Breaking: CNN’s Octavia Nasr Leaving Network After Controversial Tweet

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: Mediaine.com

In the latest case of new media (or oversharing) gone wrong, CNN’s Senior Editor of Mideast Affairs Octavia Nasr is leaving the company following the controversy caused by her tweet in praise of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah

Mediaite has the internal memo, which says “we believe that her credibility in her position as senior editor for Middle Eastern affairs has been compromised.”

Nasr tweeted this weekend: “Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah… One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.”

After a blog post expanding on her position, CNN promised the issue was “serious” and would “be dealt with accordingly.” That’s apparently her exit from CNN. Here’s an internal memo obtained by Mediaite:

Read more: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/breaking-cnns-octavia-nasr-leaving-network-after-controversial-tweet/

[Wickerman]

1. It does appear there is a difference between Fox and CNN afterall.

kudos to CNN. Wish others would follow that example.

[Dennis Donovan]

6. You're praising this?

:shrug:

[Wickerman]

11. I'm saying its a start

our journalists should be impartial.

[Dennis Donovan]

12. Okay. I see your point...

...and agree. My first impression of this story was that CNN was being anti-Muslim.

[Wickerman]

14. Impartiality may be too high of an expectation

but the appearance of objectivity should be essential. It becomes a slippery slope, huh?

[aquart]

67. ALL she said was she respected the man.

Surely reporters are allowed JUDGMENT? I saw the tweet and questioned it immediately. But when she said that it was because of his stand on women's rights, I thought the case was closed. I was SHOCKED that she was fired over it. I read the guy's obit and I get why people think he was awful but I'm not nutty enough to believe a Muslim should be loyal to Israel. I wouldn't have wanted HIM to be a CNN reporter. But I've been following Octavia Nasr since the Iran election uprising and she was a good reporter on her subject.

I think this firing sucks.

[denverbill]

13. OK, well as long as they fire any journalist who praises Netanyahu when he kicks the bucket.

I'm sure that will happen. /sarcasm

[regnaD kciN]

18. Or Sharon...

[chimpymustgo]

26. Get real. The man DIED. You can't say something nice? So all the fawning over

a rat-bastard like Reagan should have gotten our ENTIRE MEDIA fired.

The double standard is INSANE.

[Wickerman]

28. OMG OMG OMFG - Someone on the intertubes has an opinon

different than mine! They must be insane and I must make all kinds of leaps and assignments of opinions that they never expressed because surely if they believe A they must believe B.

Whatever. The point wasn't actually different but I guess you had fun getting your righteous indignation on.

I asked that our journalists at least try to give the pretext of impartiality, failing that, display objectivity. Yes, many should have been fired over Reagan worship. I believe that supported my point. Feel better?

[chimpymustgo]

53. This is not about YOU. Step back.

[EFerrari]

43. Yep. n/t

[lostnfound]

33. There are those who think that the pretense of impartiality is part of the problem

Newspapers in the 1800s and early 1900s were more transparent in advocating various social or political positions. Recognition of the interests of workers was a huge part of media coverage. Now we have "fair and balanced" and some of the people actually believe it; reporters feel compelled to 'tell both sides' rather than identifying lies as such; and the word 'torture' was re-defined because of some made-up controversy over what it meant.

DemocracyNow! is a good example of solid, first-rate journalism, and it clearly stands on the side of workers, peace activists, and other marginalized groups.

[No Elephants]

76. The only difference seems to be that CNN is less honest about its biases than is FOX.

[DJ13]

2. They're right

Must toe the network (US policy) line and actually hate the "bad guys" they tell the rest of America to hate 24/7.

[Sanity Claws]

3. Oh my

What a mild polite tweet. And it is met with termination.
Censorship lives. Must not even express mild regret at someone's passing.

[Ruby the Liberal]

9. You can be saddened by a passing

Stating that you "respect alot" when it comes to Hezbollah calls into question journalistic integrity. Many of us still remember Hezbollah bombing our Marine barracks.

[provis99]

10. Hezbollah bombed the barracks to revenge an attack by the US.

Blame America and Reagan for the attack, not Hezbollah.

[alfredo]

17. Wasn't that the shelling from our ships off shore?

[unkachuck]

42. didn't raygun....

....use the reconditioned Arizona for the occasion?

[alfredo]

49. It was the New Jersey I believe.

[The Stranger]

20. I don't think Hezbollah even existed when U.S. marines were in Lebanon.

Not sure where from where your "memory" comes.

[Ruby the Liberal]

21. Do you have access to the google?

You may have wanted to check that before you posted. Your "fact" couldn't be more wrong.

http://bit.ly/dm94z1

[The Stranger]

23. Well, it looks like the google reports that they denied involvement in the attacks.

I realize that it serves some here to have had them involved in an attack on the U.S., and considering the number of combatants in Lebanon at the time, your supposed certainty is interesting.

[Ruby the Liberal]

24. Hezbollah was at war with Israel in 1982. They had declared "Party of God" back then.

I have a cousin who was in Lebanon. I recall it vividly.

[The Stranger]

63. Everybody was at war with everyone in Lebanon in 1982.

Ask your cousin about it.

[bemildred]

22. That seems to be a touchy subject.

The Marine Barracks Bombing was in 1983. Hiz'bollah is generally considered to have come into existence somewhere between 1982 and 1985. The barracks bombing is often seen as formative for Hiz'bollah, but so was the Israeli occupation, which went on for a long time after that. Like 9/11, the primary importance of the Marine Barracks bombing(s) was that it showed we could be hit, and that alone got Raygun to pull the troops out.

[saracat]

31. But its okay to respect Israel ? Israel just deliberately killed an American citizen. This is the

second time they have done so. If she had tweeted that she respected a deceased Israeli official when they passed, no one would have blinked an eye.I find this not to be right at all and has nothing to do with impartiality, quite the opposite. If she had tweeted support of Haamass or Israel, then it would have been partiality and cause for termination, but respect to mark someone's passing is not partiality.It is simple respect.

[Ruby the Liberal]

32. It compromised her role as an impartial journo in the region

Regardless of the group.

[EFerrari]

45. That's sort of ridiculous. She didn't say she agreed with him at every point.

She said he was an important figure. And for that, she gets fired.

Good grief. If she'd said the same thing about an Israeli cleric, no one would have even noticed.

[No Elephants]

75. Name one person qualified to report on the Middle East who is impartial.

Walter Cronkite was not impartial, either. No one took him off the air--and no one should have.

the issue is not whether a reporter is impartial, but whether his or her reports are made in accordance with journalistic principles.

She did not get fired for biased reporting. She got fired for daring to express an emotion that could be interpreted is pro-Palestinian. Maybe we should just keep Arabs and Jews out of American journalism? So many of them have emotions about the Middle East wars--er, I mean, "peace process" and those involved in it.

[aquart]

69. "Israel just deliberately killed an American citizen."

Oh, let's go for the most incendiary garbage. I'm sure that kid was a saint sitting in a yogi position chanting his mantra when it happened.

[saracat]

84. So killing an American citizen is no big deal to you? An American on a humanitarian mission? And

what about Rachel Corrie?

[Knight Hawk]

35. ?

Tell me again what the Marines were doing in Lebanon??????????????

[Lance_Boyle]

65. Is it OK to respect Gerry Adams a lot despite the actions of the IRA?

I don't know much about the deceased gentleman, but respect for the dead OUGHT TO transcend this stupid nation's blind allegiance to pig-Israel.

[aquart]

71. "PIG_ISRAEL"?

Well, let's anoint bigotry and fly it like a flag, shall we?

Going to a protest about the Kyrgyz/Uzbek killings anytime soon?

[RZM]

83. LOL . . . 'pig-Israel'

That's gotta be the least thought-out animal-country pairing I've ever heard. Tell me, what are your thoughts on 'cow-India?'

[No Elephants]

74. How do you know? Hizbollah was only one of many groups suspected of that bombing, as was Iran.

Why were we there anyway?

The Siege Of Beirut And The Ethics Of Representation

"In 2004, Osama bin Laden claimed that the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre were motivated by the Siege of Beirut in 1982, maintaining: ‘I couldn’t forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere.’ Robert Fisk points out that bin Laden was not in Beirut at the time of the Siege and therefore was probably responding to video footage he had seen and possibly to the eyewitness accounts of others. Fisk also recalls how the question of why the attacks of 9/11 occurred was avoided in their immediate aftermath, commenting: ‘If a crime is committed in Los Angeles or London, the first thing the cops do is look for a motive. But when an international crime against humanity in the United States was committed on this unprecedented scale, the one thing we were not allowed to do was seek a motive.’ He goes on to align the impact of 9/11 with the long shadow cast over it by the events of 16 September, 1982, as follows:

Nineteen years earlier, the greatest act of terrorism—using Israel’s own definition of that much misused word—in modern Middle Eastern history began. Typically, on 16 September 2001, no one remembered the anniversary in the West. I took a risk and wrote in the Independent that no other British newspaper –certainly no American newspaper—would recall the fact that on that date in 1982, Israel’s Phalangist militia allies started their three-day orgy of rape and knifing and murder in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila. It followed an Israeli invasion of Lebanon—designed to drive the PLO out of the country and given the green light by the then US secretary of state, Alexander Haig—which cost the lives of 17,500 Lebanese and Palestinians, almost all of them civilians. That was more than five times the death toll in the September 11th, 2001, attacks. Yet I could not remember any vigils or memorial services or candle-lighting in America or the West for the innocent dead of Lebanon—no stirring speeches about democracy or liberty or ‘evil’."

http://www.kent.ac.uk/english/radicaldistrust/projects/siege-of-beirut/

[MidwestTransplant]

4. Respect and Hezbollah don't belong in the same sentence unless don't is included as well.

[alfredo]

19. Hezbollah is a mixed bag. THey do support terrorism, but they

Also provide services the government refuses to provide. The Lebanon government didn't help villagers rebuild after the Israeli incursion into Lebanon, Hezbollah did.

If the government wants to undermine Hezbollah, start paying attention to the needs of the people. Much good will can be built with a well, or a clinic in a village. How many Mercedes does the ruling elite need?

[chimpymustgo]

27. In many eyes they are FREEDOM FIGHTERS, and Israel is the terrorist state.

Who's killing whom???

[MidwestTransplant]

30. Who is Hezbollah trying to free? They threaten democracy in Lebanon and nobody is occupying their

land. They are simply a proxy for Iran.

[alfredo]

37. Unions wouldn't exist if employers treated their workers

with respect. Hezbollah wouldn't exist if the leaders treated their people with some respect.


Revolutionary groups are a symptom of a dysfunctional government.

[Freddie Stubbs]

40. Sounds like the excuses the KKK uses for its existence

[alfredo]

41. No, unions were for fair treatment of the working class.

The KKK was for the continuation of the oppression of a class of people. Look at the KKK as company goons fighting the unions. They hated the Catholics and Jews in our community. Blacks were not allowed in our town and didn't allow any until they were forced to allow blacks to live there. I was raised around the Klan. They weren't the dirt farmers, they were the civic leaders of our community. They didn't play the victim, they were in charge.

All I am saying is if you treat a people well, they will be less likely to rise up against you.


Hezbollah saw a way to undermine the government by aligning themselves with the people and then providing what the government should have been providing. It doesn't make them good, it makes them smart.

[alfredo]

34. The way I see it: A plague on both their houses.

[chimpymustgo]

54. No. Pray tell, what should the outgunned, cheated Palestinians DO???

[Illuminated]

61. Oh, i don't know...

Maybe stop trying to blow up schools and farms, stop suicide bombing markets, stop blaming the Jews for all of their problems, stop calling for the eradication for an entire religous group, recognize that maybe the Holocaust did happen after all, promote women's rights, recognize that sometimes someone can mock your religion and you dont have to kill them, clean up the corruption in the PA, recognize that peace will only come "when you love your own children more than you hate Jews", have a beer - it does wonders for you outlook, stop strapping bombs to retarded kids, try education instead of eradication, recognize the fact that Isreal has a right to exist,.... need I go on?

[alfredo]

64. It's not the Palestinian people, but the money behind the

killing that angers me. It is a proxy war. The Palestinian people need their own (Pre 67 war boundaries) country. Israeli Arabs should have the right of return, but that will never happen because the Israelis fear their power at the ballot box.

[aquart]

72. Well, according to Iranian tweeters, Hezbullah are basij.

So it's possible they don't much care who they kill as long as there's money in it.

[rockymountaindem]

29. I often wonder if whether the Ku Klux Klan operated hospitals and food banks in the US

whether or not people would still tell us how they're "not all bad" and that we need to "differentiate between the good and bad aspects of the Klan" the way people talk about Hamas and Hezbollah.

I think it would sound just as ridiculous.

[alfredo]

36. But the Klan didn't provide services that was not provided otherwise.

I didn't say their charitable work exonerated them of the terrorism. Their charity is in line with the Koran, but is probably a shrewd political move. Sometimes it's not what you do, but why you do it. I don't know if their actions for the community is inspired by their religious beliefs, or crass politics, but it is a successful tactic that should be a wake up call to the governments where Hezbollah operates.

Their charitable work fills a gap that should be filled by the elected governments. They thrive in countries that don't share the wealth with the people.

Look at the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. They survived because it was a pay check. Where the government or the occupying power doesn't provide jobs for the people, Hezbollah, the Taliban, or al Qaeda will.

[boppers]

46. The Catholic church operates hospitals, schools, and food banks in the US.

There's you're answer.

Sure, the church teaches that women are to be treated as subservient breeding slaves, that magic happens everywhere their costumed guys go, that dying isn't a permanent thing, and to boot the church has a HUGE history of warfare, slaughter and torture, to say nothing about their systemic child molestation problem.....

....but they're "not all bad".

edit: topic was munged

[Newsjock]

5. Josh Marshall: "That just doesn't seem right to me."

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/07/octavia_nasr_canned_at_cnn.php#more?ref=fpblg

Doing a little sleuthing it seems like it may be slightly overstating things to say he was a member or leader of Hezbollah, more like a spiritual mentor or a cleric closely associated with the movement. In any case, given CNN's record of running for the hills over a lot less, I can't say I'm completely surprised at their decision. And I'm a little surprised she'd tweet that myself. And in the internal memo CNN circulated explaining her termination, a CNN VP wrote, "she fully accepts that she should not have made such a simplistic comment without any context whatsoever."

But a twenty year run down the tubes over 140 characters?

That just doesn't seem right to me.

[louis-t]

7. Twitter will be the downfall of many more.

People just can't stop putting their feet in their mouth.

[Ozymanithrax]

8. I hope she enjoys spending more time with her family...

"The Hebrew state is preparing to celebrate its 60th anniversary – 60 years since it plundered Palestine – in a festival, which will be attended by the countries of the world, most of which still support the Jewish state and consider the resistance movement to be terrorism. This is what led German Chancellor Merkel to visit that plundering country, which extorted and continues to extort Germany, using as a pretext the German Hitlerist-Nazi past, and the placing of the Jews in a holocaust. Zionism has inflated the number of victims in this holocaust beyond imagination. They say there were six million Jews – not six million, not three million, or anything like that... But the world accepted this

, and it does not allow anyone to discuss this."

Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah

There was nothing about this man to admire.

[davidinalameda]

15. how can anyone respect any member of Hezbollah

[David__77]

39. Isn't that a bit narrow?

There are members of a lot of political parties that may conduct good work. Lots of people around here have kind words for Ford, and he was a Republican.

[davidinalameda]

47. political party?

it's a terrorist group

[David__77]

50. Arguably, it is both; however, it is indeed a popular political party.

It is a major component of the March 8 Alliance that received the support of 55% of Lebanon's voters in the last general election. It's not like we're talking about some fringe group. Now, that said, it is possible that a political party can also be terrorist in nature overall. As I said, there are even some good Republicans, despite that party's overall nature.

[depakid]

44. Same could be said about members of the current Israeli government

[Hardrada]

51. Or the Likud Party.

[Lance_Boyle]

66. Or the IRA, right? n/t

[bemildred]

16. Erdogan sorry for Fadlallah's death

Turkish Prime Minister Recept Tayyip Erdogan called Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah to give his condolences over the death of Hizbullah spiritual leader Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, Al-Manar reported on Wednesday.

"Erdogan gave his condolences and asked to relay them to Fadlallah's family and the Lebanese people," the Lebanese television station reported.

---

Fadlallah founded Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's governing Dawa Party and was thought to be its religious guide. In the 1980s, he was described as the spiritual leader of Hizbullah; however, both he and the group denied the claim.

The spiritual leader was known for his staunch anti-American stance, was instrumental in the rise of Lebanon's Shiites, and had a strong following among Shiite communities both in Lebanon and his native Iraq.

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=180721

[Ian David]

25. HEZ-BOE-LAAgggGGGGGH!!!!

Randi Rhodes and the Hezbollah Lady
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORf2_JQ3Phc

[David__77]

38. Are they not supposed to have ANY editorial content in their tweets?

If not, then this is fine. If so, then the limits should be transparent so we as media consumers can criticize them.

[ShamelessHussy]

48. our extremist seem to reflect theirs

i fear that there will never be peace in my lifetime with this kinda extremism running rampant, everywhere.

and so it goes...

[Hardrada]

52. We can start by not subsidizing one brand of it.

[Javaman]

55. Ironic really...

a "news" organization fires someone for exercising their freedom of speech.

[Freddie Stubbs]

56. Some speech, like support of terrorists and Holocaust denial, are beyond the pale in America

[Javaman]

57. first amendment sucks when its against something you don't like right?

nice try.

[Freddie Stubbs]

77. Ms. Nasr is free to say what she wants without fear of government saction

That is what the 1st Amendment is all about. CNN and other private employers and considered part of the government.

[Javaman]

80. ?

since when is a corporation considered a part of the government?

Last time I checked, even though the line has been virtually erased, the US government doesn't have a propaganda arm or a ministry of information.

[ronnie624]

70. Only if you're using a *VERY* selective definition for the term,'terrorism'.

Example: excluding any violence carried out by the U.S. government.

Otherwise, Americans do indeed support terrorism.

[Freddie Stubbs]

78. Are you suggesting that American troops are terrorists?

[ronnie624]

79. Only the instrument of such. n/t

[Bragi]

58. I also respect him a lot

He was a man of great learning, and one of the few major religious islamic figures who held liberal views on the role of women in society. He was also one of the few religious leaders in Islam who condemned the 9-11 attacks.

Not that any of that matters to the Likudnics whose job it is to dominate/stifle thoughtful discussion of such matters in the US.


- B

[aquart]

68. And blanket bias like that is just so helpful.

[Bragi]

81. You're right. I'm proudly anti-Likudnic /nt

[no limit]

59. The fact so many people here support this decision by CNN is disgusting

Look at what Israel has done, the crimes against humanity they have committed. Do people get fired for supporting Israel in main stream media? No, they get promoted. And people here support this shit? What a disgrace.

[closeupready]

60. Isn't this sort of like blacklisting?

Or McCarthyism?

[no limit]

62. No, it's nothing like that. You see the Palestinians are godless people.

[aquart]

73. Oh, honey, if only that were true.

[no limit]

82. My apologies, I didn't think a sarcasm tag was needed