[N8 v2.0]

The News We Kept to Ourselves
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.
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N8 Note: I wonder what else CNN didn't report to the American People to keep Saddam's favor... maybe something relating to WMD's??? Hummm...

 

[mrbigisbudgood]

Originally posted by N8

N8 Note: I wonder what else CNN didn't report to the American People to keep Saddam's favor... maybe something relating to WMD's??? Hummm...

That's a pretty tall accusation.

 

[N8 v2.0]

Originally posted by mrbigisbudgood
That's a pretty tall accusation.

..seems CNN didn't think reporting on torture, murder, genocide, rape rooms and assasinations was worth loosing favor with Saddam... It isn't a stretch to think that WMD's would be either.

Besides... why would Saddam trust CNN enough to tell them things that would make him look bad? Maybe it was because Saddam KNEW CNN would not report it...


PS: Eason Jordan is chief news executive at CNN.

 

[I Are Baboon]

CNN and the New York Times can both kiss my white dimpled ass.

 

[LordOpie]

Originally posted by N8
...seems CNN didn't think reporting on torture, murder, genocide, rape rooms and assasinations was worth loosing favor with Saddam...

answer...

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.

 

[Tenchiro]

The only reason Yahoo.com can be viewed in China is because it agreed to censor it's content. Just because they couldn't publicize stuff doesn't mean they couldn't notify the proer authorites.

Like any business it is all about the green.

 

[-BB-]

Originally posted by I Are Baboon
CNN and the New York Times can both kiss my white dimpled ass.

Why?

 

[DRB]

What are the odds that if the EXACT opposite had happened, CNN reporting on this leading to the torture and death of CNN employees or Iraqis, N8 would be going on about that being irresponsible journalism?

 

[N8 v2.0]

DRuB...

You might be on to something... expand your thought

 

[I Are Baboon]

Originally posted by -BB-
Why?

Because of their horribly slanted anti-war coverage. No matter how successful our military has been in this conflict, they have consistently fed us negative headlines.

 

[Spud]

Are you implying that CNN has a higher obligation to report the news than to insure the safety of their staff? Makes it pretty tough to recruit new help. We’ve heard our government refuse to release information to the public or even congress on the grounds of protecting intelligence methods and people. Our military held information for 48 hours regarding a flight crew was shot down in northern Iraq in order to protect the pilots while rescue crews scrambled to recover them. I understand that, I’d also be disgusted in CNN reported on this while the search was hot. That is a double edge sword you are swinging.

Aside - at least 3 preliminary reports of WMD discoveries have yet to be confirmed. News agencies are tripping over each other to find the smoking gun. If CNN had info on WMD dontcha think they’d scoop everyone else?

 

[Spud]

Originally posted by I Are Baboon
Because of their horribly slanted anti-war coverage. No matter how successful our military has been in this conflict, they have consistently fed us negative headlines.

They are a world media outlet. Have you compared their coverage to the BBC, the Australians, French or Germans? Are they supposed to be cheerleaders based in Atltanta?

 

[I Are Baboon]

Originally posted by Spud
They are a world media outlet. Have you compared their coverage to the BBC, the Australians, French or Germans? Are they supposed to be cheerleaders based in Atltanta?

I don't have a satellite dish, so I only get US channels. I am not comparing thier coverage to anything. I am stating my opinion based on what I see them reporting. I don't expect them to be cheerleaders, but when they are telling us about all this fierce fighting and slow progress we are making, when in reality we have stormed through Iraq quickly with little loss of life, that pisses me off. If you don't think CNN and the Times have been focusing on the negative, you have not been paying attention.

 

[Spud]

Ahh, you have an opinion. I haven't been paying attention. Now it is clear.

My mistake.

 

[I Are Baboon]

Originally posted by Spud
Ahh, you have an opinion.

Yes, and it is an educated one.

 

[Tenchiro]

I usually only get my news from the Associated Press or Reuters, they both seem pretty straightforward when it comes to reporting.

 

[Trond]

Originally posted by I Are Baboon
Because of their horribly slanted anti-war coverage. No matter how successful our military has been in this conflict, they have consistently fed us negative headlines.

No matter how "successful" this war has been, people and media can still be against it. Your not supposed to follow just because something is quick or successful in someones terms; ie the biggest superpower wants to go to war, plus a poodle in Britain and some repressive regimes spread around supports it - but the rest of the world is against. The war is quick, everybody should follow??? Don't think so.

 

[I Are Baboon]

Originally posted by Trond
the biggest superpower wants to go to war, plus a poodle in Britain and some repressive regimes spread around supports it - but the rest of the world is against.

Really? What about our so-called "Coalition of the Willing", which includes Britain, Australia, Denmark, Poland, Afghanistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Colombia, the Czech Republic, El Salvador, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey and Uzbekistan. Upwards of 45 countries are in favor of this.

 

[Jebadiah]

Seems to me that the rest of the world dosen't really matter! The Iraqis seem to be glad we are there, every Iraqi I have seen interviewed that is living in the U.S. seems to be in favor of what the U.S. has done. I have talked to two Iraqis that own a shop near me and they say they have been hoping for this for some time, even though both of them have family in Baghdad! The French, Germans and Russians are trying to CYA and protect their vast investment in Iraqi oil, the rest of the disaproving countries are just ignorant.

 

[Spud]

I'll repost this link to the Guardian story about the strong support from our coalition of the willing.

Quite entertaining...


Guardian Story

some quotes:

At the London embassy of the former Soviet Republic, I ask a representative what being in the coalition of the willing entails. "I don't know," he says. "We don't have an official line yet. I'll have to get someone to call you."

Will Georgia be offering practical support, in the war with Iraq, or purely moral? A suspicious pause ensues. "I know what you're talking about," says the spokesman.

"Well. OK," says Adrianne Foglia at the Colombian embassy. Foglia is a realist. She predicts that support for the war from Latin and Central America will be largely symbolic. "Number one, I don't think they need to fly over Colombia in order to get to Iraq. Looking at that list, I think the countries involved might offer primarily intelligence information, if there is any, or moral support. Other than that, I'm not sure that there's much we can do from the other side of the world."

 

[Jebadiah]

Moral support is about all that France, Germany or Russia could have given us. None of them have much left in the military realm. Nothing wrong with moral support anyway. Would anyone expect Colombia to send one of its carrier groups over? "Of those who have much, much is expected, of those who have little, little is expected".