Thursday, Jul 18th
Last update06:35:59 AM GMT
Journalism Glance
CNN's Octavia Nasr is leaving the network over a tweet in which she praised a late Hezbollah leader. Nasr, CNN's Senior Editor of Middle East affairs, mourned the passing of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, calling Fadlallah "One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot."
In an internal memo, CNN executive Parisa Khosravi discusses Nasr's abrupt exit:
Could this be true? As it turns out, there is plenty of room for concern regarding this apparent marriage of public relations and a government agency, especially when the PR firm that employs Petty Officer Polish is the same PR firm that represents BP.
As CNN is now reporting, the U.S. government has issued a new rule that would make it a felony crime for any journalist, reporter, blogger or photographer to approach any oil cleanup operation, equipment or vessel in the Gulf of Mexico. Anyone caught is subject to arrest, a $40,000 fine and prosecution for a federal felony crime.
A coalition of major news organizations is challenging as unconstitutional Pentagon rules that were used in May to ban four reporters from covering military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In a letter to Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson, the organizations argue that the Pentagon's interpretation of the rules is "plainly illegal'' because it bars publication of information considered "protected'' even if the information is already widely known and publicly available.
For many Americans, one of the strongest reasons for accepting the official story about the shocking events of Sept. 11, 2001, is their deep-seated belief in the free press. We are taught from an early age that the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution guarantees us many cherished freedoms, among which is freedom of the press.
I thought I'd seen everything when I read David Brooks saying out loud in a New York Times column that reporters should sit on damaging comments to save their sources from their own idiocy. But now we get CBS News Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan slamming our own Michael Hastings on CNN's "Reliable Sources" program, agreeing that the Rolling Stone reporter violated an "unspoken agreement" that journalists are not supposed to "embarrass [the troops] by reporting insults and banter."
A little-noticed comment in a New York Times interview with Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni has critics arguing that it shows the media has a "double standard" when it comes to terrorism.
Weiss points out that Irgun, which was fighting for the creation of a Jewish state, was responsible for the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946. That attack killed 91 people, including US and British nationals, and is believed to remain to this day as the most deadly militant attack in the history of the conflict between Israel and its neighbors.
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