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CNN reporter talks of pressure to be patriotic
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-05-30 09:59 NEW YORK - CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin said Thursday she was referring to her time spent at MSNBC when she said she felt pressure not to report stories critical of the Bush administration during the time leading up to the Iraq war.
Yellin's initial comments, made during a discussion with Anderson Cooper on CNN Wednesday, shifted attention to the news media's performance following release of a critical assessment of the Bush administration by former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. He wrote that Bush's strategy for selling the war was less than candid and honest. During her CNN appearance, Yellin said the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives to make sure the war was presented "in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings." The higher Bush's approval ratings, the more pressure she felt from news executives to put on positive stories about the president, she said. Pushed by Cooper to explain, Yellin said her bosses would turn down critical stories about the administration and try to put on positive pieces. Yellin, a Harvard graduate, worked at ABC News as a White House correspondent from 2003 to 2007. She joined CNN in 2007 and is now a congressional correspondent; she was in Puerto Rico Thursday reporting on the upcoming Democratic primary. Interest in her comments immediately exploded on the Internet, prompting her to issue a statement through CNN on Thursday. She was not made available by CNN to answer questions. "Suddenly I'm being reported on," she wrote on a CNN Web log. "It's not the most comfortable position for a reporter." She said she didn't mean to leave the impression that corporate leadership edited her work; she was referring to senior producers who "wanted their coverage to reflect the mood of the country." She didn't identify any of the producers or give a specific example about how things were changed because of this. MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines said Yellin was a "freelance overnight news reader at MSNBC for one year who was not renewed." But he didn't dispute Yellin's claim that she did some Washington and Pentagon reports while there. "She had little to no contact with editorial decision makers, and certainly was not a part of the editorial process on a daily basis," Gaines said. "Given how her story has changed so dramatically since her appearance on CNN -- her current employer -- less than 24 hours ago, we find it hard to believe that anyone would take this disgruntled former employee's comments seriously." The charges against MSNBC aren't new, however. A prime-time show with Phil Donahue received consistent pressure to present panels tilted in favor of the war, said Jeff Cohen, that program's former senior producer. Donahue's show was on for less than a year before being cancelled less than a month before the war began. He once witnessed a producer scolded for organizing a discussion with pro- and anti-war sentiments presented equally, said Cohen, a liberal activist who wrote a book about his experiences with TV networks. "It's a great day for the American public that finally, after five years of such well-documented criticisms of the media's failure ... to see them finally having to come clean and do a self-examination," Cohen said. "The irony is that it's one of the Bush prevaricators that is forcing it," he said. Five years later, Donahue's former time slot is filled by Keith Olbermann, who has drawn attention for his sharp commentaries against the Bush administration. From the other side of the podium, McClellan offered criticism of the media's performance. He said reporters were "complicit enablers" by covering the preparations for war instead of more aggressively questioning the need for it. |
