33 Comments Add your own

• 1. Vinny  |  October 21st, 2006 at 2:05 pm

  CNN crowing about the unvarnished truth is like the KKK talking smack about tolerance.

  Eason Jordan willfully disregarded Saddam Hussein’s abuses of Iraqis and Kuwaitis so he could maintain the organization’s Baghdad bureau.

  They did not play any of the Mohammed cartoons ever at any point on the air, despite the fact that people were dying because of them we were meant to guess what offended the rioters into such a rage that they had to kill people and burn buildings.

  Unvarnished?

  It’s awfully shiny for something without that coat on it.

• 2. Safran  |  October 21st, 2006 at 3:09 pm

  That’s a good point about the Mohammed cartoons.

  I have been highly critical about the sanitized coverage since 9/11 by the US networks. I absolutely believe we have to live with the results of the choices we make.

  Showing an enemy attack is not, however, giving aid and comfort. It’s not propoganda - it’s just what happened. And the fact that politicians don’t like it makes me think it’s about time journalists started doing their jobs.

• 3. Steve  |  October 21st, 2006 at 4:50 pm

  Whatever it is, I think there’s a difference between reporting “Insurgent snipers attacked US forces today.” and “Insurgent snipers attacked US forces today. See? Here’s the exclusive video the insurgents supplied to us!” Do people today not know what snipers are? Is it really necessary to show the video?

• 4. Steve Safran  |  October 21st, 2006 at 7:12 pm

  Well, we make plenty of choices in news that don’t qualify as “necessary.” I’m simply taking issue with politicians who have no problem with video showing us attacking people, but call “treason!” when the video is from the other side.

  And I know this will meet with a hearty laugh, but I will attempt to say it anyway: we’re supposed to show both sides of the story.

• 5. Vinny  |  October 21st, 2006 at 8:20 pm

  Showing an enemy attack is not, however, giving aid and comfort. It’s not propoganda - it’s just what happened. And the fact that politicians don’t like it makes me think it’s about time journalists started doing their jobs.

  Except that when CNN comes up with an excuse like the “unvarnished truth” one, I just have to laugh.

  You make a good point about having to show both sides of the story. You also make a good point about “aid and comfort” being a ridiculous excuse to not show something.

  there’s a difference between reporting “Insurgent snipers attacked US forces today.” and “Insurgent snipers attacked US forces today. See? Here’s the exclusive video the insurgents supplied to us!”

  And that, in a nutshell is exactly what the problem I have with it is. They’re not running this video in a vacuum. They know the reaction it’s going to elicit from people. Just like they know the reaction the 9/11 footage will elicit. Just like they know the reaction the Mohammed cartoons would elicit, and just like they knew what reaction showing Saddam’s real abuses would elicit.

  The problem is, after manipulating their footage to either suppress or create a reaction, they then come forward with their “unvarnished truth” line and it just appears stunningly disingenuine.

  I don’t think all the media is a bunch of snivelling liars, however, I do think many (if not most) on the national level need to be spanked by their mommy for their pomposity.

  That being said, Steven is 100% correct.

• 6. Nazareth  |  October 21st, 2006 at 8:32 pm

  Good article folks– I’m just browsing the internet finding blogs on this subject and voicing my opinion that CNN is the scum of the earth and deserves to lose their broadcast liscence over this. Thank you for bringing this despicable topic to the attention of the public to let them know how derranged and vile CNN really is! CNN thinks the fact that some emailers with equally foul ethics agreeing with them gives them liscence to post their garbage on the internet. CNN will justify selling out American soldiers and their families with a gusto that turns the stomach every time!

  You can read my rant on the subject at:
  SacredScoop.com>

• 7. discreet_chaos  |  October 21st, 2006 at 9:01 pm

  What’s the line from Springsteen’s box set? I’m not going to find the precise quote, but it was something along the lines of “If you grew up in the sixties, you grew up with war on tv every night. A war that your friends were involved in…”

  It’s a war. Our boys and girls are getting shot and to have the video without acknowledging it would be a disservice. and irresponsible. After all, it wasn’t staged with Dustin Hoffman producing, it was real. This fact alone makes it news..

• 8. Vinny  |  October 22nd, 2006 at 6:25 am

  Discreet_Chaos:

  No one is saying it isn’t newsworthy. That’s not even remotely the argument. People are upset with CNN putting it up there and then hiding behind some highminded quest for the unvarnished truth when their history is loaded with example of shellack-based reporting.

• 9. gerry  |  October 22nd, 2006 at 7:11 am

  The fact is, it WAS staged video…staged by the insurgents. If a network didn’t show it, it would end up on some jihadist website as a recruiting tool.
  I guess I shoudn’t be that surprised that the same folks who (justifiably) sneer at any news outlet running VNR’s from the Bush administration would (unjustifiably) cheer running a piece of propaganda that was not shot by CNN photogs. And yes, despite the different stakes involved, the concept is the same: airing video produced by a biased source.
  The beheading of Daniel Pearl was “the unvarnished truth” too…will we see that on AC 360 next? Who gets to make the call to Marianne Pearl?
  Does dislike of this president and his war policy within the media have to trump news judgment? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

• 10. thedetroitchannel  |  October 22nd, 2006 at 8:10 am

  sorry, but had the press done their job back then we wouldn’t be showing this video now.

• 11. Safran  |  October 22nd, 2006 at 9:48 am

  Ah! An interesting thesis put forward by Gerry: “it WAS staged video… staged by the insurgents.”

  OK - so define “staged.” They planned the attack, and they obviously planned to tape it. Having said that, we embed journalists. We plan attacks, and our reporters plan coverage.

  So I ask - what do we mean here by “staged?” A “staged” protest is one thing. “Hey - the networks are here! Let’s run out quickly with signs and throw rocks!” That’s staged. But an attack on troops that you videotape? I’m not sure I buy the argument that qualifies as “staged” so much as documented for their own purposes.

  Good, good subject for debate, though.

• 12. gerry  |  October 22nd, 2006 at 11:25 am

  One of the definitions for “staged” at dictionary.com lists “contrived for a desired impression.”
  It’s a piece of propaganda, “documented for their own purposes,” as you write, Steve, and it’s my opinion we’re talking about the same thing having the same effect on the target audience - in this case, American TV viewers.
  We agree that it’s a great subject for debate and thanks for the forum..

• 13. Lou Adler, Journalist and Professor, Quinnipiac University, Hamden, CT  |  October 22nd, 2006 at 12:45 pm

  News reporters are not sent to the battleground to root for the home team. They are sent, at risk of their own lives, to catelogue the truth of whatever action they perceive. Their actions are aimed at revealing what is really happening taking place. If they report only on what havoc we reap on the enemy, and show nothing of the enemy’s response, we’re not doing news, we’re just doing propoganda!

• 14. gerry  |  October 22nd, 2006 at 1:05 pm

  “News reporters” didn’t shoot this video…insurgents did.
  Print and TV reporters regularly report on deaths of U.S. forces and are doing a very good and very brave job detailing the mess in Iraq.
  We know the enemy response. and we can advance that part of the story OURSELVES without allowing news outlets to become part of the insurgent propaganda machine.

• 15. Ed  |  October 22nd, 2006 at 2:17 pm

  I guess I don’t see any difference between this and video of US troops shooting at Iraqis. I remember seeing quite a lot of that during that Fallujah business.

  But, I’m not in the news or the jingoism business. I’m just a regular civilian.

• 16. discreet_chaos  |  October 22nd, 2006 at 3:25 pm

  Jumping back in and touching upon something suggested by both Safran and Ed; American journalists have been allowed to go on numerous ride-alongs and we’ve seen tape of US forces under attack. We’ve also seen some footage shot by soldiers or the military machine; I remember in the fhe first Gulf War watching stuff from the nose-cameras of smart bombs, video that was usually released because that particular bombing raid had been question. It was purely for propaganda purposes, as has been most of the footage from the soldiers and the only real difference has been on which side, the camera operator’s sympathies lie.

  News should not have a side, except possibly for truth and fair/balanced reporting.

• 17. Safran  |  October 22nd, 2006 at 3:55 pm

  Excellent. So now - and I’m especially interested in Prof. Adler’s POV - there is a difference between video shot by a journalist and video shot by a soldier.

  I’d argue we would have no problem running video shot by a US soldier. Therefore, the same rules should apply to an insurgent.

  Discreet Chaos is right. We should not be crying “propaganda” lightly. We ran plenty of video shot by the US military. The same rules should apply. We’re not here to chose sides.

• 18. Vinny  |  October 22nd, 2006 at 5:30 pm

  Wait a minute… We’re talking about the difference between handing a camera to a to a US soldier and airing what’s basically a recruitment video for terrorists as if it’s the same thing?

  I find the defense of this video laughable from people who have told us all along that the war videos we had in the days leading up to the full-out fighting in Iraq were terrorist recruitment tools?

  I’m sorry. I don’t buy it.

  I don’t have a dog in this fight. Cory and Steve both know I’m a free speech absolutist at all costs. But let’s not kid ourselves; CNN would NEVER air a video of a sniper taking out an Iraqi. In fact, MSNBC and CNN showed US soldiers entering a building doing “cleanup” and executiing an Iraqi soldier. Instead of playing it as the “unvarnished truth” they used it as a commentary on what we were doing wrong in Iraq.

  This video is of one of our guys getting shot by a sniper. It was taken by some lowlife terrorist leader and it’s being used to demonstrate what we’re doing wrong in Iraq.

  This situation is loaded with double standards, fuzzy logic, and specious reasoning from day one. I respect CNN’s right to run any video they see newsworthy. Hell, I even understand that they’re running it because it’s sensational and hard-hitting.

  But please, let’s leave the platitudes and soapboxes out of it. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the unvarnished truth.

• 19. Hairy  |  October 22nd, 2006 at 5:35 pm

  Ten years ago we wouldnt have given a rat’s tail what was put on the news. BUT like everything else, politics has taken over everything. I say so what cnn aired the video. Now start worrying about more important things.

• 20. Vinny  |  October 22nd, 2006 at 6:20 pm

  Ten years ago no one was watching Cable news.

• 21. Steve Safran  |  October 22nd, 2006 at 6:35 pm

  Vinny:

  You’re going to *hate* this, but yes - I’m talking about it like it’s the same thing.

  Leave CNN’s “unvarnished truth” thing out of the argument for a moment: If we’re going to use video taken by the US side, then there is nothing wrong with using video taken by the other side. Call them “terrorists,” “insurgents,” whatever - it’s a war, and there are two sides.

  (( I don’t want to go down the “terrorist” vs “insurgent” label bunnyhole with you - I know I’ll lose anyway ))

  Instead, put yourself outside the equation: suppose this were happening in another country - say, Sri Lanka. Would you only support video taken by the Sri Lankan army and none shot by the Tamil Tigers?

  We’re not supposed to pick sides, as journalists. Argue whether the video was newsworthy. But I can’t see a “they shot it, so don’t run it” argument flying.

  (Also - a correction. 10 years ago, cable had a good-sized audience. The 1991 Gulf War was a big coming-out for cable news. 1995 saw big numbers from the OJ trial.)

• 22. Vinny  |  October 22nd, 2006 at 7:35 pm

  I’ve already said I support CNN’s right to run whatever the heck they want. That’s the beauty of the US. What I have a problem with is their altruistic justifications for doing so, not them actually running the video.

  I do have a problem comparing our soldiers holding a camera to someone who kills pedestrians in a market to make a political point. Guess it’s more a finer point than the bigger point of one side v. another, but I still see a world of difference between the two.

  As for the Tamil Tigers, they’re, for the most part, a terrorist organizatoin. That they’re using those tactics to gain secession sort of mitigates that, but they are what they are. It’s not quite the same thing because that’s really a civil war in another country. I take your point, and it’s a good one, but I don’t think the comparison is apples to apples.

  Either way, CNN has the right to run the video. CNN has the right to run whatever it pleases. It doesn’t mean we have to buy their justifications for doing so. That really is my only point.

• 23. J. Napoli  |  October 22nd, 2006 at 7:51 pm

  I just viewed those unbeliveable video’s that CNN so proudly describes as “exclusive”. CNN’s attempt to bring us the “unvarnished truth” by showing our soldiers being sniped at by terrorists in Iraq.
  As I watched those videos in total anguish and cursed them (cnn) for being so crude and disrespectful towards American soldiers, the bigger picture appeared to me. The BIGGER picture that appeared is the one, they claim, they can’t show us….the one, they claim, that doesn’t exist. That picture that appeared through the view of that snipers rifle is the one of our soldiers walking and talking with and helping Iraqi’s. I saw a city full of life …cars and trucks in the streets…people moving around….American soldiers walking and talking with average Iraqi civilians. We were told that wasn’t so…we were told, by CNN, that that didn’t exist…..that these people hated us…they wanted us out. How could this be?
  Why isn’t the story about the positive side I just described? And instead about the one rotten cowardly terrorist that has to hide in order to achieve his goal. A goal he almost failed because the American soldier was around too many civilians!
  Well all I can say is Thank you CNN, Thank you for finally showing us the truth about Iraq.

• 24. L'Emmerdeur  |  October 23rd, 2006 at 9:44 am

  Are we still believing that most Iraqis love us and welcome us with open arms?

  I remember hearing that about the Vietnamese, too. That worked out pretty well, as I recall.

  Americans go for the blood and gore when it is a US soldier triumphantly butchering the enemy, be that a “terrorist” or “collateral damage”, or perhaps a chainsaw-wielding hockey-mask-clad villain in some horror flick. But you all become a bunch of little squeamish sissies when its your own taking one for the team.

  Perhaps it is easier to question the motives of that washed-up prostitute of a news network, CNN, than those of the “terrorist”, because you might find the motives of the terrorist frighteningly similar to those of the American Minuteman, refusing to engage redcoats on the filed of battle, choosing instead to whittle away at their ranks from the cover of trees.

  (and this comes from a Greek, who has few kind words to say about a culture and religion that enslaved my people for four centuries)

  Oops.

• 25. Rob  |  October 23rd, 2006 at 3:22 pm

  I spent a year in Baghdad on a ‘forced sabbatical’ from my TV web news publishing position to serve as an infantry squad leader in Baghdad with the Army Guard.

  As a former Marine and National Guardsman, the video scared the hell outta me. You never know what dangers you face out there until the world was blowing up around you. Having been there, it was hard to watch because those few seconds encapsulating how insurgents were sniping American forces could have been any day on any patrol anywhere. It could have been their first patrol in-country or their last one before rotating home. It was hard because those soldiers went out on patrol the next day, and the day after that and so on regardless of the insurgents waiting for them outside the wire. One of your guys gets hit, you go back to base, cry, smoke some cigarettes, hold a memorial and then clean your rifle and prepare for the next combat patrol, waiting for it to happen all over again.

  As a journalist, I appreciate the fact that the video was aired. People need to see the consequences of war from all perspectives.

  There are times when people need to see what’s going on out there and this is one of those times. Many people who post on this board - thankfully - haven’t faced the horrors of war firsthand. Many people, including some lawmakers, are outraged that a few seconds of B-Roll provided by the ‘other side’ ended up getting put on CNN. Good because they should be. They should be and realize that those 30 seconds of video represented 30 seconds of 12 months of time that American troops are dealing with during their tours in-country.

  People also need to realize that this video is no different than a two-star standing at a podium at CENTCOM showing reporters antiseptic smart bomb footage as the Air Force plasters Zarqawi’s place or Saddam’s bunker. The only difference is that while Americans are seemingly enthralled at seeing smart bombs drop on evildoer lairs they are equally disgusted with insurgents blowing up Humvees on home video.

• 26. Safran  |  October 23rd, 2006 at 3:46 pm

  Rob: Thank you so much for sharing your POV and your experiences. In the big philosophical debates, we often lose sight of the actual people involved. I appreciate your taking time to give us a personal snapshot. Thank you for your service.

• 27. D.j.  |  October 23rd, 2006 at 7:38 pm

  I only have one thing to say. I am on the side of America, and anyone like CNN who tries to break the spirit of the American people by showing this video is a low life. I too, was a soldier in the US Army, I didn’t see combat but I have friends over there now and as much as I want them home I understand why they are there. Every country shows it’s people the triumphs of it’s soldiers in battle, like the al zarquiwi video, but every country doesn’t give equal time to the enemy because we are not supposed to be on their side, we are supposed to be on our countries side. The whole arguement is bogus because no one in their right mind should show video taken by the enemy on the public air waves period. Scream free speech all you want, but with those rights comes responsiblities, but no one seems to care about the responsiblities anymore. I have a right to do a lot of things, but I don’t because I know my actions could cause someone else pain or displeasure. Just ask the soldiers family that was killed it they think that video was news worthy!

• 28. steve k.  |  October 23rd, 2006 at 7:47 pm

  I just wanted to stop by and give my “two cents” in hopes that CNN will read this. I will not ever watch your programming again. This means I won’t be seeing the products you advertise. I hope you loose all of your viewers. This was a stupid move on your part, I have no desire to see one of my friends,family members or one of our countrys finest being shot and killed. We all know this happens, we as caring human beings just don’t want to see it. Those who do are sick!

• 29. discreet_chaos  |  October 23rd, 2006 at 10:13 pm

  There may be some news organizations that wrap themselves in a flag, but CNN belongs to the world and they should not be seen as taking a side. If they go too far, they’d lose credibility in some far corner of the globe, where the other networks don’t reach. This situation may be changing and some in Atlanta might forget it, but CNN is the light that can shine in the dark corners and by remaining non-biased, they represent freedom to suppressed people everywhere.

• 30. discreet_chaos  |  October 23rd, 2006 at 10:40 pm

  …and my last comment does not mean that news organizations should take “sides”. They shouldn’t, but some do. It’s just that above all else, it can’t be CNN.

• 31. sim city  |  February 7th, 2007 at 10:00 am

  Anyone with any real degree of understanding of the war won’t be using this “two sides” bullshit. It’s a pathetically deluded fantasy, not too different from the one that says America has sunk so low since she gave up slavery.

  The war I’m concerned with is the one with, on one side - Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush Sr., the think tanks that trained them, Saddam Hussein and his CIA buddies, Al-Queida the US-created organization, fanatical Muslims, fanatical Christians, fanatical slavers i.e. property-rights-fanatics, and the multinational oil companies - and on the other side, the Constitution and legitimate government of the USA, the once-upon-a-time-first-world Afghanistan, all the people of the Middle East, the world’s ecology, America’s natural resources, the majority of Muslims worldwide, the majority of Americans, and the rest of the species on the planet, especially the more sentient ones.

  It’s not that I won’t be watching CNN again - it’s that I NEVER watched them and never trusted them from day one.

  Most Vietnamese were pretty realistic about Americans - the good and smart ones never went to Vietnam, and the ones that went were nearly all part of a killing machine that wanted Vietnam’s whole culture. They welcomed the US after the war just like the South welcomed carpetbaggers, and for the same reasons. The Vietnamese were fighting to not be exploited - they weren’t fighting over who they wanted to exploit them.

• 32. Ernesto  |  December 31st, 2007 at 3:00 pm

  The problem I have with these insurgent videos is that they always have such tinny Arabic music in the background. Instead they need some good music that is fitting for the situation like “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen or “Hey Man, Nice Shot” by Filter.

  They stick it in your face and let you smell what they consider wrong. That’s why I say ‘Hey man, nice shot’. ‘What a good shot, man’.

• 33. Sam  |  January 18th, 2008 at 7:34 am

  Wow, thanks for the excellent information!

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