Octavia Nasr has been a Mideast correspondent for CNN for 20 years, and was their senior editor of Mideast affairs. Until yesterday.
On hearing of the death of a Hezbollah leader, she posted the following on her Twitter feed:
Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah. One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.
This expression of sympathy offended some, who were outraged that a journalist would say anything likethat about anyone associated with Hezbollah. Nasr explained in a follow-up on CNN‘s website:
I used the words “respect” and “sad” because to me, as a Middle Eastern woman, Fadlallah took a contrarian and pioneering stand among Shia clerics on woman’s rights. He called for the abolition of the tribal system of “honor killing.” He called the practice primitive and nonproductive. He warned Muslim men that abuse of women was against Islam.
This was interesting background–the kind of depth one might expect from a reporter with a few decades of experience in the region. But CNN decided that this was not good enough. An internal memo explained that CNN thinks “her credibility in her position as senior editor for Middle Eastern affairs has been compromised going forward.”
Now it can’t be that errant Twitter messages are the problem at CNN; they recently hired Erick Erickson as a commentator, even though he had called retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter a “goat-fucking child molester.” And it can’t be that CNN has a problem with opinionated journalists; after all, they spent several years defending Lou Dobbs’ hateful, inaccurate anti-immigrant rants.
Nasr was not fired for anything she uttered on CNN‘s airwaves. And it’s hard to imagine that Nasr has a “credibility” problem based on her message. CNN, on the other hand, does have one, since this decisionseems to raise serious questions about exactly what sort of policy exists at the networkto handlessuch questions about “credibility.”
Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald (7/8/10) notes that, oddly enough, there are anastonishing number of casesof people working in the “liberal media” who got into hot water for being perceived as too far to theleft. It’s hard to think of many examples of corporate media careers that were ended by being too far to the right.
UPDATE: The website of Time magazine (7/6/10)–which, like CNN, is owned by the Time Warner media conglomerate–features a column by ex-CIA officer Robert Baer about Fadlallah’s passing. He calls him a “central figure in modern Middle Eastern history,” and notes that the Reagan administration was wrong about his actual role within Hezbollah:
In the 1980s, Fadlallah was at the top of the Reagan administration’s enemy list. The White House mistakenly believed he was the spiritual leader of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group the U.S. was at war with at the time.
And:
The problem is, there never has been a shred of evidence that Fadlallah was responsible for the Marine bombing, other than his preaching against foreign occupation. But in that sense, he was no different from Lebanon’s other Muslim clerics who also did not want foreign troops in the country. Fadlallah was with near certainty not involved in Hezbollah’s terrorist attacks in Lebanon. In fact, he complained privately about the Iranians–through their proxy, the Islamic Jihad Organization–taking hostages in his country, believing it was un-Islamic.
Baer’s Nasr-esque conclusion should provoke considerable alarm, though:
But at the end of the day, he was an independent Arab voice, a Shi’a Muslim courageous enough to stand up against Iran. In that sense, we should regret his passing.
I understand the difference between a reporter (Nasr’s former role) and a columnist (Baer’s current gig at Time)–though a shorter version of Baer’s column appeared as an obituary for Fadlallah on the Milestones page of Time‘s print edition (7/19/10). So will Baer’s column attract similar outrage? If not, why not?
I think that, like MIA (the subject of a crude hit piece in the New York Times Magazine), Nasr’s crime was twofold. She said the wrong thing AND she has a funny last name which links her to THOSE parts of the world. And while people from those parts of the world are welcome, they must be especially careful what they say, given the intense amount of anti-semitism, anti-Westernism, conspiracy theory mongering supposedly prevalent in their homelands.
I will have sympathy for the leftwing cries of outrage the day they themselves react with rage when a radio host who actively supports the KKK or the Aryan Brotherhood is forced to resign.
Of course, that’s a ridiculous situation in themselves – everyone knows that every single leftwing individual in the media who today go on the barricades under the pretext of some categorical imperative to “Thou Shalt Favour Freedom of Expression” when one of their own is under threat, would have decided upon a completely different categorical imperative, namely “Expel and ridicule the evil expressor of unacceptable and socially offensive views!” when someone who defended the KKK or Aryan Brotherhood was attacked.
Sorry lefties, you just look like evil and stupid hypocrites to me. Everyone knows that leftist media have been prominent in working to get people with e.g. racist views sacked from leading positions. NOW you have a problem with freedom of opinion not being respected? A bit late to cry the crocodile tears.
I always think of Emmit Grogan’s old line when I read this stuff. Anything anybody can say about another country is true. There is not one regime in this world, virtual or otherwise, that is free from corruption and abuse that ruins the lives of ordinary men and woman. It leaves us powerless –with self-inflicted ad hominems– and allows the boys and girls in command to do whatever they please with the utmost moral authority. I wish we could do away with all of them.
excellent piece. i doubt anyone would be fired if they tweeted a similar thing about reagan, both bushes, kissinger, israeli government…..israel created a ‘lehi ribbon’ in 1980 which commemorated their role in ‘the creation and establishment of the state of israel’…the lehi were branded a terrorist organization by governments like the uk because they intentionally targeted civilians, they even wiped out at least 1 arab village in their day and no one cared about that. in 2005 israel gave the remaining members of operation susannah, or the lavon affair, awards. what was operation susannah? israel had agents bomb places us and uk citizens went to hoping to blame it on the egyptians and drag them into the war which was discovered when they tried to bomb a movie theater frequented by us military.
AND does anyone remember when under reagan we shot down that iranian civilian airliner?? and it was found the military was completely at fault but vp bush stated the us refused to apologize and then we gave the vessel that shot it down medals???
give me a break, and didn’t cnn employ members of a military intelligence unit for decades?? cnn lost it’s credibility decades ago
The double-standard illustrates not only extreme bias but also how truly uninformed are many heads of the major news media. It also shows that CNN is overrun with shills that are afraid of offending the wrong team.
Shame on CNN.
Onward to peace with justice in Israel-Palestine,
Joe Mustich & Ken Cornet, Justices of the Peace,
Washington, Connecticut, USA.
I am appalled to hear that CNN fired their long-time correspondent Octavia Nasp just because she was sad about the death of Sayyed Mohammad Fadlallah who was after all, Lebanese like her.
Today is someone is perceived to be an emmemy of Israel, no-one has any right to mention that name, let alone express sadness. One can criticize billions of people in the world, except Israel. One must always be in agreement with whatever dammage they impose on Palestinians. This is what is happening in the US or US Media.
This demonstrates exactly what Greenwald pointed out–“pro-Israel”=objective or at least credible, when it comes to reporting or commenting on the Middle East. If a reportered tweeted something regarding his “sadness” at Rabin passing, she or he might be disciplined but not lose their job. When it comes to the Arab world, however, one is not permitted to say anything publically that supporters of Israel in the U.S. deem an affront. Organized groups that are “pro-Israeli” are basically able to make speech with which they disagree actionable due to the cowardice of the media.
Octavia Nasr was fired from CNN for her innocent comment because the Israel lobby did not like it. Our mass media, like many of our elected legislators, are held hostage by money from the minority of Jewish-Americans who are Zionists. – George Beres
John P, aside from your brash ideological stereotyping, you wrongly imply that this FAIR article appeals to the principle of the right to free speech. No, it only appeals to the principle of non-hypocrisy: So will Baer’s column attract similar outrage? If not, why not?
It says, in other words, the media claim to be objective and apolitical, when in fact their behavior can only be explained by fidelity to an ideology — which is exactly what everything FAIR publishes aims to demonstrate.
To fire Octavia Nasr for her honest statement is another indicator that CNN is far from a well centered, balanced news resource. She has so many years of experience of Middle East politics that a comment about a persons concern for women in the Middle East should have been of non-importance to Mr. Bahr and company.
As a Jewish woman who has strong feelings that Israel is totally irresponsible and has been for years, Ms. Nasr’s remark that one man actually understood the discrimination and mistreatment of women in certain Middle Eastern Cultures should have been picked up by her superiors and colleagues and honored. CNN’s credibility as a news outlet has just taken another hit. I won’t be watching it any more. Not that I watch it often, it is much too biased towards the right and towards Israel for my political perspective.
I have to say, the more I hear about the media’s actual RIGHT-wing bias, and how the cable news outlets report the news, I’m so discouraged by the lack of integrity, I feel that the only solution is the complete implosion of our system. And I do mean complete implosion on all levels, one that would require a complete renewal of spirit and values. If you think about CNN’s giving space to someone like Glen Beck (he rose to real mainstream fame on that network before going over to Fox and getting even more ridiculous) but overreacts to any moderate to left-leaning (or PERCEIVED as left-leaning), it’s obvious that there’s a real crisis in journalism here.
For those of us interested in real reporting (CNN is weighted down with a lot of fluffy pieces), I suggest we stick with FAIR and I highly recommend ProPublica. Trust me, ProPublica is the up-and-coming.
Amazing, sad, and indicative of the sorry state of the media today that volumes more ink has been spilled about the tweet from a CNN editor few knew of previously, than about the referenced Hezbollah political leader, Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah himself. Imagine if someone from CNN had tweeted the exact same thing, but with Dick Cheney, George Bush or Bill Clinton.
“Sad to hear of the passing of (some former head of the CIA) one of the Republican/Democratic (or CIA) giants I respect a lot.” Doubt anyone would blink an eye.
To say “respect” does not necessarily mean you endorse or agree with, admire or worship them or their policies. Indeed, reporters should treat all those they deal with with basic respect –including (and especially) those whose views conflict with those of the U.S. administration/policy–and then try to check out/verify everything they say to determine their credibility, and even more importantly, examine their actions to the full extent possible. That’s the press’s job–( well, it should be, even if it’s not much the case these days) — to examine the evidence for their side of the story, rather than simply assuming that they are whatever the U.S. has declared. Didn’t the press learn that lesson in the run-up to the Iraq invasion and alleged weapons of Mass Destruction? The US considers Hezbollah a paramilitary organization, but it is far more complex than that, providing schools, hospitals, farms etc for a large # of Lebanese, and Lebanese people electing Hezbollah members to 10% of Parliament seats.
Americans and the U.S. press need to have a much less ethnocentric/nationalistic lens: Many of those in Hezbollah and throughout the world see our CIA as essentially a paramilitary organization — need we recite all the bungled operations and overthrows that often resulted in installing new leaders that turned out to be even worse that dictators that were overthrown? How about a country that let a president manufacture “evidence” and invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, saying Al Quaeda was in Iraq (and Bush/Cheney later tried to deny they ever said Al Quaeda was there, when there is television footage of them saying so.) So when the U.S. labels some group simply as “terrorist” or antithetical to US goals, we must consider also how we look to others in using these often simplistic labels — i.e.-it isn’t “you’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists” as was the case after9/11, leading us into a war that has killed 100s of 1000s of people, including exponentially more Americans than at the WTC.
That anyone in the media would use the word “respect” and Hezbollah is so surprising/unusual, that the tweet itself – even without the fanfare, might have encouraged people unfamiliar with Fadlallah to take the time to read more about him band learn, that maybe, like many political leaders (and Hezbollah) he had other facets to him than the US govt portrayed — some good, some bad, and that the Reagan administration’s characterizations of him have since been proven wrong.
News organizations these days want their reporters out their tweeting, social-networking, droning on endlessly on political talk shows (when most of them have little more knowledge than the spin they’ve been handed by the White House and Congress, rather than any original documentation or knowledge gleaned to verify that what is being said is actually true. “Truthiness” as Colbert called it. It’s all about popularity — and as we know, lots of truths don’t jive with the right or left wing spiel, let alone many news editors, who wouldn’t want to take a chance portraying anyone in an organization such as Hezbollah as someone maybe worthy of some respect.
Octavia Nasr’s well reasoned explanation for her ordinary common decency in expressing her condolence, gave me a better insight into the reality and divisions in the Middle east that should be the gaol of any news organization. I have frequently traveled abroad and the reportig of CNN international is completely different than CNN=US. They would not be taken seriously if they hed to American journalistic standards.
Maybe Ms Nasr can now be hired by CNN International–where her credibility has gotten a boost. And maybe we can be allowed to take a peak at CNN International–or would The FCC then make their re-licensure a little more problematic?
The fact of the matter is anyone criticizes Israel or says something not to its liking ( Helen Thomas, Octavia Nasr) is fired.
FUCK ISRAEL and ALL THEIR APOLOGISTS!
FYI: I am a 72 year old veteran of 28 years in the US Air Force, 1958-1986. I remember the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty in 1966!
“The only good Indian is dead Indian,” MANIFEST DESTINY.
The only good Palestinian is a dead Palestinian! Fuck the Israeli Nazies!
Valerie,
Excellent analysis. We are truly becoming a nation of xenophobes, with leaders unwilling to â┚¬Ã…“allowâ┚¬Ã‚ those with different beliefs to speak their minds. Consider that another country, or a nonmainstream group might have a worthwhile idea, or acknowledge the humanity of those who don’t agree with you? Perish the thought!
We have a long way to go in learning to respect others; I fear for the future of journalismâ┚¬”Âand our (once-civil) society. We must rein in the special interests, of whom Israel is prominent, but not alone.
cnn are like a watery version of focks news at his point. It’s pathetic.
Also laughable when a seemingly decent journalist can be fired for being accurate and compassionate, and another can get away scot free when their child is a member of the israeli occupation forces.
CNN has become so threatened by Fox News ratings that it has decided to emulate them. I recall, from a few years ago, a video clip (carried on a number News media channels including CNN) of three Israeli soldiers caught on camera breaking the elbow of a Palestinian man with a breeze block. The Israelis were so outraged that they threatened to block CNN from the cable networks in Israel and replace it with (the then fledgling) Fox News. The tactic obviously paid off: AIPAC now seems to run Times Warner/CNN! McCarthism has not gone away you know.
Both CNN and FOX have one main objective and that is to sell big macks to the masses with some news in between the commercials.
It sounds like a lot of people are angry at CNN.Yet Octavia Nasr herself said in her statement that what she wrote was a “grave error in judgement”.She acknowledged the terrorist roots of this man and was angry at HERSELF for what she had “tweeted”.She understood CNN executive boards decision.From a short order cook ,to a nurse,to a teacher, to the fellow who cuts your lawn.We all play by the same rules,or at least we should.CNN was her boss.They were unhappy with her work and fired her.Period.Get over it.
I resent being labeled a leftist or liberal: I am an anti-fascist based on the definition given in Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, circa 1980.
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