CNN Punished Its Own Journalist for Fulfilling a Core Duty of Journalism

CNN yesterday suspended its global affairs correspondent, Elise Labott, for two weeks for the crime of posting a tweet critical of the House vote to ban Syrian refugees. Whether by compulsion or choice, she then groveled in apology. This is the original tweet along with her subsequent expression of repentance:

This all happened after The Washington Post's Erik Wemple complained that her original tweet showed "bias." The claim that CNN journalists must be "objective" and are not permitted to express opinions is an absolute joke. CNN journalists constantly express opinions without being sanctioned.

Labott's crime wasn't that she expressed an opinion. It's that she expressed the wrong opinion: after Paris, defending Muslims, even refugees, is strictly forbidden. I've spoken with friends who work at every cable network and they say the post-Paris climate is indescribably repressive in terms of what they can say and who they can put on air. When it comes to the Paris attacks, CNN has basically become state TV (to see just how subservient CNN is about everything relating to terrorism, watch this unbelievable "interview" of ex-CIA chief Jim Woolsey by CNN's Brooke Baldwin; or consider that neither CNN nor MSNBC has put a single person on air to dispute the CIA's blatant falsehoods about Paris despite how many journalists have documented those falsehoods).

Labott's punishment comes just five days after two CNN anchors spent 6 straight minutes lecturing French Muslim civil rights activist Yasser Louati that he and all other French Muslims bear "responsibility" for the attack (the anchors weren't suspended for expressing those repulsive opinions). The suspension comes just four days after CNN's Jim Acosta stood up in an Obama press conference and demanded: "I think a lot of Americans have this frustration that they see that the United States has the greatest military in the world. ... I guess the question is -- and if you'll forgive the language -- is why can't we take out these bastards?" (he wasn't suspended). It comes five days after CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour mauled Obama on-air for not being more militaristic about ISIS (she wasn't suspended); throughout 2013, Amanpour vehemently argued all over CNN for U.S. intervention in Syria (she wasn't suspended).

Labott's suspension also comes less than a year after Don Lemon demanded that Muslim human rights lawyer Arsalan Iftikhar state whether he supports ISIS (he wasn't suspended); in 2010, Lemon strongly insinuated that all Muslims were responsible for the 9/11 attack when he defended opposition to an Islamic Community Center in lower Manhattan (he wasn't suspended). During the Occupy Wall Street protests, CNN host Erin Burnett continuously mocked the protesters while defending Wall Street (she wasn't suspended) and also engaged in rank fear-mongering over Iran (she wasn't suspended). I could literally spend the rest of the day pointing to opinions expressed by CNN journalists for which they were not suspended or punished in any way.

By very stark contrast, career CNN producer Octavia Nasr was instantly fired in 2010 after 20 years with the network for the crime of tweeting a positive sentiment for a beloved Shia imam who had just died, after neocons complained that he was a Hezbollah sympathizer. Earlier this year, Jim Clancy was forced to "resign" after 30 years with CNN for tweeting inflammatory criticisms of Israel. As I've pointed out over and over, "journalistic objectivity" is a sham for so many reasons, beginning with the fact that all reporting is suffuse with subjective perspectives. "Objectivity" does not ban opinions; it just bans opinions that are particularly disfavored among those who wield the greatest power (obviously, no CNN journalist would be punished for advocating military action against ISIS, for instance).

Read the full article at The Intercept.