INDCJournal: Delayed Accountability

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February 14, 2005

Delayed Accountability

Posted by Bill

Eason Jordan discussed the honesty of CNN's Iraq coverage in a 1999 lecture at Harvard:

Question: I want to ask about access in Iraq.
Eason: Look, CNN is imperfect, as are all news organizations. We would like to have entirely unrestricted and unfettered access everywhere around the world, but this is not an ideal world; it's a real world, and that's not the way it works.

CNN has had tremendous difficulties with the Iraqi government, a government that's accused me during my own trips to Baghdad of being a CIA station chief for Iraq. I feel lucky to have emerged alive from that. But it's very difficult working from Baghdad. It was during the war, and it continues to be today.

Our view is, first of all, we will not consciously pull punches. If I ever find anybody doing it, then those people will be history at this network, as well as with our Iraq coverage.
...
So it's tremendously difficult for us, as it would be tremendously difficult for any news organization, reporting on a regime like the Iraqi regime, when you know your own reporting is being seen by those very same people. Most news organizations don't have that problem, but we are trying to make the best of an extremely challenging situation. And if there's any proof that we're compromising our journalistic standards as part of that process, I would love to know about it, because that's totally unacceptable.

Considering what he admitted after the war, it looks like his own stated consequences belatedly caught up with him. Eason Jordan had a credibility problem.

Some other interesting lecture snippets about a second tyrannical regime:

I thank you very much for being here tonight. Let me also thank Fidel Castro. In the earliest days of CNN, when CNN was meant to be seen only in the United States, the enterprising Fidel Castro was pirating and watching CNN in Cuba. Fidel was intrigued by CNN. He wanted to meet the person responsible. So Ted Turner, who at that point had never traveled to a Communist country or knowingly met a Communist, [went to Havana]. It was big deal for Ted and during the discussions Castro suggested that CNN be made available to the entire world. In fact it was that seed, that idea that grew into CNN International, which is now seen in every country and territory on the planet.
...
So we've been there now for quite some time. We have never been stopped from going anywhere. We have never been stopped for interviewing anybody. We have reported on stories that absolutely enrage the Cuban government.
Most recently, last week, involving the trial of the dissidents that you referred to. Our position is we're going to report as much as we can on issues of importance, and if the Cuban government doesn't like it, or if the U.S. government doesn't like it, or if any other government doesn't like it, then to hell with them, to hell with all of them. We are here to report the news. Period.

One wonders if CNNi is piped into the cells of dissidents. And like their coverage in Saddam's Iraq, what compromises have been made by CNNi in exchange for access to Cuba? Also notable is Jordan's claim that Ted Turner and Fidel Castro are "friends:"

Question: Are Ted Turner and Fidel Castro friends?
Eason: Yes. I need to explain the background, and it all needs to be said in the context of "Yes, Ted Turner and Fidel Castro are friends." They don't agree with one another on everything. In fact, they disagree on a lot of things.

One says 'to-mah-to,' one says 'to-may-to,' one tortures dissidents, one married Jane Fonda ... but at the end of the day, it's nice to see that Ted and Fidel can sit down and share some nice port and a Cuban cigar.

(Thanks to Richard Lyon)

Posted by Bill at February 14, 2005 06:13 AM | TrackBack (0)