A Peek into a Mind

There is a serious debate going on in Israel about CNN news network. The claims are that CNN prefers to show only the palestinian side with only little reports on the Israeli side. In addition, Ted Turner, CNN founder, managed to say some very anti-israeli things in an interview last week. The calls were so strong that it is seriously discussed to remove the channel from the Israeli cables and the satellite network. Fox News, CNN rival, had already been added to the channels offered to israeli viewers.

I’m sure you can catch news of this in any respectable news site.

and now, to my opinion.

I think it is legitimate to complain about the things you don’t like in news broadcasts. If you feel the news given to you are biased - by all means - shout. You’re paying for the channel, after all, and showing you in the wrong way DOES harm your image in the world. I agree CNN have some biased choices here and there (preferring not to broadcast an interview they did with victims of terror attacks and broadcasting interviews with palestinians instead, for example). I agree they should be more balanced.

However, from shouting and complaining to totally taking them off? What, like if we won’t look they’ll stop broadcasting? News ain’t a comedy show you can choose not to see and nothing happens. You NEED to hear unpleasant things sometimes (if they’re right) and more important - you better listen to what others around the world are being reported about. I would actually be happy about hearing Al Jazeera as well (if they only had some hebrew subtitles.. I’m not building any expectations, though…) just to know what the arabs are being fed with.

So, I think all the petitions and the demands to remove the channel are absurd. But then again, I’m NOT against all this loud debate - it’s an excellent way to flag CNN they are going the wrong direction. It has already proven worthy to some extant. (CNN stated to produce and broadcast a serie on terror attack victimes).

I don’t know about you, but when I have enough time to read news (unfortunately I rarely manage to watch news on TV) I tend to read it from several sources, not only one. If you do not do that - try. you’ll be amazed how respected, trusted news agencies are reporting different things. Take numbers for examples. After the last suicide attack in Jerusalem I have seen atlas 3 different versions of dead/wounded figures. All in respected news sites (CNN, BBC, YNET, HAARETZ, ABCNews, FOXNews). None of them is officially biased, they all do their best to report the exact numbers, and still almost each comes with a slightly different count.

This only shows you can’t trust 1 sources as 100% reliable. Think. Check things. Notice the things everyone agrees on and notice the ones that are not certain. The truth is, usually, somewhere in between.

Some More Links:
Unbroadcasted CNN interview with Chen Keinan, whose child and mother were killed in the last suicide attack. (Audio file played in Media Player)
CNN says, “Oops”