The Ethical Price CNN Paid

[Geoff_M]

You may have already seen this, but I still find it incredible...

April 11, 2003
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.

Working for a foreign news organization provided Iraqi citizens no protection. The secret police terrorized Iraqis working for international press services who were courageous enough to try to provide accurate reporting. Some vanished, never to be heard from again. Others disappeared and then surfaced later with whispered tales of being hauled off and tortured in unimaginable ways. Obviously, other news organizations were in the same bind we were when it came to reporting on their own workers.

We also had to worry that our reporting might endanger Iraqis not on our payroll. 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.

Last December, when I told Information Minister Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf that we intended to send reporters to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, he warned me they would "suffer the severest possible consequences." CNN went ahead, and in March, Kurdish officials presented us with evidence that they had thwarted an armed attack on our quarters in Erbil. This included videotaped confessions of two men identifying themselves as Iraqi intelligence agents who said their bosses in Baghdad told them the hotel actually housed C.I.A. and Israeli agents. The Kurds offered to let us interview the suspects on camera, but we refused, for fear of endangering our staff in Baghdad.

Then there were the events that were not unreported but that nonetheless still haunt me. A 31-year-old Kuwaiti woman, Asrar Qabandi, was captured by Iraqi secret police occupying her country in 1990 for "crimes," one of which included speaking with CNN on the phone. They beat her daily for two months, forcing her father to watch. In January 1991, on the eve of the American-led offensive, they smashed her skull and tore her body apart limb by limb. A plastic bag containing her body parts was left on the doorstep of her family's home.

I felt awful having these stories bottled up inside me. Now that Saddam Hussein's regime is gone, I suspect we will hear many, many more gut-wrenching tales from Iraqis about the decades of torment. At last, these stories can be told freely.

Eason Jordan is chief news executive at CNN.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/11/opinion/11JORD.html

I think it would have been far better for the CNN to shut down their presence in Baghdad instead of soft-selling the image of Saddam's government and giving in to their intimidation.

 

[ckr]

I agree! So what WAS their purpose there? Weren't they supposed to report to the rest of the world the events they observed? If they were not doing so, why were they there? I hope Saddam paid CNN well for being active participants in his propaganda machine.

I'm sure this guy thinks he is making CNN look like a victim, but frankly I don't see it that way. How many lives were ruined by their DECADE of slanted reporting?!? This makes me sick!

 

[tiger95]

CNN is just trying to do image control.

They know there credibility is shot, so now they are trying to make people feel sorry for them.

 

[DawnCt]

I think it is even worse than soft peddling and placating. Using the excuse that he feared for the lives of other journalists, what stopped him from having a "heart to heart" talk with Judy Woodruff, Christianne Amampour (sp) and the other liberal elites that used this campaign as a political edge against President Bush. Clearly he knew what he knew for twelve years. Kaplan and Clinton were friends. If Clinton's CIA didn't know it, surely Kaplan did, surely he told Clinton. The only dreadful thing about my cruise to the Caribbean starting tomorrow, is that I will be held hostage to CNN (unless things have changed) for a week, and it will be the European version as well. It will be hard not to throw up!!

 

[jenjie]

And even now, knowing all this information, they still had the audacity to present such opposition about the US going in there to deal with Saddam and his henchmen.

Dawn I hope you can survive CNN! Better yet stay away from it, just enjoy the cruise!

 

[cindy_k]

It's true dis-heartening. I wonder if the people in control of CNN are even Humane? What a horrible thing to be covering up and hiding for 12 years!

Makes you wonder what CBS is hiding to get that interview with Saddam.

 

[PamOKW]

I read that today and was pretty disappointed. I see the point of protecting individuals but they also had a responsibility to get this information out. I certainly hope they at least shared the info with our government. I also have a lot of trouble with them hiding these incidents while at the same time grilling our side and raising anti-war sentiments.

 

[dmadman43]

Are we really that surprised by this? After all this is the network that orginally hired Peter Arnett. And also spent millions of dollars investigating and reporting what turned out to be a hoax regarding chemical weapons use in Vietnam.

What's ironic is that they were likely more concerned about ratings when their ratings are in the crapper anyway, so what did they have to lose? Other than their credibility. Sort of late to be telling the truth now, isn't it? Makes one wonder how many innocent Iraqi lives could have been spared had they worried more about being a credible news organization and less about ratings.

 

[bsnyder]

From the Washington Times today:



Corruption at CNN

Peter Collins

Mr. Eason Jordan's admission that CNN had to suppress the news from Baghdad in order to report it brought back memories for me.
In January 1993, I was in Baghdad as a reporter for CNN on a probationary, three-month contract. Previously, I had been a war reporter for CBS News in Vietnam and East Asia and in Central America for ABC News. I had also made three trips to Baghdad for ABC News before the Gulf War.
Now, Bill Clinton was about to be inaugurated and there was speculation that Saddam Hussein might "test" the new American president. Would the new administration be willing to enforce the "no-fly" zones set up in northern and southern Iraq after the Gulf War?
CNN had made its reputation during the war with its exclusive reports from Baghdad. Shortly after my arrival, I was surprised to see CNN President Tom Johnson and Eason Jordan, then chief of international news gathering, stride into the al-Rasheed Hotel in Baghdad. They were there to help CNN bid for an exclusive interview with Saddam Hussein, timed to coincide with the coming inauguration of President Clinton.
I took part in meetings between the CNN executives and various officials purported to be close to Saddam. We met with his personal translator; with a foreign affairs adviser; with Information Minister Latif Jassim; and with Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.
In each of these meetings, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Jordan made their pitch: Saddam Hussein would have an hour's time on CNN's worldwide network; there would be no interruptions, no commercials. I was astonished. From both the tone and the content of these conversations, it seemed to me that CNN was virtually groveling for the interview.
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.
The next day, I was CNN's reporter on a trip organized by the Ministry of Information to the northern city of Mosul. "Minders" from the ministry accompanied two busloads of news people to an open, plowed field outside Mosul. The purpose was to show us that American warplanes were bombing "innocent Iraqi farmers." Bits of American ordinance were scattered on the field. One large piece was marked "CBU." I recognized it as the canister for a Cluster Bomb Unit, a weapon effective against troops in the open, or against "thin-skinned" armor. I was puzzled. Why would U.S. aircraft launch CBUs against what appeared to be an open field? Was it really to kill "innocent Iraqi farmers?" The minders showed us no victims, no witnesses. I looked around. About 2000 yards distant on a ridgeline, two radar dishes were just visible against the sky. The ground was freshly plowed. Now, I understood. The radars were probably linked to Soviet-made SA-6 surface-to-air missiles mounted on tracks, armored vehicles, parked in the field at some distance from the dishes to keep them safe. After the bombing, the Iraqis had removed the missile launchers and had plowed the field to cover the tracks.
On the way back to Baghdad, I explained to other reporters what I thought had happened, and wrote a report that was broadcast on CNN that night.
The next day, Brent Sadler, CNN's chief reporter at the time in Baghdad (he is now in northern Iraq), came up to me in a hallway of the al Rasheed Hotel. He had been pushing for the interview with Saddam and had urged Mr. Johnson and Mr. Jordan to come to Baghdad to help seal the deal. "Petah," he said to me in his English accent, "you know we're trying to get an interview with Saddam. That piece last night was not helpful."
So, we were supposed to shade the news to get an interview with Saddam?
As it happens, CNN never did get that interview. A few months later, I had passed my probationary period and was contemplating my future with CNN. I thought long and hard; could I be comfortable with a news organization that played those kinds of games? I decided, no, I could not, and resigned.
In my brief acquaintance with Mr. Jordan at CNN, I formed the impression of a decent man, someone with a conscience. On the day Mr. Jordan published his piece in the New York Times, a panel on Fox News was discussing his astonishing admissions. Brit Hume wondered, "Why would he ever write such a thing?" Another panelist suggested, "Perhaps his conscience is bothering him." Mr. Eason, it should be.

Peter Collins has more than 30 years of experience in broadcast news, including outlets such as the Voice of America, BBC, CBS, ABC and CNN.

 

[Kilted_Yank]

Friends,

Modern journalism is about money... not information. Try to remember that. Looking for journalistic integrity is the same as looking for integrity in your politicians, you can find some, but not much.

I say this every bit as much about CNN as I say it about FOX NEWS.

 

[PRINCESS VIJA]

I guess I am very ignorant and naive, I would never have guessed CNN would sell out like that. It is disgusting, and yes, I am truly shocked at this.

 

[Jeff in BigD]

CNN = Corrupt News Network?

 

[bsnyder]

I definitely take my news with a "grain of salt" but this has still shocked me.

 

[Geoff_M]

 

[olena]

CNN also has an office in Havana. Makes me wonder what the ethical 'rent' is for that place.

 

[Lanshark]

ethical 'rent'

It does make you wonder doesn't it?

 

[olena]

Sure does. When Castro finally keels over, we may be hearing the same thing.

 

[bsnyder]

An exerpt from Mark Steyn's column in the Chicago Sun-Times, on this subject:

"Also falling into the very-good-time-to-bury category was CNN's self-serving explanation of its Iraqi coverage. As the statues of Saddam toppled, Eason Jordan, chief news executive of CNN, went to his typewriter and bashed out a piece for the Times whose headline was its own indictment: ''The News We Kept To Ourselves.'' It seems that Eason Jordan has been easier on Iraq these last 12 years for fairly predictable reasons: There were ''awful things that could not be reported because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff.''

That sounds fair enough, doesn't it? Except that it's not entirely clear Eason Jordan's get-along policy with Saddam didn't kill as many people as it protected. For example, the butcher's psycho boy Udai told Jordan that he intended to murder Saddam's two sons-in-law, who'd defected. Jordan felt he couldn't tip off the guys because it would have jeopardized the life of CNN's translator, who was also present at the meeting. So the sons-in-law returned to Baghdad and were promptly killed. ''I felt awful having these stories bottled up inside me,'' whimpers Jordan. But it's not really a ''story,'' is it? It's some other fellow's life. Did Jordan tell his bosses? Was it a corporate Time-Warner decision to go ahead and let these guys get whacked? Heigh-ho. Feeling awful about having stories bottled up inside you is better than being in Saddam's dungeon having bottles up inside you.

Throughout this period, instead of acknowledging the open secret that he couldn't report fairly from Baghdad, Jordan huffily insisted that he could. If news is the issue, CNN didn't need to be in Iraq. The truth of what was going on was easily ascertained from talking to Iraqis in Amman, Kuwait and London. But that doesn't work for CNN. They sell themselves as a global brand and it's more important to them to be seen to have a Baghdad bureau than to have any real news emerging from that bureau. What mattered to CNN was not the two-minute report of rewritten Saddamite press releases but the sign off: ''Jane Arraf, CNN, Baghdad.'' As Jordan acknowledged, this squalid tradeoff cost real lives. Once the terms of doing business with Saddam were clear, they should have gotten out. But CNN willingly conceded the right to report any news for what it saw as the far more valuable right to be allowed to continue to appear as if it were reporting the news.

CNN's slogan is ''The Most Trusted Name In News,'' which rings a little hollow now. I like the counter-slogans doing the rounds on talk-radio: ''No Blood For News.''

 

[WillyJ]

Well, I've been wondering why they have continued to show Rumsfeld crying his crocodile tears over the Kurds being gassed by Saddam and not pointing out Rumsfeld's personal involvment in it. . I guess it was some kind of misplaced guilt trip but that doesn't excuse faulty journalism. .

I still can't figure out the other major news outlets not reporting it though. . .

 

[bsnyder]

Willy, care to enlighten me on what you're referring to about Rumsfeld's personal involvement?