CNN E-Mail to Anchors: Say Nice Things About Fidel!
An e-mail from a CNN producer instructs anchors on talking points about Fidel Castro. The e-mail includes these tidbits:
* Please note Fidel did bring social reforms to Cuba – namely free education and universal health care, and racial integration. in addition to being criticized for oppressing human rights and freedom of speech.
. . . .
* While despised by some, he is seen as a revolutionary hero, especially with leftist in Latin America, for standing up to the United States.
The e-mail concedes that “the bulk of Cuba’s economic problems are due to Cuba’s failed economic polices” and not America’s embargo. Still, as a smoking-gun style piece of evidence of leftist media bias, it’s pretty good. He brought social reforms — but was only “criticized” for oppression and stifling free speech?
Now that’s calling a spade a digging tool!
The e-mail was written by Allison Flexner, who was a producer in CNN’s Havana Bureau in 2000, and whose current position appears to be unknown. Head Defender of Dictators, I think. Something like that.
The only surprise here is that the e-mail became public.
Of course, our friends on the left somehow think that the mainstream media has a conservative bias.
Dana (3e4784) — 2/21/2008 @ 6:31 amWhy not CNN stands for the COMMUNISTS NEWS NETWORK
krazy kagu (9a4519) — 2/21/2008 @ 7:43 amLike I wrote over there:
Castro for Cuba: Change CNN can believe in!
Daryl Herbert (4ecd4c) — 2/21/2008 @ 7:56 amWhy not after all the kissing up they did to Baghdad Bob and his boss.
daytrader (ea6549) — 2/21/2008 @ 8:47 amMaybe this Allison Flexner woman will treat us to an Eason Jordan moment and will admit that she has soft-pedaled news of Castro’s tyranny and brutality in order to protect CNN’s interests in Havana.
JVW (ec0d29) — 2/21/2008 @ 8:55 amThis sheds a glaring light where it is undeniable that journos are given talking points by their superiors so their pablum-driven agendas can be smoothly downed by readers. Heaven forbid we be given just the cold facts and draw our own conclusions.
Dana (b4a26c) — 2/21/2008 @ 9:02 amBrent Bozell just published a column about Castro and U.S. meida glorification. The column is funny and passionate. The url is http://www.creators.com/opinion/brent-bozell.html.
Bob (a58052) — 2/21/2008 @ 9:25 amI don’t care what you guys say, Castro is a fellow lawyer and all lawyers are underpaid. If nothing else, he deprived the Mafia of an offshore base. If not for him, La Vegas would still be a gas stop in the Nevada desert and Havana would be Las Vegas except that it would not be subject to American law.
As for the Battistitas whose property was nationalized, screw them. Pay somebody to screw them. Battista was far worse than Castro ever was. Under the Battistitas, Cuba would be no more than an international brothel, casino and money-laundering center.
nk (798403) — 2/21/2008 @ 9:58 amWhen Castro’s thugs burned books in the street, Cubans were unable to get MSM journalists to take an interest. This pro-fascist bias goes way back.
pst314 (672ba2) — 2/21/2008 @ 10:16 amCastro’s thugs burned books in the street? Maybe that’s why he has librarians locked up.
Not that the US librarian’s association is interested.
It is interesting how a number of conservative commentators are suggesting that now is the time for the US to lift its embargo. No suggestion that Cuba relax it draconian human rights deprivations.
davod (5bdbd3) — 2/21/2008 @ 2:45 pmPerhaps the call now ought to be that all media internal e-mail must be available for public scrutiny. After all, don’t our friends in the Fourth Estate (or is that Fifth Column? I never can keep those two straight) keep telling us that they just have</i. to publish the things they do because the public has a right to know.
Well, if we have a “right to know,” and the members of the media are the guardians of said right, ought we not to have a right to know what they say amongst themselves?
Dana (d671ab) — 2/21/2008 @ 3:29 pmI would like to use this forum to say a nice thing about Fidel: It’s nice that he’s almost dead.
Missed It By THAT Much (3ac258) — 2/21/2008 @ 7:38 pm