The News We Kept to Ourselves

[Magnux]

By EASON JORDAN


ATLANTA — 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.


From the NY Times


amazing how after the fact he has the guts to tell the news They should just close CNN down.situational ethics in the news imagine that.

 

[Ardsgaine]

I'll be damned... I was just about to post that story myself. I understand that they were trying to keep people alive, but what's the point of being in a place if you're not going to report the truth about it?

 

[Leslie]

What are you doing in here, Magnux?

 

[Ardsgaine]

Is Magnux someone's alt?

 

[HeXp£Øi±]

WHAT DID CNN KNOW, AND WHEN DID IT KNOW IT?: The thought that probably occurs to the average person as she reads CNN news chief Eason Jordan's New York Times op-ed today--in which he confesses to having withheld intimate knowledge of the Iraqi regime's ghastly atrocities from his audience to protect his employees--is "Well, then why the hell did you stay in Baghdad, pretending to actually report the news?" (Eason and his team were apparently so cowed that they didn't even report a foiled attempt by Iraqi intelligence agents to assassinate CNN employees in Northern Iraq.)

We think that's an excellent question. But the thought that occurs to us as we read Eason's op-ed is: Well, then why the hell did CNN's Baghdad bureau chief, Jane Arraf, write us a scathing letter accusing TNR's Franklin Foer of "cross[ing] over into fiction" when his piece, "Air War," chronicled the extent to which CNN's (and other networks') desire to appease the Iraqi regime was distorting its news coverage. "I'm not sure why anyone would go through the process of obtaining the Iraqi visas Foer describes," Arraf wrote, "other than to fuel dinner-party stories about the horrors of getting into Iraq or to rack up frequent guest points at the InterContinental Hotel." Come to think of it, we're not sure either.

But back to the Jordan op-ed. We suppose there is some reading of the piece that might be favorable to CNN--you might argue, for example, that the network deserves credit for coming clean on its own. On the other hand, the more you think about the piece, the more it starts to look like a pretty pathetic attempt by the network to preemptively cover its ass. After all, once all the details about Saddam's sadistic reign of terror start trickling out, people are inevitably going to wonder why CNN wasn't reporting this stuff all along. Far better to get the mea culpa over with sooner rather than later.
http://tnr.com/etc.mhtml

 

[Gonz]

When the hell did I fall thru Alices looking glass? Where is the outrage? Where's the indignant bombast? Reserved for Bush alone?

This motherfucker is responsible for the lives of over two million Iraqi citizens being murdered. He should be charged with Aiding & Abetting the Enemy & if possible, Crimes Against Humanity. He's a liar, even worse than Bill Clinton. He has his team report lies about our President while KNOWING THE TRUTH. He allowed lies like the No Blood for Oil campaign to encompass the news all the while wringing his liberal hands & feeling bad about it. Fuck that.

I for one will forever banish CNN from my life. I want them shut down. Not boycotted. SHUT DOWN. Not to get off with firing his punk ass. SHUT DOWN. If he knew the truth, so did his bosses. SHUT DOWN CNN!!!


Question-How many murders are Haliburton, Enron, Bush, Cheney, Exxon, the timber indusrtry, GM, Ford, Reagan, and the rest of the conservatives & corporations directly or indirectly responsible for? ZERO

How many murders is CNN, directly or indirectly, responisible for? OVER 2,000,000.

Did you realize that the writer of this piece is Eason Jordan is chief news executive at CNN? It's not some schlub reporter or local editor. HE HAD THE RESPONSIBILITY TO REPORT THE FACTS & COVERED THEM UP FOR FINANCIAL CONSIDERATION!!! Namely, to keep CNN in Baghdad, waiting a war & collecting ad revenues.


TWO MILLION LIVES WERE STOLEN BY CNN FOR MONEY.


here is a transcript of a interview, showing his COVER UP & CORRUPTION.

BOB GARFIELD: Back in '91 CNN and Peter Arnett in particular were heavily criticized, mostly by civilians, for reporting from within Baghdad during the U.S. attack in ways that they'd consider to be utter propaganda and to-- out of context and not reflecting the overall reality of Saddam Hussein' regime. Have you analyzed what you can get access to without appearing to be just a propaganda tool for Saddam?

EASON JORDAN: Well absolutely. I mean we 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. I think that the world, the American people will be shortchanged if foreign journalists are kicked out, because even in Peter Arnett's case there were things that he reported on -- and this is a long time ago now -- but things he reported on that I don't think would have been reported at all had he not been there. We feel committed to our Baghdad presence. We've had a bureau there for 12 years with occasional interruptions when we've been thrown out, but we're not there to please the Iraqi government -- we're not there to displease the Iraqi government -- we're just there to do our job.

LIAR


SHUT DOWN CNN-NOW.

 

[outside looking in]

Really now, is it that surprising? Amid all the accusations of the Bush administration having less than perfect motives, we are starting to see unforgivable acts of self-interest revealed that span more than a decade by several 'other' parties.

 

[Gonz]

did you read the interview?

Self interest DOES NOT count at the expense of 2 million human beings being butchered by a madman when the self-interested are fucking journalist who, by choice of profession, are expected & obligated to report the TRUTH.

 

[outside looking in]

That's why I called it an "unforgivable act."

 

[Gonz]

My mis-read. Sorry

 

[PT]

That is seriously fucked up. I can see why they didn't want to leave Iraq, but morally they are nothing to me now.

 

[chcr]

but morally they are nothing to me now

How about morally reprehensible. I'm with Gonz on this one. Shut 'em down. They have no credibility whatsoever for me any more. I can understand self interest, but everyone at CNN who knew about this are no better than Saddam and his cronies. Letting it happen without saying anything about it is tantamount to participating.

 

[Gonz]

just in case you don't want to follow multiple links

Here they are

 

[Ardsgaine]

The New York Post weighs in.

 

[chcr]

I generally wouldn't use the Post as toilet paper, but that was kind of to the point.

 

[Squiggy]

I HATE hypocrits...I hope they can hang some charges on this asshole.

 

[Gonz]

Aiding & Abetting seem to fit.

Crimes against Humanity could also.

It's all in the confession.

 

[Aunty Em]

So hands up all those who really believed everything the media said before this "revelation"...

... I'd like to send the men in white coats around to collect you.

 

[Gonz]

This has nothing to do with believing the media...it has to do with a particular media outlet failing to live up to it's creed & expectations. NOW it has to do with believing them at all.

 

[Gonz]

I'm not letting this go...it's starting to get national attention, just not enough.