Dear Media Corps member,
Last Wednesday, CNN chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour made a courageous admission: during the Iraq war, the press failed to voice dissent for fear of being branded unpatriotic.
Today, CNN News president Jim Walton says he spoke with Amanpour, will not discipline her, but disagrees with her comments. He defended CNN's war coverage and said: "Christiane speaks for herself."
ACTION: Tell Walton why you think Amanpour was right about the lack of honest reporting during the war. Ask him to initiate an independent investigation into whether "a climate of fear and self-censorship" may have compromised CNN's objectivity.
Use CNN's comment form for Ms. Amanpour at:
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/anchors/amanpour/frameset.exclude.html Jim Walton
Chairman and CEO, CNN News Group
1 CNN Center
Atlanta, GA 30303
Phone: (404) 878-1720 or (404) 827-2600
Your comments will be taken more seriously if you are friendly, firm, and use your own words.
MORE INFO:
Christiane Amanpour has covered nearly every U.S. military intervention in the past 14 years. In 2002, she won the Harvard Kennedy School of Government's Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism.
On CNBC's Topic A with Tina Brown last Wednesday, she was asked whether the Bush administration had intimidated the media into feeling unpatriotic if they raised the voice of dissent.
Ms. Amanpour responded: "I think yes. I think the press was muzzled and I think the press self-muzzled. I'm sorry to say but certainly television and, perhaps, to a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did."
This is an important revelation from a respected reporter about the severe limitations media outlets have imposed in the face of the Bush administration's use of fear and us-or-them rhetoric. It also speaks to the ability of right-wing Fox News to influence the mainstream media.
In response, Fox News senior director of public relations Irena Briganti said: "Given the choice, it's better to be viewed as a foot soldier for Bush than a spokeswoman for al-Qaeda." The comment misrepresents the obligation of the media to remain objective by refusing to take sides. It also repeats the false impression that the Iraq war was linked to fighting al-Qaeda.
Later in the show, Amanpour continued: "I am still very uneasy about this
and particularly the relationship between the media and the administration. I stood in Baghdad at the end of the war and did what I thought were perfectly routine reports about the looting that was going on and the various beginnings of--I mean, you could use the word chaos--others think that might be too strong, but the beginnings of that and the Secretary of Defense basically accused people like me of selectively editing, of misrepresenting the truth."
Amanpour's concerns seem confirmed by other incidents surrounding CNN's war coverage. During the war, in April, chief news executive Eason Jordan admitted to letting the Pentagon vet their choices for military analysts: "I went to the Pentagon myself several times before the war started and met with important people there and said, for instance, at CNN, 'Here are the generals we're thinking of retaining to advise us on the air and off about the war.' And we got a big thumbs-up on all of them. That was important."
Seeking the truth is the ultimate objective of journalism. Christiane Amanpour should be thanked for being honest about her own network's failure to do so, not ridiculed or deemed an enemy of her country.
CEO Jim Walton should take Amanpour's comments seriously as an indication that CNN's journalistic integrity may have been compromised. To ensure the highest standards, Walton should open an investigation into Amanpour's claims of intimidation.
USA Today reported Ms. Amanpour's comments and Fox's response:
http://www.moveon.org/r?470
I hope you will send CNN a comment today.
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/anchors/amanpour/frameset.exclude.html
Sincerely,
--Noah T. Winer
MoveOn.org
September 16, 2003
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Well what are you waiting for ....GET BUSY :loveya:
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