Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Jim Wooten nails the quote of the week:
Web site headline: "CNN reporter jumps to Al-Jazeera." That's not a leap. It's a baby step.
CNN Havana bureau chief Lucia Newman is, of course, moving to the blow-up-America-first news network. But as Wooten sums up, Newman's made quite a name for herself as a megaphone for the hate-America-first types, as the Media Research Center pointed out in this groudbreaking 2002 report, "Megaphone for a Dictator":
MRC’s analysis found that instead of exposing the totalitarian regime that runs Cuba, CNN has allowed itself to become just another component of Fidel Castro’s propaganda machine.....
...the words of the Cuban public were often heard on CNN bolstering the arguments of the dictatorship. During the custody dispute over Elian Gonzalez, many Americans criticized Cuba for forcing parents to send their children to labor camps during the summertime. For a May 26, 2000 report, Lucia Newman found four sources — two 13-year-old girls, a camp official, and a father — all of whom praised the practice.
Newman told CNN’s audience the program instills “respect” for “hard work” and that while students “say at first they were homesick,” they soon boast that they “are having a great time” and learning “the importance of camaraderie.” But as the screen showed a boy walking with his arm around a girl, Newman warned that “some parents are concerned their children may be learning more about the birds and the bees than about agriculture.” Obviously, nothing to worry about at Castro’s labor camps except teenagers’ puppy love.
Sounds like Newman's going to have an easy transition.
