|
SEPTEMBER 16, 2003 - Let her
comments speak for themselves. She is one of the top reporters and
war correspondents for CNN. Last week, we reported how Peter
Jennings, the anchor of ABC News' World News Tonight, said in an
interview his station had been bullied to the right. (see: ABC'S Jennings Says He's Been Bullied To Right )
Now, CNN, another of the supposedly mainstream news sources, admits
its coverage has been right-wing biased, pressured directly by the
President and his “foot soldiers at FOX.”
During a CNBC conversation with Tina Brown, Amanpour said:
“Yes. 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--of the kind of
broadcast work we did. I mean, all of us should have...”
Before we continue with her quote, look at the word: fear. A
climate of fear. People in the press – even this top reporter at CNN
– feel afraid to report the truth. Is this America or the old Soviet
Union? She continued. Tina Brown asked her if she meant there was a
particular story they she wasn’t allowed to do, and she responded:
“It's not a question of couldn't do it, it's a question of tone.”
In other words, the intimidation was that she had to put a pro-Bush
“tone,” and had “fear” about what would happen if she didn’t. She
continued:
“…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.”
You want to know what she means by intimidation? Look at the exchange
that happened next during the interview. She makes the above
statement, and the Bush administration goon sitting opposite on the
show, Victoria Clarke, of course interrupts her and starts to be
belligerent and bully, demonstrating, unwittingly, exactly what
Christiane was talking about.
Clarke chimed in: “It's just--it's--it's categorically untrue. I--I
cannot speak for them.”
Yes, the standard Bush administration emphatic denial. Tina Brown –
whose job is to moderate the show, and who should stop the bullying and
intimidation and protect her guest's right to finish sentences -
attempts, however weakly and briefly, to stop Clarke. Amanpour attempts to
continue:
Ms. Amanpour: “When I say disinformation...”
Clarke starts to interrupt, and the host Brown pleads: “No, let her
finish.”
But of course the Bushie Gestapo goon won’t let free speech exist, and
interrupts again, “I can't sp...”
Now this is the point at which the Bush game is succeeding. Tina
Brown should at that point have demanded that Ms. Clarke silence
herself until Amanpour is done and it is her turn to speak. But
instead, as usual, Brown caves into the exact type of administration
bullying and intimidation that Amanpour is attempting to talk about,
by instead turning on Amanpour and telling her to stop trying to
express herself as if she is in a democracy, and instead give into the
bullying Bush administration goon.
Brown says: “Christiane, let--let Torie say. What do you think? We--we
tend to...”
Notice how the host stammers and can’t even speak straight, never mind
serve usefully in her role by standing up for the right of her guest
to speak without bullying interruption.
As if the bias is not clear enough here, or if you wonder if maybe
Brown is just weak and not capable of controlling her show, look at
how forceful she is when Al Franken - a guest on the same show –
attempts to interrupt Clarke back a moment later:
BROWN: “I'm not going to say--I would never say shut up.”
Um, Ms. Brown, you just did say shut up. Now this is the same woman
who a second ago couldn’t complete the word “we” without stuttering,
refused to forcefully demand that Clarke hold her tongue until
Christiane Amanpour was done with her thought. Now she tells Franken
boldly, and without any semblence of a stammer, “shut up.” Clarke
starts again, Franken starts to interrupt again, but this time Brown
doesn’t back down. She has no problem standing up to the non-Bushie,
Franken:
Ms. CLARKE: “No, that's a huge...”
Mr. FRANKEN: “Because that's what we had heard.”
BROWN: “I want Torie just to finish her thought...”
Mr. FRANKEN: “OK.”
The exchange goes on, and CNN’s Amanpour has still not been given the
chance to finish her thought – which was that she and the rest of the
press had been bullied into not being able to give their thoughts if
they were things the Bush administration goons didn’t want to hear.
She desperately tries to get back in:
“Can I--can I just say--I have to say…”
Funny, Brown was forceful and belligerent in protecting the Bush
goon’s right to interrupt Amanpour and continue uninterrupted, but
Amanpour has to beg just to be allowed to finish saying what she had
tried to say minutes before.
Finally, Christiane gets back to her complaint, and it is a bombshell:
“I mean, having covered so many of these conflicts and having been at
almost every US military intervention of the '90s and basically the
last 14 years, and to be frank, having supported many of them, I am
still very uneasy about this one and particularly the relationship
between the media and the administration. I stood in Baghdad at the
end of the war and did what I thought were perfectly routine reports
about the looting that was going on and the various beginnings of--I
mean, you could use the word chaos... and the Secretary of Defense
basically accused people like me of selectively editing, of
misrepresenting the truth. If you remember, there was a--a famous
quote of his, "Oh, that same old vase... that keeps coming out over
and over again." Now that's funny and it probably got a lot of laughs
by the Pentagon press corps, but it's not helpful because it seeks to
deny what's actually going on.”
Unfortunately, that’s all she could get in, and of course, the
bullying, though it didn’t silence her completely, stopped her from
clearly and fully stating what she had intended to say. Clarke did
the usual Bush-brand bullying tactic of trying to turn things on
Amanpour, talking about irrelevant nonsense that related to her and
her topic in no way – in this case, attacking – yet again – the
press. Imagine. There are fewer reporters now in Iraq than during
the war, says Clarke. What does this have to do with the fact that
reporters were bullied and intimidated, Amanpour’s claim? Nothing.
It is just the bullying and intimidation and diversion in process,
wasting time so Amanpour’s American-given free speech is thwarted.
Yet still, the few words Amanpour did manage to get out were dramatic.
ABC’s Peter Jennings, CNN’s Amanpour, the line of major news personnel
who are reporting about the Bush/Limbaugh Republicans’ bullying
intimidation and how it has affected the entire media is starting to
pour out. We, and the few others who are able to usefully deal with
bullies, like Al Franken, have been saying this for a while now.
Franken did manage to get in on the show:
“I just wanted to read something that Brit Hume said on his show on
FOX. You've heard of FOX… And he wanted to put it in--in context, and
I'm going on a--a USO tour to Iraq at Christmas. So this was really
interesting to me. He said, 'Two hundred and seventy-seven US soldiers
have now died in Iraq which means that statistically speaking US
soldiers have less of a chance of dying from all causes in Iraq than
citizens have of being murdered in California which is roughly the
same geographical size.' Now he ignores the fact that there are 32
million people living in California and there are 140,000 troops. So
when I go on my USO tour, I'm going to tell this to the troops that
they're--they're in less danger than people in California. I think
they'll find that hilarious, and I think they'll thank Brit Hume and
the FOX News Channel for telling them that.
“I think this is absolutely disgusting, and I think that the attempt
by people--by the right to say, 'Oh, everything's going great there,'
and scoffing at people who say that it isn't by saying, 'Oh, it's more
dangerous in California,' is absolutely disgusting.”
REFERENCE: CNBC News Transcripts, SHOW: Topic A with Tina
Brown (10:00 PM ET) – CNBC, September 10, 2003 |
