CNN should be ashamed of themselves. In a report on Kobe Bryant's sponsorship deal with Turkish Airlines, they came up with this gem:
What appeared to be a standard and presumably lucrative celebrity endorsement has run headlong into a passionate dispute over a bloody chapter in history that took place in the highlands of eastern Turkey nearly a century ago.
Armenian groups and many scholars argue that starting in 1915, Turks committed genocide, when more than a million ethnic Armenians were massacred in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire.
Modern-day Turkey officially denies that a genocide took place, arguing instead that hundreds of thousands of Armenian Christians and Muslim Turks died in intercommunal violence around the bloody battlefields of World War I.
CNN, I have news for thee. There is no dispute whatsoever about the reality of the Armenian genocide! The present Turkish government may deny it until they're blue in the face, but that won't alter the facts. I know Wikipedia isn't a reliable source, but their article on the genocide contains many links to other sources. There are plenty more sources of information about it, all available at the drop of a Google search term.
If CNN is 'the world's news leader', as they like to claim, how dare they try to sugar-coat this particular (and very bitter) pill? Their evasiveness speaks volumes for their (lack of) journalistic ethics. They might as well say that the Holocaust is 'disputed history' because Iran's President regards it as a lie. There are six million Jewish corpses, and at least as many again from other groups, who give him the lie from the afterlife every single day. I presume my father's shade is now doing likewise . . . he was one of those who saw some of the concentration camps after the liberation of Europe. He never forgot them.
One hopes the ghosts of Armenians past may haunt CNN's headquarters in Atlanta this Christmas, to make sure they get the message that honesty is not only the best policy - it trumps political correctness as well!
Peter
The (lying) denial IS the dispute, and the fact that Turkey adamantly denies genocide is newsworthy. Ignoring Turkey's lies is akin to tacit agreement. I don't see the bias, no emotional-trigger words, no editorial comments. "Armenian groups and MANY SCHOLARS" vs "Modern-day Turkey." Then again, you're probably right to assume that most viewers aren't smart enough to figure out which side is more credible.
ReplyDeleteI don't think CNN is suggesting that Turkey's revisionism is valid, merely reporting that it exists and shouldn't be ignored; that sort of crap spreads underground, in the dark, among the ignorant. The only way to slow it down is to shine light on it.