Western media can never truly report the extent of
Israel’s criminality because to do so would be to expose their
long-running complicity in those crimes
By Jonathan Cook: Leaks
from within CNN reveal that for months its executives have been
actively imposing an editorial line designed to reinforce Israel’s
framing of events in Gaza, to the point of obscuring atrocities by the
Israeli military.
The dictates, say insiders, have resulted in
senior staff refusing to accept assignments to the region “because they
do not believe they will be free to tell the whole story”. Others suspect they are being kept away by editors who fear they will fight the restrictions.
Internal
memos insist that stories be approved by the station’s Jerusalem
bureau, where staff are widely seen as partisans who slant reports in
Israel’s favour. Palestinian perspectives are tightly restricted.
“Ultimately, CNN’s coverage of the Israel-Gaza war amounts to journalistic malpractice,” one staffer told an investigation by the Guardian newspaper.
According
to staff accounts, CNN’s pro-Israel directives come from the very top –
Mark Thompson, a TV executive who was hired from the BBC. Thompson, the
Guardian article notes, was remembered by BBC staff for “bowing to
Israeli government pressure on a number of occasions” – presumably one
of the qualifications that won him the job heading CNN.