By Chad Groening, Jody Brown, and Bill Fancher
April 15, 2003

(AgapePress) - A media watchdog group is calling CNN to task for withholding information about the brutal nature of the Saddam Hussein regime in order to keep a bureau open in Baghdad.

CNN is embroiled in controversy over reporting the truth from Baghdad. CNN's Eason Jordan told The New York Times last week that over a 12-year period after the Gulf War, he chose not to reveal various atrocities by Saddam's regime for fear his CNN staffers in Baghdad might suffer consequences.

But The Washington Times says that contrary to Jordan's assertions, his network's coverage of the Middle Eastern nation and its government was in large part dictated by concerns about "currying favor" with Saddam in hopes of gaining an exclusive interview with the dictator. The Time's commentary on the situation ends with: "No careful viewer can trust CNN's reporting on international affairs."

'Most Trusted Name in News'?
"CNN's credibility is crushed," says Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center. "For CNN, access is more important than the truth."

Rich Noyes, research director for the Media Research Center, says CNN chose to hide Saddam's atrocities in order to stay in Baghdad.

"You even had people inside Saddam Hussein's government telling CNN privately that their dictator was a maniac who needed to be removed," he says, "and they couldn't report any of that because they'd be kicked out of the country and their local staff would be killed. It just shows you how absolutely untenable it is to report from a totalitarian state."

Noyes does not think CNN is the only news organization that chose to keep quiet about Iraqi atrocities. He is concerned that other networks might still be hiding Saddam's secrets. "We still haven't heard from any of these other people about what was really going on," he says. "I think there's an awful lot that needs to be talked about -- and an awful lot that needs to come to the fore if we're going to be able to move on.

"I'm sure CNN is not alone in this," Noyes continues. "Other American networks have made deals to report from Baghdad -- MSNBC held up as one of its great reporters during all of this, Peter Arnett, who says he was never treated badly by the Iraqi government. He had been reporting in Baghdad for years -- now what did he know?"

Noyes asks if accurate reporting from Iraq was impossible, why was access to the dictatorship so important? And he wonders if reporters are still hiding truths about other regimes like North Korea, Syria, and Cuba.

Conservative spokesman Gary Bauer of American Values says the CNN controversy causes him to ask similar questions: "Is there anything else they want to tell us now about China, or Cuba, or North Korea, or Syria, or other places where CNN covers news stories? Are they following the same policy in those places of whitewashing the news?"

There have also been many conservative critics who found that the current war coverage by the mainstream media has been somewhat slanted negatively toward the military.

© 2003 AgapePress all rights reserved.

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