Jessica Yellin 180°
Well, that didn't take long.
Today on the network's website, there's a noticeably terse statement from CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin attempting to, ahem, "clarify" her admission, made a couple of nights ago on Anderson Cooper 360°, that during the run-up to the Iraq war, she was pressured into altering or killing stories that were critical of the White House.
Yellin makes a point to reassure viewers that she wasn't at CNN back in 2003 -- she was a pentagon reporter for MSNBC at the time -- then flips a pretty sharp U-turn from her previous claim:
"Let me say: No, senior corporate leadership never asked me to take out a line in a script or re-write an anchor intro. I did not mean to leave the impression that corporate executives were interfering in my daily work; my interaction was with senior producers. What was clear to me is that many people running the broadcasts wanted coverage that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the country at the time. It was clear to me they wanted their coverage to reflect the mood of the country."
The statement ends, amusingly, with Yellin saying, "And now I'm going back to work covering the Puerto Rico primary from San Juan."
From which I'll never return.
What makes Jessica Yellin's "clarification" so much fun is that you can almost see the gun being pointed at her head by CNN management as you read her words. She may as well be staring nervously through a crack in the doorway, telling the cop who just pulled up, "Oh no officer, I was a little upset when I made that phone call. There's nothing wrong. Everything's fine in here." Yellin hopes to deflect attention away from the executives who truly call the shots and set the mood in today's newsrooms and onto the mid-level pawns who are in constant and direct contact with her on a daily basis -- the problem of course being that edicts roll down from the top; who the hell do you think is making it clear to the senior producers the direction the broadcasts need to be going in?
Without realizing it, Yellin may have just helped to illustrate a pretty repugnant truism within the rubric of corporate journalism these days: Everything seems designed to insulate the people at the top, protecting them from exposure to accountability. The only factor that truly has the ability to affect the lives of the executives in the adminisphere or their corporate overlords is the ratings. The numbers are the end that will always justify the means; what those means may be is irrelevant -- not when ad revenue is at stake. If you think it's something bordering on tragic that the hierarchy within most modern news operations works like the Mafia -- or maybe Congress -- you're right.
For just a moment, Jessica Yellin spoke her mind and pulled back the curtain to reveal the reality of what went on within America's spineless news media during the rush to war -- then thought the better of it and either through subtle coercion or with the unfortunate knowledge that her career may be on the line, "corrected" herself.
Regardless, anyone with a brain knew the truth all along anyway -- and still does.
(By the way, the link to Yellin's statement was sent to me by a senior producer within CNN whom I've never met. Gotta love that.)
Follow Chez Pazienza on Twitter: www.twitter.com/chezpazienza
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It's still going on today over at CNN...or should I say the Clinton News Network. CNN has been habitually giving credence to Hillary Clinton propoganda. I won't watch Anderson Cooper anymore. And the attempt to give legs to the latest CATHOLIC Priest nonsense is just disgusting. So....lets get this straight..
Oh puleeeez ! Retire that dittohead CNN pun seven years ago. It only shows your age and ignorance. Just watch FOX.
When did journalism cease to be the fourth branch and morph into executive propaganda?? What I wouldn't give to turn on Walter Cronkite every night.
The important thing, is to recognize it as such,
"During the Cold War, a group of Russian journalists toured the United States. On the final day of their visit, they were asked by their hosts for their impressions. “I have to tell you,” said their spokesman, “that we were astonished to find, after reading all the newspapers and watching TV, that all the opinions on all the vital issues were, by and large, the same. To get that result in our country, we imprison people, we tear out their fingernails. Here, you don't have that. What's the secret? How do you do it?”
-John Pilger's address, Columbia University, 2006
Thanks for sharing that brilliant story!
I almost dropped my baby when I heard Jessica (and Katie to a lesser degree) tell the truth! You go Girl! I saw AC get bug-eyed for a split second. The analogy of the police coming to rescue her with her abductors forcing her to say "never mind" is so appropriate. In the past few years I have watched in sadness the "fourth estate" turn into a grotesque outhouse. There is more news on Jon Stewart and Colbert that in MSM. I hope that Jessica lands softly. I remember a time when there might be a few takers should she become available.
Instead the best she could hope for is a flood of supportive letters to the top brass at CNN and AC's show.....I
Our framers designed this system to work this way. It can't work any other way.
This is not only the best of all possible worlds, it's the ONLY possible world.
You want an informed public? You need a different system of government as it relates to information and communication.
Where does it relate to communication? Read the parchments.
Exactly! She did it, Jessica Yellin had finally done it. She'd pulled back the curtain behind this whole corporate shilling for the Bush war in Iraq. And she was called on it. So Yellin had to recant even though she was telling the truth.
Sad. But, in the end, the truth will come out. And it will only hurt Bush and Co., as well as these corporations, for it having been delayed so long. If they would have simply admitted it, they might have survived it. Now, by the time it comes out, they'll be out of office and subject to legal prosecution which they WILL suffer. I, for one, will enjoy it.
It's a shame that the truth has to come out long after anybody can do anything about it.
Frustrating.
Better late then never.
I think it's time for all the major news networks (and I'm not including Fox in that) to just admit that they've been failing miserably, and release one statement;
"We're starting over, from now on we're going to report the FACTS".
I'm dreaming, I realize. But isn't this kind of propaganda the kind of thing we used to mock the Soviet Union for?
Have we gone to far down to make it right?
They're not failing, they're succeeding.
You're failing to understand what their job is.
Of course, someone forced her to backpedal. They closed ranks in an attempt for self-protection. They're tainted by their actions as well as their inactions. I can't stand any of 'em besides KO really.
I don't doubt her new status as persona non grata, but I hope public relations concerns - reinforced by blogs like this - will at least spare her the job.
By the way, I didn't use to like Jessica Yellin all that much, but after watching her live "confession" (and Anderson Cooper's double take) I gained quite a bit of respect for her.
It's nice to see someone do the right thing once in a while.
Right. And Israel is perfect and the Palestinians are terrible people. CNN's idea of being unionized.
The MSM suck! And there isn't a damn thing any of us can do about it (unless we are willing to spend hours scrutinizing the details of every story we read or watch). I trust the MSM about as much as I trust the Bush Administration. They let us down in the run-up to war, and they continue to be a lame excuse for journalism. Even when a journalist tries to be honest and report accurately, they are pressured into submission. Sad! Journalism is no longer a profession, it's just a business.
Thank goodness for the internet.
She'll be gone by next week . . . .
Jessica Yellin - a true Profile in Courage...
If Yellin can get leaned on within 24 hours of making a retraction of something that didnt go down well, can you imagine the kick ass atmosphere at this WH if you didnt toe the line? To wit, Ari Fleisher giving the business to underling Scotty ..."Hey Scotty, you think you can be a little bit forceful in the press room about Saddam getting ready to use those WMDs on us?"
When I took high school journalism, I was taught, freedom of the press is freedom for the guy who owns it. That is why Yellin is in it and I eventually backed out.
I wasn't. I was taught to have guts and ethics and that it had nothing to do with your owner, only your editor. And this was college.
The quote is "Freedom of the press belongs to those rich enough to own one." -A. J. Liebling.
I've often wondered about these people and their actions. Is the life that good to sell your soul that way? David Gregory has done nothing but make excuses for his actions (inactions?) since the McClellan revelations. If it is worth it, what's the exact price. Is half a million too little, a million about right? I guess, like the old joke, we know what they are, now we're just haggling over the price.
Not quite that simple - a lot of it concerns EGO, and the position of being given a chance to have an audience. Inevitable, once you realize that journalists have become simply ENTERTAINERS!
Please go to the post today by Mcclatchy Media and realize that there was at least one MSM outlet that was trying to speak truth to power. Their post has been ignored by all of the people who are magnanimous in their disgust of the abdication of MSM. Why speak truth to power, as McClatchy papers did, if you are going to be vilified by the status quo and then ignored by all those who profess to care about the behavior of the MSM and their complicity with politics and power? Why is their post being ignored??
Well, with some patience, there is always the hope of being vindicated eventually.
Obama voted against the war, and it must have been a very uncomfortable time to do so, but now it is helping him a great deal.
Similarly, the countries Canada, France and Germany have been vindicated as well, not to mention the other 90+% of the world that didn't go along.
Chez, this has got to be one of the most stupid corporate decisions I have seen in a long time on CNN's part. First, Jessica Yellin was an employee of MSNBC during the runup to the Iraq War ... NOT CNN ... but by forcing a restatement of Yellin's comments they implicate their own Corporate methodology of information management. The kicker is how a Senior Producer at CNN directed you to the retraction.
I'm not sure how it works at CNN, but at most Corporations there is an Org Chart where each employee can find themselves in the corporate structure. Each employee can even see how many layers of management from the CEO they are. What this Yellin response reveals is that someone above the Senior Producer's level requested Yellin amend her comments, the Senior Producer alerted you because they were given direction to by a higher up ... Corporations are very sensitive with communications outside the organization ... that's why many have Public Affairs departments ... so the link to Yellin's comment was not provided by happenstance.
The funny thing is CNN management has just verified Yellin's initial claim of Corporate manipulation by having her readdress the issue ... this is really classic ... I wonder who the Senior Producer reports to?
You're too thoughtful by far.
The issue isn't integrity.
The issue is the appearance of integrity.
If you think about it too much, then the entire facade shimmers like a mirage. Because it's a mirage.
If she actually had integrity, she wouldn't be working for CNN. The metaphor of a gun to her head is a bit misleading and overly dramatic; someone holds her paycheck (etc.) in one hand and a lighter in the other. It's a promise.
Anyone who needs proof the corporate media acts in its own interests with monomaniacal ruthlessness (albeit disguised as responsible civic-mindedness) hasn't been paying attention.
Hear, Hear!! Quiet up front!! No dooubt what you say has truth in it me lad, but there is a new dog on the horizon, my friend, the Internet no dooubt. Despite ALL the media's effort at convincing the people's of America, those that work and provide the taxes from where the military is funded, that the evil goatherders and camelherders of the middle east were terraists, the Internet (internets if you're George Bush) has allowed a winder into the machinations of the conservative party and revealed a massive ripoff from the Republican conservatives, the likes of which this country has never seen, even beyond the fat cat, robber barons of the early 1900's.
True ... but even if you know who committed the crime ... it's still nice to find a couple of fingerprints.
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