Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Employment Practices at CNN: You Jewish?

Remember the story of CNN firing its Jewish employees?

HonestReporting came out defending CNN:-

CNN was victim of an internet smear after downsizing its Jerusalem bureau. HonestReporting clears the air.  Faced with the evidence that we have seen and our own conversations with media professionals based in Jerusalem, we have concluded that the charges laid at CNN’s door are speculative at best.

I wasn't fully convinced and thought that without knowing exactly what positions were being filled by the remaining Israelis, I wouldn't give CNN a pass.

Well, now we have this version:

CNN’s decision to fire four Jewish Israeli journalists from the cable network’s Jerusalem bureau earlier this month was due in part to their religion and nationality, and to their perceived inability to operate freely throughout the Middle East, the Algemeiner has learned.  “The fact is, just Jewish Israelis were fired from CNN,” said a source who was directly involved in the layoffs and who requested anonymity. While reports said CNN had fired all its Jewish workers from the bureau, the source told the Algemeiner that “they left 2 Jewish Israeli journalists but here’s the catch, they’re each working one shift a week for 8 hours.”

Bureau head Kevin Flower was quoted

....as telling staffers that “we need journalists but we will need journalists that are able to go to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and to all the Middle East.”

Oh, do you want to work for CNN?  There's an opening:

On February 15th, Turner Broadcasting, the parent company of CNN, posted a job listing, with the following description:  The Jerusalem photojournalist is responsible for recording images and sound to illustrate CNN news events and stories as well as editing and feeding video.

The location for the position is posted as “United Arab Emirates – Abu Dhabi.”.
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UPDATE

There is a new comment on the post "CNN Falls Victim to Internet Smear".

Author: J brown
February 27, 2012
8:05 pm

The issue was made By the French journalist grumberg

Which was what the journalist staffing numbers remaining in the Israel bureau may mean to reporting. THAT
1) CNN evaded the question and did Not answer questions that would illuminate
2) that it appears despite the 7 staff there are not journalists among the remaining Jewish Israelis working there.

If grumbergs report is an accurate representation of his conversation with CNN

Then 4)” honest reporting “- no offence to their hopefull sincere moniker of intent; has only further obfuscated and confused what Grumberg’s account makes obvious CNN feels it is a proxy for the news that should be obeyed, without questioning.  There are no Jewish reporters likely representing the CNN Israel Bureau Yes it is apparent a literal employee number error was made. It. Was/ is not the point. 
Excerpted below
To the question: “How many Jewish journalists and how many arab journalists are left in the bureau now? Are you going to replace the four israelis that were fired by four arabs, or by no one? An Arab and an Israeli used to work with each other on subjects, is this still going to be the case? How will you achieve that without Jewish journalists?”

CNN’s response was: “There are 4 Jewish employees out of 7. One bureau chief. This information should be reflected in your piece. And we repeat that there is no basis for your question below about “no Jewish journalists”. Please amend your piece accordingly.”

I restated my question -again-: “Again, out of the 4 Jewish employes now, how many are journalists?”

That was three days ago, and guess what: she never got back to me. And if I did not get an answer, it is because the answer would have unmasked CNN manipulative narrative, and confirm my first article.

Now here is the new scoop. I found the answers that CNN hid, and I give them to you as an exclusive.

True, there still are four Jewish employees at CNN after they expelled four prominent Jewish journalists.

There is one Field producer, full-time.

The second person is an engineer, he deals with computers, satellites, and live broadcasts transmission.

The other two are eight hours per week desk employes, ie answering the phone, and typing cables.

The outcome of this story is that CNN PR, and CNN Spokesperson lied to me, playing with words to make me believe that Jerusalem bureau has four Jewish journalists, and they tried to apply pressure with this deception so that I would censor my article.

CNN: In which closet are you hiding Israeli journalists to ensure honest reporting on the Arab-Palestinian conflict? Who is delivering the propaganda packaged now?

Reproduction is authorized,

^

1 comment:

Simon Plosker said...

I really do wish people would actually read the HonestReporting article.

Yisrael - the issue surrounding the positions of those still employed in the CNN bureau is a genuine concern and HR stated that we would continue to monitor the effects, if any, on CNN's reporting.

The issue that we addressed, quite properly, was the hysterical charge of anti-Semitism being leveled at CNN as a result of speculative reports on the internet going viral.

I stand by that and any latest developments that come out do nothing to change HR's initial response.

Like you, we aren't going to give CNN a free pass either. But the original charge that CNN had purposely fired employees based on their ethnic origin by deliberately targeting Jews is still a stretch too far.