And now you know…
27. January 2007The blogosphere is abuzz over a CBS news report from Iraq filed on Jan. 17 by Lara Logan, which was aired on the CBS website but not included in their on-air broadcast. The report is about the war raging between Iraq security forces and Sunni militia on Haifa Street, just a few blocks from the secure “Green Zone” where U.S. FedGov forces are headquartered.
The link on the CBS site is here. It requires the Real player, but if you don’t have that it’s also up on YouTube, via this link.
It’s not by any means the most grizzly news report I’ve seen from that sad place, but it paints a gruesome picture of the violent chaos which has enveloped Baghdad and much of that country.
Logan is unhappy her report was not broadcast on the air and is asking for people to write to CBS News and protest the exclusion. CBS has already responded to the effect that they already had a lot of Iraq reporting that day and didn’t have time to include Logan’s report.
Subsequently, on Jan 24, CBS did air a story which contained a few selected images from Logan’s 1/17 report but did not include the dead bodies, the complaints from Haifa Street residents about the chaos and the failure of the U.S. here. This and several other tidbits are offered in the Daily Kos report on this matter. (Yes, the Daily Kos. Did you expect to see this on Free Republic?)
Anyway, Logan has asked bloggers to post a notice about the situation, and I’m now doing my part. I have to say that I know nothing about Logan other than what I’ve seen here, and we may have very different views about a lot of things, but I have enormous respect for her for not only braving the dangers of living and reporting in Iraq, but of bucking her corporate honchos at CBS. You go girl!!!
Kategorie Free speech, Posts, anarchy |
I saw some of the reporting CBS did air. No dead bodies, but plenty of complaining on part of Haifa Street residents. CBS chose to focus on a particularly well known surgeon (at least, well known in Iraq) who lived in an apartment on Haifa Street, and got trapped in the fighting–and had the contacts needed to be interviewed over the phone by Katie Couric (no food, no water, no electric, constant gunfire,etc.). He complained loud and long to her. Two nights later, Miss Brightsmile ran a story showing the surgeon being rescued by a US military unit sent specifically for him–a full platoon, I think. So viewers would think the cavalry had come to the rescue, but they got a full view of the situation, especially if they stopped to think why one whole unit was needed to rescue ONE family.
Logan’s report did involve, in part, a doctor who had recently been evacuated from Haifa Street. He wasn’t complaining about the U.S. so much as lamenting the loss of his family members. As for what had aired 1/24, I’m relying on Daily Kos since we don’t get CBS broadcast here on Mars.
Then it was probably a different doctor–the one I saw seemed to have gotten out with all his family safely. But I didn’t watch the 1/24 broadcast (there’s this thing I have called a job), so I don’t know what was aired that night.