The only surprising thing about the revelation that CNN was more interested in the questionable prestige of having a news bureau in Iraq than actually reporting anything that might upset their hosts -- such as news of atrocities committed by the regime, is the number of people who are surprised by this. Rand Simberg asks:
please tell us why your reporting from Damascus, or Gaza, or the West Bank (as just three examples) should be given any credibility whatsoever. How much of Arafat and Assad's thuggish behavior have you been covering up? And if you now propose to tell us, why should we believe you?
Well, I can answer those questions: it shouldn't, a lot of it, and no.
Posted by Andrea Harris at April 11, 2003 10:12 PMNothing revealed in the cited article surprised me. Of course news bureaus working under tyrannies must toe the party line. That's been true since Lenin, or earlier. Last month Dan Rather interviewed Saddam Hussein, and because of his soft-ball questions, Dan was allowed to return home alive. The interview wasn't worth much. CNN's reporting under the cited conditions wasn't worth much, either.
Posted by: Tresho at April 12, 2003 at 12:05 AM