Hugh Hewitt: To cover or not to cover: The legacy of Geoffrey Dawson
By: Hugh Hewitt
Examiner Columnist
September 28, 2009
To: Jonathan Klein, president, CNN
Subject: Coverage of Iran
Congratulations on the approach of your fifth anniversary at the helm of CNN/US. What a great moment during which to exercise leadership over one of the most important media platforms in the world. It may be "the most busted name in news" in the eyes of many, but the reach of CNN's programming is still vast. It remains the default network for center-left elites who cannot abide the buffoonery that MSNBC has sunk to, and even those of us who watch Fox News with great regularity are still checking in on Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper and a few others.
There's lots to criticize, of course, with the refrains from the center-right as familiar to you as the chorus from "American Pie." (Please, no more fringe extremists held up as "representing" conservatism generally or Tea Party activists specifically.) While fixing these flaws would increase your audience and your credibility on many issues, these are small points compared with the looming world crisis. What really matters right now is that CNN get the Iran story right and that you not become the Geoffrey Dawson of the new millennium.
You no doubt know of Dawson and his shameful record of abetting the appeasement of Neville Chamberlain throughout the '30s from his post as editor of the Times of London, in its day the most powerful news platform in the world. Dawson emerges as a loathsome character in the pages of William Manchester's "Alone," the narrative of Winston Churchill's wilderness years from 1932 to 1940.
At every turn, Dawson supported and encouraged the British leadership that refused to confront Hitler. "Appeasement became evangelical," Manchester concluded. "[I]ndeed, for some the line between foreign policy and religion became blurred." Dawson was one of the doctrine's pre-eminent preachers, blocking contrary voices from the pages of the Times, cheerleading Chamberlain every step along his ill-fated way.
The question now is whether the mainstream media, and specifically CNN, are going to revive Dawson's role on the world stage or work to avoid such another disastrous abdication of the media's job to report the world as it is, not as the Left -- and more specifically, the forces of appeasement -- would like it to be.
With Friday's revelations about Iran's second uranium-processing facility -- buried in the mountains -- it becomes impossible to mistake the ambitions and agenda of the radical mullahs atop Iran. The fanatic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Jon Lovitz impersonation aside, anyone who credits any narrative other than the obvious one is worse than a fool. The Revolutionary Guard's test of short-range missiles Sunday, and announcement of the test of a long-range missile for Monday, are just bold underlinings by the regime that it will pursue its dream of acquiring nuclear weapons regardless of how many leaders appeal to it with "one last warning" before unspecified sanctions are imposed.
The time has come when the West has to decide whether to stop Iran, using military force if necessary. The time for even serious sanctions like a gasoline embargo to become effective has all but vanished in the past year. The foolish Intelligence Estimate of 2007, which downplayed the threat from Iran, did its job when it was carried unquestioning by MSM into all corners of America.
"Iran halted work toward a nuclear weapon under international scrutiny in 2003 and is unlikely to be able to produce enough enriched uranium for a bomb until 2010 to 2015, a U.S. intelligence report says" was the lead of one CNN.com story of the time.
Appeasement-supporting media will spend the next few months either ignoring the crisis or telling us that Iran can be managed and that the Obama administration has a plan. Then, when Israel has to act to prevent the fanatics from deploying their new capability to bring about their other dream of destroying Israel, the appeasement media will blame Israel.
Or CNN could lead the way to serious sustained coverage of the menace that an Iranian nuke poses and the options -- including military force -- that remain.
There isn't a bigger story or a more important one. Good luck in getting it right this time. Your choice very likely to be the only thing you will ever be remembered for.
Examiner Columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.
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