Below is a new letter re: an article posted yesterday. Please look at the article and, if you agree with the points made, forward the letter to:
[email protected]
[email protected]
If you can write your own letter, even better.
Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle against media bias.
HonestReporting.com
To CNN:
The lead photo on your Middle East site (Nov. 19) shows a Palestinian funeral, with this caption:
“Palestinian policemen carry the body of Baha Said — a Palestinian security guard who was killed Saturday morning near Kfar Darom.”
This caption fails to convey the context of Said’s death.
In truth, as your article goes on to say, Said is a murderer who attacked an Israeli army outpost, killing, in cold blood, 21-year-old Staff Sgt. Baruch Plum and critically wounding another. In an act of self-defense, Israeli soldiers shot Said before he could continue his murderous rampage.
CNN is guilty of media bias with these violations:
- Why aren’t the murdered Israeli soldier and his mourning family – the true victims of this brutal act — pictured on your web site? By showing the Palestinian funeral, reader sympathies are directed toward the side of the assailant. Your whole focus, at the start of the article, is on the killer, not his victims.
- Why does the CNN caption refer to Said as a “security guard?” In truth, he was a member of the militant Fatah Hawks, an armed militia faction of Arafat’s Fatah movement, which claimed responsibility for Said’s actions. To say he is a ‘security guard’ misleads people to believing he was a civilian. Your caption even contradicts the text of your article.
- Why does the caption say that Said “was killed” — without mentioning that he was on a murderous rampage and was stopped before he could murder more Israelis? Your caption leaves the moral responsibility for his death ambiguous. You have an obligation to your readers to make it clear that he was fully responsible for his own death. He was not merely another innocent casualty of the ongoing conflict. He was a killer who was stopped from killing further.
