The war according to CNN

by VINAY MENON
Toronto Star
7 April 2003

The images were stark.A convoy carrying Kurdish soldiers and coalition special forces had come under attack from two U.S. fighter jets early yesterday morning.Several vehicles were strewn along the scorched dirt road, pulverized beyond recognition. Others, still smouldering, were reduced to heaps of tangled steel and charred debris. The road was stained with blood.

BBC World was broadcasting this footage yesterday morning. It also reported at least 18 people were killed and another 45 injured by the so-called "friendly fire" attack."I actually saw the bomb dropping from the aircraft, and then I saw it, as it came down beside me," said John Simpson, BBC's world affairs editor.Simpson rushed to help his translator. The man, not identified, suffered horrific injuries when shrapnel sliced off his legs. He died a few minutes later.

And so, on Day 18, more mindless carnage and devastation.

But had you been watching CNN in the morning, you wouldn't have heard much about this deadly "mistake" in Northern Iraq.

Even by 4:17 p.m., when CNN aired its daily "War Recap," details of the incident were curiously sketchy.
The graphic read: "6:33 a.m. — Friendly fire incident reported."This means the network had about 10 hours to investigate. But all anchor Leon Harris could offer viewers was a pre-programmed, "No word yet on U.S. casualties."

It's near impossible to watch CNN war coverage and not:
1. Shake your head;
2. Roll your eyes;
3. Laugh out loud.

Here's another bulletin in yesterday's CNN War Recap:
"12:20 p.m. — Russian convoy attacked in Northern Iraq." And Harris added: "U.S. officials said there were no coalition forces operating in the area at the time of the incident."

But three hours earlier, Jill Dougherty, CNN's Moscow bureau chief, told anchor Judy Woodruff that a Russian journalist travelling with the diplomatic convoy did see U.S. forces in the area. Not only that, he saw U.S. forces open fire on Iraqi soldiers, triggering a counter-attack. The convoy, apparently, was caught in the crossfire and four civilians were injured. The Russian journalist, Dougherty continued, reported the convoy then came across a "long column" of U.S. military vehicles and waved white rags, pleading for help. But nobody stopped.

"Clearly, there are a lot of facts to be sorted out here because we are getting different stories from U.S. Central Command and the Russians," said Woodruff, who changed the subject.

Even the Pentagon must be getting embarrassed by all this.

After all, who needs state-sanctioned propaganda when the cable news networks are willing to sacrifice objectivity, critical context, and probing analysis without even being asked?

It wasn't until 5:30 p.m. that CNN started to fully report on the "friendly fire" incident in northern Iraq, confirming numbers that were on other networks and the Web hours earlier.

Meanwhile, the attack on the Russian diplomatic convoy slowly "dropped out of rotation" as CNN unravelled the day.

One story that got significant attention yesterday was the death of David Bloom, an NBC correspondent embedded with U.S. forces. He died early Sunday, of a pulmonary embolism.Bloom's death was the result of natural causes. No matter. This fact detracted from the narrative the network wanted to explore, namely how the war was becoming increasingly dangerous for journalists.

As CNN's Harris remarked: "As an embed reporter in Iraq, Bloom saw plenty of hostile fire, but his network says he was killed by a blood clot in the lung."

Earlier, CNN's Howard Kurtz, talking to embedded reporter Walter Rodgers, observed, "although Bloom's death was not strictly combat-related, the stress and sitting in that tank for hours on end could have contributed to the blood clot that started in his leg."

Why should the facts interfere with a good story?