THREE short years ago, the Cable News Network, commonly known as CNN, was widely referred to by the Conservative right as the Clinton News Network. Opponents of the 24-hour media source claimed it gave undue attention to Clinton's presidency and always put a favorable liberal bias on any story involving the Democratic president. Following fierce competition from the "fair and balanced" reporting of newbie FOX news and the subsequent fall in ratings, CNN began promoting itself as not a tool of the left but as a just, unbiased, reliable news source.
That representation was dangerously tarnished and the ethics of CNN as a news network justifiably put into question last Friday when CNN president Eason Jordan disclosed his own knowledge of years of torture and human rights violations by the Iraqi regime.
In a statement appearing in the New York Times on April 11, Jordan recounted several different stories of CNN staff being abducted and tortured, human rights violations, and assassination plots. Jordan alleges that he failed to report such stories "because doing so would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff."
Jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, huh? Keeping Iraqis under the thumb of an oppressive dictator might put Iraqis under even more harm. Jordan himself chronicled the tales of Iraqis that assisted foreign news networks, disappearing for months only to reappear with heart wrenching, stomach turning tales of beatings and torture.
Maybe if Jordan himself would have come forward with his knowledge, Iraqi lives could have been spared. The world -- armed with detailed information of the atrocities occurring in Iraq -- could have taken action sooner. The sooner the action, the sooner the dictator is dethroned and terror removed from the daily lives of the Iraqi people.
Jordan even had information from inside Iraqi officials who "confided in me (Jordan) that Saddam Hussein was a maniac who had to be removed." Where was this information when the United Nations, along with the world, was crying out for proof that America wasn't stepping in where it didn't belong? Jordan's knowledge would have easily provided proof that Iraq's own people wanted the despot out of control and further supported President Bush's and America's position on the war.
Jordan's silence is at the very best simply greedy. The news hound kept his people in Baghdad in order to get the cutting edge on stories and the better ratings. In exchange though, he sacrificed not only the truth, but the lives of innocents.
In December of 2002, Jordan informed Iraq Information Minister Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf that the network planned on sending reporters to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. Al-Sahhaf responded with a warning that the reporters would "suffer the severest possible consequences."
Four months later in March, Kurdish police arrested two self-confessed Iraqi intelligence officers who had planned to blow up the journalists' hotel with over a ton of explosives. The confessing agents claimed that their bosses had told them the hotel housed CIA operatives and Israeli agents. Again though, there was silence from CNN.
This example of Jordan's many tales is especially disheartening. Without a shadow of a doubt, this proves that Saddam and his minions were spreading propaganda and lying to their people. It is yet another shred of evidence that would have strengthened the case against Saddam.
Strengthening the side of pro-war allies is not Jordan's job, though. His job is to provide truthful, all-encompassing facts of any story that is relevant to the American people or noteworthy to the world and history. Omitting stories that showed how truly evil the Iraqi regime was, and detailed the real life of Iraqi citizens, biased CNN's reporting of the regime and made the news source not only a pawn of Iraq, but uncredible to the rest of the world.
Jordan had the chance to save lives. He had the chance to stop human rights violations. He had the chance to remove his people from harm's way in order to tell the truth to the public.
He chose to do the opposite.
As such, there must be repercussions for Jordan. In an ideal world, the man would see his own wrongdoing, resign from CNN, and let the network rebuild a relationship of trust and honest reporting with the world.
Since that doesn't look too plausible, though, the American public has two choices. We can sit idly by, continue to watch CNN and send a message that ratings matter to us more than rights; or, we can nationally boycott CNN until Jordan either steps down or is forced out. If there was ever an issue to protest during this war, this is the one.
Closing his New York Times submission, Jordan whimpers that he "felt awful having these stories bottled up inside him," and "at last, these stories can be told freely."
At last, Mr. Executive? America has been a free country all along, and you could have spoken at any time that you wished. Please don't confuse America's freedom of speech with Iraq's tyranny over the masses.
(Maggie Bowden is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. She can be reached at mbowden@cavalierdaily.com.)
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