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March 21, 2009

CNN Does It Again

 

 

Listen carefully.

 

The woman ranting in the background is a senior producer in Jerusalem for CNN. I'm sure, however, none of her toxic hatred colored any of her stories for CNN while under its employ.

 

 

 

Apparently, this is not the first time Nidal Rafa has let loose. In fact, she reportedly has a reputation for airing her expletive-ridden views about how "fascist" she thinks Israel is among those who know her and don't know her in Jerusalem. Too bad CNN doesn't do the same level of investigation on potential employess as it does of plumbers who question Barack Obama's policies. At any rate, it seems quite telling that CNN is not ashamed of her, or at least wasn't until this all came to light outside of Israel. The NRO article that originally posted this story does well to wonder why CNN put up with her for so long or why so many international news organizations put up with those who hold similar extremist views.

 

My bet is that CNN or some other well-known outfit rehires her after the dust clears, if in fact she was in fact let go by CNN over this.

 

Many of these same news outlets may respond that the private views of their journalists is not the same as public bias. Perhaps that explains so many Photoshopped images and obviously slanted stories on Reuters or ones like Rafa's on CNN's website: “Jewish settlers on ‘terror’ rampage”.

 

In addition to Rafa's article above that NRO mentions, there is also this, "Missiles, rocket fly between Israel, Gaza", which actually sounds hopeful (if you call "hopeful" the idea that Israel and the terrorists are morally equal). This "hopefulness", however, soon fades, as you realize it is an article about Israeli rockets, bombs, and other things killing random hapless Palestinian civilians written with almost the tone of the Hindenburg catastrophe. Oh, the humanity, indeed. Another story, "Israel retaliates against rocket attacks, kills 6 in Gaza", which actually mentions why Israel was retaliating (most likely because Rafa was not the only contributor to the report), clearly omits the hair-pulling angst over Israeli casualties caused by the three Qassam rockets to which Israel was responding. Nor was there any mention that the Qassam rocket attacks are a constant reality for Israelis; that it was no isolated incident. Rafa did mention that hundreds of Qassams had fallen on Israel in another report she once again co-authored with someone else, so one cannot say for certain if she would have made mention of it if left to her own devices. Clearly from what we see, she, like any two-year-old, tends to be a danger to herself and others when left alone.

 

Since CNN does a poor job of clearly dating its articles, it cannot be said with certainty whether these last two articles were posted close together chronologically so that we might offer Rafa even partial credit for mentioning the Qassam attacks in relative context of Israeli operations. I ran a LexisNexis search, but that failed to yield the articles at all. It would seem the evidence turned up thus far is overwhelming that Rafa is incapable of balance when acting alone. One should henceforth question her ability to be honest even when working in tandem with others, since even then she may poison the pot. The sad thing about all of this is that CNN's having hired her at all does not astound me.

 

 

Posted by Martin at March 21, 2009 11:23 AM

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