James Taranto dug this one up from 1999:
Forget Serbia, forget Iraq. “The government we have the toughest time with is the U.S. government,” said Eason Jordan, CNN’s president for global newsgathering, at the network’s annual World Report Conference May 4. Because of trade embargoes, the U.S. government is involved in where CNN opens its bureaus, Jordan said. CNN has been trying for a year to open a permanent bureau in Baghdad, Iraq, and now has permission from the Iraqis, he said. “I’ve [recently] been thrown out of the White House pleading this case.” [Atlanta Business Chronicle, 5/7/99](That’s the Clinton White House, by the way.) Principles are our means of knowing reality. You could call CNN militantly pro-blindness–and look where it got them. Meanwhile, they haven’t wised up any:
The Bush administration took over Iraqi state television yesterday…U.S. officials said that within days, they hope to open a second television channel in Iraq featuring subtitled versions of the three major networks’ evening newscasts, as well as PBS’s “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” and Fox News Channel’s hour-long politics show, “Special Report With Brit Hume.”…CNN declined to have its newscasts included. “As an independent, global news organization, we did not think it was appropriate to participate in a U.S. government transmission,” spokeswoman Christa Robinson said. [Washington Post, 4/11/03]I.e., they’ll propagandize, but only for enemy governments. Isn’t anybody thinking over there?