CNN employees, including the renowned international news anchor Christiane Amanpour, confronted network executives over what the staffers described as myriad leadership failings in coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, according to a leaked recording of a recent all-hands meeting obtained by The Intercept.
In the hourlong meeting at CNN’s London Bureau on February 13, staffers took turns questioning a panel of executives about CNN’s protocols for covering the war in Gaza and what they describe as a hostile climate for Arab reporters. Several junior and senior CNN employees described feeling devalued, embarrassed, and disgraced by CNN’s war coverage.
One issue that came up repeatedly is CNN’s longtime process for routing almost all coverage relating to Israel and Palestine through the network’s Jerusalem bureau. As The Intercept reported in January, the protocol — which has existed for years but was expanded and rebranded as SecondEyes last summer — slows down reporting on Gaza and filters news about the war through journalists in Jerusalem who operate under the shadow of Israel’s military censor.
I give credit to Amanapour and the PBS NewsHour team. I’ve watched almost every broadcast since October and they’ve diligently put a spotlight on the civilian suffering in Gaza.
Fucking crazy (albeit unsurprising) how Apple booted Jon off for his criticism of Israel; likewise with Mehdi at MSNBC.
Was Israel why he was cancelled? I thought it was his criticism of China.
Apparently it was China, AI, and Israel based on what I recall reading. Israel may have been the final straw.
I only heard about the China bit, because it’s obviously a huge market for Apple.
Why are people still expecting CNN to be impartial when the douchebag who bought it openly said he wanted to make it more like Fox News?
Did people legitimately just forget that?
Amid widespread condemnation about Israel’s targeting of the hospital, CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour asked Barak if the IDF and the Israeli government had done a “good enough job of proving their claim” that there was a “major” Hamas command center and bunker under Shifa.
Barak replied “It’s already been known for many years that they have a bunker that originally was built by Israeli constructors underneath Shifa,” which was used as a “command post” for Hamas and as a “junction of several tunnels”
“When you say it was built by Israeli engineers, did you misspeak?” asked Amanpour.
Barak, who was Israel’s prime minister from 1999 to 2001, responded, “decades ago, we were running the place, so we helped them.” The Gaza Strip has been controlled by Hamas since 2007.
“It was many decades ago…that we helped them build these bunkers in order to enable more space for the operation of the hospital within the very limited size of these compounds.”
