CNN - Controversy

Controversy

In a joint study by the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University and the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the authors found disparate treatment by the three major cable channels of Republican and Democratic candidates during the earliest five months of presidential primaries in 2007: "The CNN programming studied tended to cast a negative light on Republican candidates—by a margin of three-to-one. Four-in-ten stories (41%) were clearly negative while just 14% were positive and 46% were neutral. The network provided negative coverage of all three main candidates with McCain faring the worst (63% negative) and Romney faring a little better than the others only because a majority of his coverage was neutral. It's not that Democrats, other than Obama, fared well on CNN either. Nearly half of the Illinois Senator's stories were positive (46%), vs. just 8% that were negative. But both Clinton and Edwards ended up with more negative than positive coverage overall. So while coverage for Democrats overall was a bit more positive than negative, that was almost all due to extremely favorable coverage for Obama."

CNN has been accused of perpetrating media bias for allegedly promoting both a conservative and a liberal agenda based on previous incidents. Accuracy in Media and the Media Research Center have claimed that CNN's reporting contains liberal editorializing within news stories.

CNN is one of the world's largest news organizations, and its international channel, CNN International is the leading international news channel in terms of viewer reach. Unlike the BBC and its network of reporters and bureaus, CNN International makes extensive use of affiliated reporters that are local to, and often directly affected by, the events they are reporting. The effect is a more immediate, less detached style of on-the-ground coverage. This has done little to stem criticism, largely from Middle Eastern nations, that CNN International reports news from a pro-American perspective. This is a marked contrast to domestic criticisms that often portray CNN as having a "liberal" or "anti-American" bias. In 2002, Honest Reporting spearheaded a campaign to expose CNN for pro-Palestinian bias, citing public remarks in which Ted Turner equated Palestinian suicide bombing with Israeli military strikes.

Chicago Sun-Times. June 5, 2007. As said by Ted Turner, founder of CNN, "There really isn't much of a point getting some Tom, Dick or Harry off the streets to report on when we can snag a big name whom everyone identifies with. After all, it's all part of the business." However, in April 2008, Turner criticized the direction CNN has taken. Others have echoed that criticism, especially in light of CNN's drop in the ratings.

On April 24, 2008 beautician Liang Shubing and teacher Li Lilan sued commentator Jack Cafferty and CNN $1.3 billion damages ($1 per person in China), in New York, for "violating the dignity and reputation of the Chinese people". This was in response to an incident during CNN's "The Situation Room" on April 9, where Cafferty stated his opinion that " continue to import their junk with the lead paint on them and the poisoned pet food" despite his view that " basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years". Further, amid China's Foreign Ministry demand for an apology, 14 lawyers filed a similar suit in Beijing.

In June 2009, musician M.I.A. stated she did an hour-long interview with CNN condemning the mass bombing and Tamil civilian fatalities at the hands of Government forces in Sri Lanka in 16 weeks the same year, "and they cut it down to one minute and made it about my single Paper Planes. When I went to the Grammys, I saw the same reporter from CNN, and I was like, "Why did you do that?" And she said, "Because you used the G-word."" "Genocide. I guess you’re not allowed to say that on CNN," raising questions concerning CNN's coverage and commitment to free speech.

On November 11, 2009, longtime CNN anchor Lou Dobbs resigned on air after discussions with CNN President Jonathan Klein, who had agreed to a release from his contract "that will enable me to pursue new opportunities." He had previously expressed to Klein that he wished to go "the opinion route". Dobbs' advocacy journalism style coverage of immigration, Obama birthers and free trade topics has attracted controversy both to him and to CNN.

On July 7, 2010, Octavia Nasr, senior Middle East editor and a CNN journalist for 20 years, was fired after she expressed on her Twitter account admiration for a liberal-minded Muslim cleric who had recently died, casting doubts on the company's commitment to freedom of speech.

On October 1, 2010, CNN anchor Rick Sanchez was fired after remarks he made during an interview with comedian Pete Dominick at a radio show the previous day about prejudices he faced during his television career, at CNN and jokes about him by comedian Jon Stewart. Calling him a "bigot" before retracting this and describing him instead as "prejudiced" and "uninformed", the interviewer invoked Stewart's faith as an example of how Stewart was "a minority as much as you are". Sanchez stated his view that Jewish people were not an oppressed minority in America, and his view that "everybody that runs CNN is a lot like Stewart" before stating "And a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart."