Matters of Emphasis - Paul Krugman

erbarmen, Donnerstag, 01. Mai 2003, 14:58 (vor 7876 Tagen) @ erbarmen

==== OP-EDS AND EDITORIALS ====

(1) Some of the most damning evidence against CNN
comes from a Washington Times op-ed by Peter
Collins ("Corruption at CNN - April 15, 2003 - htt
p://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20030415-91009640.htm)
. Collins briefly worked for the network in
Baghdad and sat in on talks involving executives
Eason Jordan and Tom Johnson, who were trying to
negotiate an exclusive interview with Saddam
Hussein:

"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."

(2) In the Wall Street Journal ("CNN´s Access of
Evil" - http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=11
0003336), Franklin Foer writes:

"For a long time, CNN denied that its coverage
skimped on truth. While I researched a story on
CNN´s Iraq coverage for the New Republic last
October, Mr. Jordan told me flatly that his
network gave ´a full picture of the regime.´ In
our conversation, he challenged me to find
instances of CNN neglecting stories about Saddam´s
horrors. If only I´d had his Times op-ed!...

"For nearly a decade, the [CNN] network gave
credulous treatment to orchestrated anti-U.S.
protests. When Saddam won his most recent
´election,´ CNN´s Baghdad reporter Jane Arraf
treated the event as meaningful: ´The point is
that this really is a huge show of support´ and ´a
vote of defiance against the United States.´ After
Saddam granted amnesty to prisoners in October,
she reported, this ´really does diffuse one of the
strongest criticisms over the past decades of
Iraq´s human-rights records´."

(3) Commentator Marc J. Rauch writes:

"Like all the other similarities that exist
between the despotic Arab regimes, Yasser Arafat
and the PLO employ the exact same fear tactics [as
Saddam]. They kill and torture anyone they can get
their hands on that disseminates a dissenting
opinion. It´s impossible to think that CNN hasn´t
received additional threats from Arafat, and that
CNN isn´t also caving into this pressure to
protect their precious network, by covering up
more truths."

(4) HonestReporting member Arnold Roth, whose
teenage daughter was killed in the Palestinian
terrorist attack at Jerusalem´s Sbarro restaurant,
writes:

"Over the past 18 months, since the Sbarro
massacre, my wife Frimet and I have grown
increasingly appalled at the display of poor
journalistic and ethical values of a procession of
reporters, photographers, journalists and media
analysts. Some of them have misreported on events
about which we had personal knowledge. Others have
come to our home or invited us to their studios
and directly interviewed us -- and then did
disgraceful things with the material they
collected. CNN and the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation are at the top of a depressingly long
list.