CNN Instructs Its Anchors to Be Balanced About Castro
Fascinating. According to Babalu Blog CNN’s Allison Flexner sent an e-mail out to the network’s anchors instructing them to point out that “while [Castro is] despised by some, he is seen as a revolutionary hero [...] by leftist in Latin America” and that “did bring social reforms to Cuba - namely free education and universal health care, and racial integration.”
The American right is all over this e-mail so let me take a slightly less aggressive approach:
1. It is true that Castro has brought about racial integration… mostly
2. It is also true that he gave Cuba ‘free education’ (which is of course payed for by someone / the government, meaning the people) which means that every Cuban who wants to can go to school and university
3. It is also true that Cuba has universal health care and, as I understand it, not on a very low level either
So, those points are all true. There are some ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ possible, but overall: accurate. I don’t quite see how there’s anything wrong with mentioning that. Hitler gave Germany its famous autobahn. O, and Volkswagen. Is it unfair to point that out when talking about Hitler or Germany? I’d so no. Does mentioning this mean that one is excusing Hitler? Again I’d say no.
But it is remarkable that Allison seems to ignore the fact that Fidel was (still is) a horrific dictator who violently oppressed and continues to oppress all opposition and who made it virtually impossible for Cubans to publicly disagree with him. The only thing she writes in that regard is the following: Castro was “criticized for oppressing human rights and freedom of speech.”
Criticized? Criticized? How about he was oppressing human rights and freedom of speech. How about he did lock up and even kill his political opponents? Although other bloggers focus on other parts of the e-mail, I consider this sentence to be the most significant sign of pro-Castro bias from Allison and thus CNN. Especially in combination with the specifics of the reforms he brought (which are seen by CNN as positive).
My comment is not about coverage of Castro, but rather it is interesting that a major news outlet would NEED to send out a memo telling it’s reporters to be ballanced on anything. This sends a message to me that says:
"hey guys, on all subjects but this Castro thing, do our regular biased" thing". That in itself is shameful.