To know these atrocities (crimes against humanity) and to say nothing or report the opposite to curry favors, makes these reporters guilty as well. They were willing instruments in Iraq's propaganda campaign and should be held accountable.



I don't think it is hard to imagine that if CNN had existed 70 years ago, they would have protected the Nazis through their silence, in order to keep their Berlin station open.

I think you're overreacting.



If CNN had decided to leave Baghdad and then decided to say all they knew about what was going, wouldn't have every Iraqi who'd worked for them or come into contact with them faced torture or death?



The fact that Hussein was a monstrous tyrant was hardly shockingly new info.

Ali:



I don't disagree it would have gotten people killed, but why were they there if not to report? How could they accept being complicit in the crimes of the regime? How could they cover up a story about assassination at a time when the public debate was over whether Iraq was a threat to its neighbors?

I think oj's point is as much as one can stretch this story.



But, it is precious how the media "agonizes" about cooperating with the US government/military when they suspect they may have to ONLY keep quiet when reporting could jeopardize American lives or ONLY reporting information at face value when, as the ITV -- or was is BBC -- reporter said "reporting this wuold clearly help your cause (in that case getting Iraqis to surrender).

CNN's responsibility, as with all journalism outlets, is ultimately to the public. That is the whole and entire point of having freedom of the press. If they filter news to protect whomever, whose interests are they serving? Their own.



This had better cause a journalism "scandal" - crisis is perhaps a better term - or they are all worse than worthless.



I've wondered why we have heard so little over the years as to the horror going on over there; now we know i was because it was too risky for a few employees. Better to let the regime continue to kill with impunity than actually do anything that would fix it and provide relief in the future to millions.



Can you say "conflict of interest"? Knew you could.



Well, now we know, the function of journalism has been redefined, thanks for finally informing us, you arrogant elitist pricks.

Dear Lord, what awful things being done by the Bush administration have CNN reporters suppressed and continue to suppress?

JB: I don't think CNN telling what they knew would have made much difference



i) before the war when it would have been unlikely for Clinton to have started a war whether the regime killed with impunity or not and



ii) before the current one when Bush had decided to get rid of Hussein whatever the case.



Hussein's human rights abuses have been common knowledge for years and half a dozen interviews with exiles would have served the same purpose.



All they'd have accomplished by speaking out would have been a slight lowering of Iraq's population.



I'm willing to forgive their complicity for the sake of saving lives, King Hussein was informed about Uday Hussein's comments and if anybody wasn't convinced about the nature of Iraq's intentions towards its' neighbours by the Kuwaiti invasion then I doubt anything CNN said would have done so.

JB: I don't think CNN telling what they knew would have made much difference



i) before the war when it would have been unlikely for Clinton to have started a war whether the regime killed with impunity or not and



ii) before the current one when Bush had decided to get rid of Hussein whatever the case.



Hussein's human rights abuses have been common knowledge for years and half a dozen interviews with exiles would have served the same purpose.



All they'd have accomplished by speaking out would have been a slight lowering of Iraq's population.



I'm willing to forgive their complicity for the sake of saving lives, King Hussein was informed about Uday Hussein's comments and if anybody wasn't convinced about the nature of Iraq's intentions towards its' neighbours by the Kuwaiti invasion then I doubt anything CNN said would have done so.

M. Ali, you are missing one point, the anti-war position is based on the fiction that Bush=Hitler with a lot of "feel-good" blather as camoflage. CNN and others had proof positive that in fact Saddam=Hitler. You are probably right that Clinton would do nothing, see Rwanda. But Bush put his political fate on the line for a necessary victory, all the wile also fighting against Media opposition to his efforts.



CNN admits knowing information devastating to half (at least) of the anti-war arguments, and gives excuses for not divulging it. CNN pushes the moral equivalency of the pro and anti arguments, knowing the complete evil of the Iraq regime. CNN is entirely self-serving, continued moral relativism on this point is the same. "I'm against the war but the results are ok" is garbage.



If the press is the fourth estate, dedicated to ensuring the free electorate the ability to participate rationally in policy decisions, this was a betrayal of their mission.

Ali - CNN's job is to inform the public, not influence political action. It's not complicated. The fact that you would even frame your argument that way tells me that you have bought into the news media's self-made image as the manufacturer of political firestorms, day in and day out. This, alas, is not their job, as far as the U.S. is concerned. Rest assured, the First Amendment was not written with this scenario in mind. The whole idea of freedom of the press is to prevent
a situation where fear and conflicts of interest prevent information from flowing freely to the electorate.



Now, if Clinton (or whoever) fails to act on information, that is an entirely different issue than the sanctimonious media clamping down on the story in the first place. Sorry, that excuse won't wash.



And, despite what you say, Hussein's brutality was not common knowledge. Common knowledge is when it appears not just in small circulation special interest mags like National Review or The Nation but splashed on page 1 of the New York Times or Washington Post. That, surely, never happened throughout the 90s. Why, well that is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. I have some ideas ... ;-)



I agree completely with the last paragraph of Steve's post as well. Betrayal is the perfect word. People who care about being informed and who are not siding with tyrants should be UNBELIEVABLY pissed off about this. I am - can you tell?

Ali - CNN's job is to inform the public, not influence political action. It's not complicated. The fact that you would even frame your argument that way tells me that you have bought into the news media's self-made image as the manufacturer of political firestorms, day in and day out. This, alas, is not their job, as far as the U.S. is concerned. Rest assured, the First Amendment was not written with this scenario in mind. The whole idea of freedom of the press is to prevent
a situation where fear and conflicts of interest prevent information from flowing freely to the electorate.



Now, if Clinton (or whoever) fails to act on information, that is an entirely different issue than the sanctimonious media clamping down on the story in the first place. Sorry, that excuse won't wash.



And, despite what you say, Hussein's brutality was not common knowledge. Common knowledge is when it appears not just in small circulation special interest mags like National Review or The Nation but splashed on page 1 of the New York Times or Washington Post. That, surely, never happened throughout the 90s. Why, well that is a whole 'nother kettle of fish. I have some ideas ... ;-)



I agree completely with the last paragraph of Steve's post as well. Betrayal is the perfect word. People who care about being informed and who are not siding with tyrants should be UNBELIEVABLY pissed off about this. I am - can you tell?

SM:



I think enough proof was out there from Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and other sources for it to be common knowledge that Hussein=Hitler.



And from the anti-war people I knew, most of them fully acknowledged Hussein was evil but the potential human cost of a US invasion was too high for them to support.



In addition they were highly suspicious of US intentions in Iraq and whether Hussein actually had usable WMD as well as fearing that any war would drive thousands of Arabs into the arms of radicals.



Very few of the conversations I had featured any denial that Hussein was an awful tyrant although I doubt the Bush=Hitler leftist morons in the movement ever considered a rational appraisal of the facts and whether they could have been convinced in any case.



I haven't watched enough of CNN's programming during the war (far too anodyne) to have much of an informed opinion on it.



In any case I suspect the journalistic profession is far too obsessed with "objectivity" to pursue anything other than moral relativism but I'm not going to slam Mr Jordan for making the same decision I would have.

Mr. Choudhury--



You are side stepping the main question i.e. If CNN could not report Hussein's atrocities for fear of reprisals, than what was the point of reporting anything at all? If you can only report lies why bother?



Also, what does this do for their over all credibility? And people wonder why I snort when the media reports about Castro's wonderful health care system or Cuba's 99.99% literacy rate.

"I think enough proof was out there from Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and other sources for it to be common knowledge that Hussein=Hitler." Each of these are anti-american moral relativist institutions, whose reporting is always couched in how did european imperialism cause this horror. They have little resonance with the public.



In contrast, CNN and the NY Times are tremendously infleuntial with both policy makers and the informed electorate, especially during war. These institutions were in lock-step outright opposition to intervention in Iraq.



"Suspicious of US intentions." Good g-d. Since 1982 US military intervention in the ME has been to prevent Islamic death, either by getting between Arabs and Jews, Moslems and Christians, or between Somalis and Somalis. Now After 9/11 we're taking action directly for our own protection, action that coincedently frees two Islamic countries from tyranny (so far).



Those who concluded that US intervention would cost too much made that calculation without full information of the daily terror of Iraq, as CNN has now admitted. Anyone who continues to pursue the "cost to much" argument is blind to what is happening now.

CNN - Collaboration, Not News



So their reporting on Iraq has been suspect for over a decade. So what are we to make of their reporting from other tyrranies like Cuba, China, Libya, so-called Palestine, Iran or France? Only a fool (or someone who is having their worldview validated) would take seriously their reporting from such places any more.



The best part of all this will be the same Leftists who start foaming at the mouth about Fox being "biased" will be the most ardent defenders of CNN's actions.

I sympathize with CNN's desire to protect Iraqis. However:



If CNN was concealing or distorting the truth about Iraq, they're probably doing the same in 50 other countries around the world right now. This discredits their news coverage.



I think in time the blogosphere will progress to the point where we can aggregate and filter from many personal sources, who can contribute anecdotes anonymously, and put together a much truer picture of events in a place like Iraq than a CNN can or will. The innate bias of a big media company is to preserve themselves: smaller sources have little to lose by reporting the truth.

SM: I doubt the general public views Amnesty or HRW as the anti-American tools that they really are and would have seen them as a relatively independant source who whatever their biases were confirming that Hussein=Hitler.



In any case there was plenty of attention given to the atrocities the regime had committed, enough so that most people were aware the Iraqi regime was a thoroughly nasty one.



And I know it's ironic for Muslims to carp on with anti-Americanism when a good proportion of the Islamic world owes them a big debt.



I would say the NYT and Washington Post are far more influential than CNN in influencing policy makers.



Buttercup: I suppose they continued to stay in Iraq because getting some news on the ground, whatever the restrictions in place were, was the overriding consideration.



edit: Reading this interview by Jordan has made me question my opinion.



http://www.wnyc.org/onthemedia/transcripts_102502_jordan.html

This quote in particular is pretty galling:



BOB GARFIELD: Have you analyzed what you can get access to without appearing to be just a propaganda tool for Saddam?





EASON JORDAN: Well absolutely. I mean we work very hard to report forthrightly, to report fairly and to report accurately and if we ever determine we cannot do that, then we would not want to be there; but we do think that some light is better than no light whatsoever.

As a newspapeerman, though not one reporting on such momentous events, I have never devised a general rule that covers all. In "Berlin Diary," William Shirer describes how he tried, sometimes with just a nod and a wink, to get a sense of events out past Hitler's censors.



Right? Wrong? Hard to say.



I don't watch CNN, so I have no idea what its coverage is like.



The overall antidote to bad reporting is lots of different reporters, but then the burden is on the news consumers to consume a lot of varied news. Not many people are willing to do that.



The sweetest days of my professional life -- and they come fairly often -- are when someone stands up in a ]

public meeting and condemns some local outrage that

"we were never told about" and I can point to a page one story I wrote about it months earlier.



I have stated my contempt for the lack of competence of almost all the reporters of the Iraq War, but my feelings for news consumers are not much higher.

M. Ali, you are right, those of us who made an effort (in my case professional - I'm a USMC veteran) knew who the fight was against. But CNN inaction gave cover for the anti-americans. From Clayton Cramer:



CNN, by reporting from Baghdad, gave leftists the impression that Hussein's operation wasn't a great government, but that was all. Their self-restraint meant that those of us on the right saw CNN as an apologist for a very, very evil bunch. It would have been better, all the way around, for CNN to have shut down operations there, and said, "This is a government of savages. We can't tell you the truth about what we know without putting people we know at risk of torture and murder."



An interesting juxtaposition at Cramer's blog, a quote from Scott Ritter's September interview in Time:



The prison in question is at the General Security Services headquarters, which was inspected by my team in Jan. 1998. It appeared to be a prison for children — toddlers up to pre-adolescents — whose only crime was to be the offspring of those who have spoken out politically against the regime of Saddam Hussein. It was a horrific scene. Actually I'm not going to describe what I saw there because what I saw was so horrible that it can be used by those who would want to promote war with Iraq, and right now I'm waging peace.



">http://claytoncramer.com/weblog/blogger.html




So what CNN is admitting is they are on the same moral plane as Scott Ritter. For their own purpose they kept the lid on. But even Ritter acknowledged his conduct up front when first asked, as you note, CNN denied its coverup for a year.

SM:



In light of the Jordan interview I linked to, I think I agree with you.

For a great collection of blogs & comment on CNN see: http://www.hobbsonline.blogspot.com.

They just played a sublimely odd moment on Fox News. The Iraqi ambassador gave the CNN correspondent a hug and wished him well as he hopped in his car to leave the country.