In the April 11 New York Times, CNN’s senior news executive, Eason Jordan, confessed that for the past dozen years his network had been hiding the truth about what had been happening in the Middle East, and that it was pressured to report stories that were favorable to the Iraqi regime. Jordan cited several situations where Iraqi government threatened, tortured, and murdered members of the press. And Jordan admitted that in order to retain its press office in Iraq, CNN had to cover up information about these situations and more.
For years, I, like many others, watched in horror as CNN broadcast stories that defended the vicious acts being committed by the Arab governments, their leaders, and many of their people against Jews, Christians, and even other Muslims. Story after story portrayed the perpetrators as the victims. Time and again, the deaths of Jewish women and children were overshadowed by the heart-wrenching stories of the perpetrators’ families — not the victims’ families mind you, the perpetrators’ families.
When questioned about this bias, CNN reporters and executives would deny it existed. And with all the zeal of a Baghdad Bob they would insist that they were merely presenting both sides of the story. When reminded that there was no way to balance the story of the bombing of a Jewish family dinner with the posthumous celebration of the bomber’s family, CNN resorted to the same kind of perverted moral-equivalency rationale used by Islam’s worst dictators in defending their atrocities: there are no objective facts, only subjective points of view. In other words, CNN claimed the bomber’s family was suffering, too.
There is no moral equivalency between the situations, of course. It’s an insane, irrational position. For a while, I figured it was just a remnant of Ted Turner’s legacy as CNN’s founder. After all, Turner’s mouth has often made him appear as insane and irrational as any dictator, and he even had the moustache to go with it.
It turns out, however, that the situation is far worse than a network simply being influenced by a possibly demented founder. The situation involves having sick, self-absorbed news executives and reporters who think that they and their jobs are more important than the truth and people’s lives.
Eason Jordan says he covered up the truth to protect lives, but whose lives was he referring to? Only those of the people who worked for him. Additionally, as was exposed a couple of days after his confession, Jordan only came forward when he did because an ex-CNN reporter was about to break the story, which would have made the revelation even worse.
In any event, at any point Jordan and CNN could have pulled their people from the Middle East, and then told the truth. In doing so they probably would have helped save the lives of people who didn’t work for him — you know, ordinary people. But then, that would require integrity, and, sadly, CNN’s corporate integrity is as much an oxymoron as the phrase “Yasir Arafat, Nobel Peace Laureate.”
There’s a significant connection between CNN’s confession and the events in Israel. Saddam Hussein paid millions of dollars to the families of Palestinian Arab bombers who killed or maimed innocent Jews and Christians. Hussein also supported Arafat and the other Palestinian Arab terrorist groups.
Moreover, Yasir Arafat and the PLO employ the exact same fear tactics practiced by Hussein. They kill and torture anyone they can get their hands on who disseminates a dissenting opinion. It’s impossible to think that CNN hasn’t received additional threats from Arafat and his thugs, and that CNN isn’t also caving to this pressure by covering up more truths.
