. A producer came up and handed me a sheet of paper with handwritten notes. "Tom Johnson wants you to read this on camera," he said. I glanced at the paper. It was an item-by-item summary of points made by Information Minister Latif Jassim in an interview that morning with Mr. Johnson and Mr. Jordan ... The list was so long that there was no time during the live shot to provide context. I read the information minister's points verbatim. Moments later, I was downstairs in the newsroom on the first floor of the Information Ministry. Mr. Johnson approached, having seen my performance on a TV monitor. "You were a bit flat there, Peter," he said. Again, I was astonished. The president of CNN was telling me I seemed less-than-enthusiastic reading Saddam Hussein's propaganda.

Rich Noyes, Washington Times
Mr. Castro shouldn't have lost much sleep worrying whether CNN would reveal the awful details of his dictatorship. Last year, Media Research Center Senior News Analyst Geoff Dickens and I reviewed five years of CNN's Cuba news, from March 17, 1997, the date the [CNN] Havana bureau was established, through March 17, 2002. Instead of exposing the regime, CNN had allowed itself to become another component of another dictator's propaganda machine ... Rather than promoting a diversity of opinion, CNN mainly gave the communists a chance to promote their agenda to an international audience. Yes, the network aired a few sound bites from Catholic church leaders (a total of 11 on-air quotes) and peaceful dissidents (12 quotes), but these voices were swamped by quotes from Fidel Castro and smooth English-speaking propagandists like National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon, the Tariq Aziz of the Caribbean (76) ... CNN's audience also heard from everyday Cubans, but few were shown saying anything disagreeable to Mr. Castro. CNN showed 61 Cuban citizens praising the communists, compared with only 11 who dared to dissent. To give the misleading impression that Castro's regime is hugely popular among the Cubans is intellectually dishonest, but there it was.

I wonder if CNN is "negotiating" for a Pyongyang bureau.

B. Sides @ 10:15 PM