The CNN Scandal
seems to me the most shocking and odious thing since Walter Duranty. Still, apart from TNR’s commentary, there seems to be little on it.
What’s shocking is that there is no indication that the slanted reporting was not systemic — therefore, it may well extend to every totalitarian venue, invalidating CNN’s reporting around the world. This needs serious examination, as does the issue of whether “everyone does it.” Excerpt of the Eason Jordan piece:
“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.
I came to know several Iraqi officials well enough that they confided in me that Saddam Hussein was a maniac who had to be removed. One Foreign Ministry officer told me of a colleague who, finding out his brother had been executed by the regime, was forced, as a test of loyalty, to write a letter of congratulations on the act to Saddam Hussein. An aide to Uday once told me why he had no front teeth: henchmen had ripped them out with pliers and told him never to wear dentures, so he would always remember the price to be paid for upsetting his boss. Again, we could not broadcast anything these men said to us.”
I have written previously on the perils of reporting in a totalitarian society, regarding the Dan Rather interview, and I’m still right.
Update of 4/15: Peter Collins recalls the kowtowing to Saddam ten years ago at CNN. A scandal of the first order is emerging.