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Tag(s): Collusion With Right Wing Echo Cha; Media CNN; Media Right Wing; Media Shills
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November 27, 2006 at 16:22:41

TV Blowhard Barks at Iran: Let's Hold CNN Accountable

by Jeff Cohen Page 2 of 2 page(s)

www.opednews.com

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Before the Iraq invasion, former CIA analyst Ken Pollack repeatedly pushed for war in appearances on CNN and elsewhere as an expert on Iraqi WMD. He warned Oprah's audience that Saddam could use WMD against the U.S. homeland. After no weapons were found, Pollack was sheepish: "That was not me making that claim; that was me parroting the claims of so-called experts."

Has Pollack been held accountable for his role in egging on the war? Quite the contrary, he was just quoted in a blatantly biased frontpage New York Times article by Michael Gordon, emphasizing how bad it would be for the US to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq. Gordon was kind enough not to bring up Pollack's faulty pre-war analysis. (Gordon himself is in no position to hold others to account; he and Judith Miller co-wrote the infamous September 2002 Times piece claiming that Iraq had "stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons" by seeking aluminum tubes.)

Americans spoke out loudly weeks ago at the ballot box. Revolted by the mess in Iraq, we changed the faces of those who represent us in Washington, ejecting many of those who'd steamrolled the country into war.

But how can we hold media leaders accountable -- those talking heads and "experts" and news executives who steamrolled us into war? How can we change the faces of those who speak for us in the media? We need a media consumers' revolt to match the voters' revolt. We must raise our voices to demand balance -- and dissenting hosts and experts -- on cable news and PBS and NPR and elsewhere.

A good place to begin is with CNN and the Glenn Beck issue -- urging that a progressive host (like Amy Goodman or Laura Flanders or Michael Eric Dyson or Jim Hightower) be added to the lineup. A good time to begin is now...before any new military adventure in Iran.

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www.jeffcohen.org

Jeff Cohen is the founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College. He founded the media watch group FAIR in 1986. For years he was an on-air pundit on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC-- as well as senior producer of MSNBC's primetime Donahue show, until it was terminated three weeks before the Iraq war. This is adapted from his new book, Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.