CNN's Email Response To My Article

My blog entry yesterday entitled: CNN Fires All Jewish Staff of Israel Bureau--Keeps Arab Reporters On Board was responded to by CNN's PR staff member, Lauren Cone.  She offered CNN's official statement (below) and asked that I update my article to reflect CNN's response--something I believe that CNN often fails to do when reporting on controversial Arab-Israeli issues. Read any article on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by CNN and then go to other sources outside of the mainstream media and then you make the call.


Cone's statement says nothing new that wasn't said in the original article by Dreuz.info, where the story originated, and paraphrased by me.  If you wish to see my article from the previous day, go here  and you will note that the reason given for the firings by CNN is basically the same as in these articles.  But, in the spirit of honest journalism, I have provided their response.  Whether the firings were for fiscal reasons or not, it seems obvious from my perspective, that if only Jews with significant years of experience were fired, and no Arab reporters received the same fate, then something smells rotten in CNN's Israel.

Below is the email:

Rob,

With regard to your article “CNN fires all Jewish staff of Israel bureau – keeps Arab reporters on board“ (http://robhoey127.blogspot.com/2012/02/cnn-fires-all-jewish-staff-of-israel.html, I would like to offer you CNN’s official statement. It has already been given to Jean Patrick Grumberg at Dreuz.info, where this article originated, and posted to CNN’s press site (http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/11/cnn-statement/). We would appreciate it if you could please update your article to reflect CNN’s response.

“CNN has recently reviewed its worldwide operations, an exercise we do regularly to ensure operational and technological efficiency in everything we do. As part of this exercise, we have reorganized the CNN bureau in Jerusalem . We strongly reject any suggestion that the reorganization in the Jerusalem bureau is in any way based on the small number of contract employees concerned being Israeli, particularly given CNN's long history of working with locals in the region.”

Best,

Lauren Cone

CNN PR

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Here is the original article (translated from the original French) by Jean-Patrick Grumberg:

NN Israel terminates its Jewish journalists February 9, 2012. Filed under: Miscellaneous, International, Israel, Middle East. Posted by: Jean-Patrick Grumberg 17: 30 Update: we just received the names of the four licensed journalists: Moshe Cohen, Publisher, laid off January 30, 10 years seniority in CNN. L Landberg, producer, nearly 25 years with CNN, laid off January 30. AVI Kaner cameraman, laid off January 30, 10 years with CNN. Michal Zippori, producer desk, ongoing situation. The media scandal that we reveal comes to us from an absolutely reliable source. It is likely to cause a wave of shock and outrage in the North American media, and will certainly not calm down the controversy over pro-Palestine penchant of the treatment of the conflict by the continuous information chain. We have learned that the Israeli offices of CNN downsizing to cope with reductions in revenue, including advertising. Beyond simple good management, it is that CNN fired four Jewish Israeli journalists (on a total of eight), and retained only the Arab journalists. There where, until now, CNN still sent a Jewish journalist and an Arab journalists to cover in binomial information now, there is more than one Arab journalist. The local editor of the chain is also Arabic. In a conflict or information holds a central place to guide public opinion, then the decisions of diplomats, and where Arab journalists can publish what they need without risking their lives during their travels to Gaza, East Jerusalem, and in the region of Judea and Samaria, the decision of CNN to dismiss his Jewish journalists is particularly worrying, because the public is very far from imagine that it can receive CNN a strongly biased information. Reproduction authorized and strongly encouraged, with the following reference and the link here below: © Jean-Patrick Grumberg for www.Dreuz.info

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Personally, I would like to know the real criteria for the selection of the individuals in this "exercise." They can do all the exercising they need to do in order to "strongly reject any suggestion . . ." but I think more transparency is needed--a lot more than we have seen by CNN and the  mainstream media who consistently support the current administration with their similar transparency issues.

 

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