CNN

June 26, 2012

Gladiatorial Interviewing is Ersatz Journalism

Here is a grumble about gladitorial interviewing which is practiced to entertain rather than inform in my view… From: Vaughan SmithDate: 22 June 2012 10:28Subject: Re: CNN interview requestName, do you feel that what you promised in your email below isclose to what happened during the live with Max Foster last night?Though it was inconvenient, […]


April 17, 2009

Reporting Zimbabwe

Writing in The Indypendent Alaina Varvaloucas and Jerry Guo describe the day to day work of journalists in the Zimbabwean capital Harare. Magwenya himself secretly works as a stringer for CNN and has approximately 20 colleagues in Harare who do the same work for other major Western media outlets. Not only is he free to […]


February 18, 2009

Kidnapped in Somalia

CNN International talk to Colin Freeman and José Cendón about their kidnap ordeal in Somalia. The duo were kidnapped on November 26, 2008 and held for some six weeks. The pair don’t appear to have feared for their lives and seem remarkedly relaxed about their experience, although it seems unlikely they’ll be heading back to […]


January 15, 2009

CNN vs. Joe the War Correspondent

I said I wouldn’t say anything more about Joe the War Correspondent. And I won’t. But, CNN’s Rick Sanchez does have something to say to the war correspondent who thinks “media should be abolished from reporting”.


November 30, 2006

Al-Jazeera English (1)

Bad news is often good news for journalists. The assassination of Lebanese opposition leader Pierre Gemayel may have been exactly that for Al-Jazeera English, the Westernized cousin of the channel the Bush administration loves to hate. It wasn’t so much that AJE triumphed in its coverage of the Lebanese event but it did show signs […]


November 5, 2006

Al-Jazeera English (2)

Let’s start with the good things. The graphics (bought in from the same company that supplied CNN International’s new makeover) looked sprightly. In the first week, two of the flagship programmes did well.  David Frost managed to get an uncharacteristic slip out of Tony Blair on Iraq (he seemed to admit that the Iraq adventure […]