From yesterday's USA TooLate...Amanpour: CNN practiced self-censorship
CNN's top war correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, says
that the press muzzled itself during the Iraq war.
And, she says CNN "was intimidated" by the Bush
administration and Fox News, which "put a climate of
fear and self-censorship."
http://www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/mediamix/2003-09-14-media-mix_x.htm
MEDIA MIX
Peter Johnson
Amanpour: CNN practiced self-censorship
CNN's top war correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, says
that the press muzzled itself during the Iraq war.
And, she says CNN "was intimidated" by the Bush
administration and Fox News, which "put a climate of
fear and self-censorship."
As criticism of the war and its aftermath intensifies,
Amanpour joins a chorus of journalists and pundits who
charge that the media largely toed the Bush
administrationline in covering the war and, by doing
so, failed to aggressively question the motives behind
the invasion.
On last week's Topic A With Tina Brown on CNBC, Brown,
the former Talk magazine editor, asked comedian Al
Franken, former Pentagon spokeswoman Torie Clarke and
Amanpour if "we in the media, as much as in the
administration, drank the Kool-Aid when it came to the
war."
Said Amanpour: "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."
Brown then asked Amanpour if there was any story
during the war that she couldn't report.
"It's not a question of couldn't do it, it's a
question of tone," Amanpour said. "It's a question of
being rigorous. It's really a question of really
asking the questions. All of the entire body politic
in my view, whether it's the administration, the
intelligence, the journalists, whoever, did not ask
enough questions, for instance, about weapons of mass
destruction. I mean, it looks like this was
disinformation at the highest levels."
Clarke called the disinformation charge "categorically
untrue" and added, "In my experience, a little over
two years at the Pentagon, I never saw them (the
media) holding back. I saw them reporting the good,
the bad and the in between."
Fox News spokeswoman Irena Briganti said of Amanpour's
comments: "Given the choice, it's better to be viewed
as a foot soldier for Bush than a spokeswoman for
al-Qaeda."
CNN had no comment.
Posted by richard at September 15, 2003 02:21 PM