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Friday, October 27, 2006

CNN Sucks

Most of you that know me know that I am fairly even tempered and rarely get excited about much. Well, I've been excited for over a week since I saw the news that CNN was airing a video showing insurgent snipers shooting our troops. In the name of "journalistic integrity", they have chosen to air video that they secured from our sworn enemy. I haven't seen it, and won't see it, but from the description it depicts the insurgents laying in wait for our soldiers, planning their shot, praying to Allah for help, and then shooting, possibly killing, the soldiers that are protecting CNN's right to free speech. I am really at a loss to understand who thought this was a good idea. That video is of someone's son or daughter that is serving their country voluntarily (they may not have volunteered for this mission but they volunteered to join the Armed Forces). Can you imagine if that was your son/daughter/husband/father/brother/etc, and you either saw it flipping through the channels or someone emailed you the video off the internet? Is knowing the pain that this will cause to Americans worth the story and the ratings? I guess the answer is yes if you work at CNN.

You can read CNN's response here if you can stomach it. You have to scroll down a little bit, as Madonna's adoption is now the top story (who else besides me could care less about Madonna stealing a baby from some father that doesn't speak English). Some of the highlights are:

Of course, we also understood that some might conclude there is a public relations benefit for the insurgents if we aired the material, especially on CNN International.

You think? Wow, I'm glad that we have this kind of brain power behind this network. Of course, the media could care less about aiding and abetting the enemy, so I don't know why I'm surprised.

We also understood that this kind of footage is upsetting and disturbing for many viewers. But after getting beyond the emotional debate, we concluded the tape meets our criteria for newsworthiness.

Substitute "ratings" for "newsworthiness" and I think you have something here. I've got an idea, how about we air some counter-footage of some of our snipers doing their thing? I bet that our guys are at least 10 times as accurate and deadly as the insurgent hacks. That would be still be upsetting and disturbing, but the question is would it help push CNN's agenda?

That decision, as well as the decision to build a piece around the sniper tape -- in fact, all the decisions about this story -- were subject to hours of intense editorial debate at the highest levels here at CNN.

Oh, well at least you thought about it first. I guess that makes it okay. I'm sure the mothers of the 10 soldiers that took a round for you, Mr. Highest Level of CNN, won't mind the footage of her son being shot by the enemies of America shown to the whole world.

Blackfive, who is one of the most well read military bloggers out there, has a nice summary with a little stronger language than I used. You can check it out here if you don't mind a little profantiy.

I for one will not ever watch a minute of CNN again. Ever.

6 comments:

Nic said...

I can not tell you how sickening that was and how personally disgusted I was that they showed that bunch of horsecrap.

Michael Medved said this about the video:

There is no justification for CNN's outrageous decision to air terrorist propaganda video of deadly snipers in action. This footage of murderous "operations" came directly from the insurgents themselves, so CNN is clearly cooperating with disinformation efforts to sway U.S. public opinion some two weeks before an election.

The vile broadcast featured an interchange between a terrorist sniper and his spotter, as later narrated by CNN's Michael Ware. Because U.S. soldiers were mingling with Iraqi civilians, the killers consider changing location for a clear shot before the sniper picks off an American without harming Iraqis.

This suggests that terrorists worry about harming their countrymen, when the record clearly shows that their victims are, in fact, overwhelmingly Iraqi civilians--not military personnel. Thousands of innocent dead at mosques and markets give the lie to the carefully crafted propaganda which CNN aired without question or challenge.


Do they honestly think that the terrorists would give anything that would hurt their "cause"? The insurgents could have given CNN films of themselves blowing up Iraqi children or beheading journalists. Instead, they are heard discussing how to avoid killing innocent people. We're not invited to recall the thousands of innocents the insurgents have tortured and murdered over the past two years. So much for the "unvarnished truth."

Most appalling of all is that CNN deliberately gave aid to the enemy of freedom-loving people everywhere. They had to know the horrific impact their snuff film would have on the families of servicemen-or upon those considering joining the war against Islamo-fascism.

This is just one reason why I call CNN the Communist News Network. The only person worth watching on CNN is Glenn Beck.

CNN just plain sucks.

Anonymous said...

I refused to watch the video,also.

I think the best idea I've seen in response to the video is Michelle Malkin's suggestion that folks go to American Snipers

http://americansnipers.org/index.html

and donate to support U.S. Snipers.

Anonymous said...

I guess I would just like to point our that you can have all the education in the world, but can't be taught common sense. You can have all the resources in the world, but can't find common decency. It makes me sick to think that they aired another video of soldiers in harms way. If there was a good time to push sensorship let it be now or replace the head of CNN with a monkey, I'm sure the monkey would do a better job.


J

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Brian said...

Unbelievable...Unbelievable. I hang my head in shame for those "fellow Americans" that enjoy the freedom which you help provide that allows them the ability to televise this type of "news". Sad, disgusting and sickening. God forbid if everyone in this country could join hands just for a moment and become Americans and beat this madness. Interesting post Sack. I have not seen the video and do not intend to. I see no need. I am aware of the ugliness of war. I did however read the response by CNN and reader's responses to CNN which were obviously screened.
I am disgusted and as a proud American...ashamed...
I too permanently remove CNN from my media experience as I should have done a long time ago.

Stay safe my good friend!

Your buddy B.

Sack said...

In case you are curious, the comment that I deleted was spam.

I think you all have hit the nail on the head so to speak, everyone knows that people are dying over here, so why show it? It is no secret, it isn't like you could miss the daily casualty reports on every network.