CNN - CNN CO-FOUNDER BLASTS HIS FORMER NETWORK

CNN CO-FOUNDER BLASTS HIS FORMER NETWORK

CNN co-founder (with Ted Turner) Reese Schonfeld has taken another swipe at the news judgments of the all-news cable network's producers. In a commentary posted on his blog, www.meandted.com, Schonfeld blasts CNN for its live coverage of the "tea party" protests in Washington last weekend. "Giving an audience of millions to enraged extremists is too great a gift to qualify as 'freedom of speech,'" he wrote. There was no compelling reason for the protest, which featured one speaker complaining that President Obama "and his kind" were leading the country to Communism, to be carried live. "When I ran the company, their voices would've been fed live into our editing rooms, where editors would've picked out the sound bites that were worthy of airtime," Schonfeld wrote. Earlier this year, Schonfeld was bitterly critical of CNN's decision to air an interview with Scott Roeder, the man accused of murdering abortion clinic operator Dr. George Tiller. In the feature, CNN reporter Ted Rowlands said that if Tiller was convicted, "his entire motive was the defense of the unborn." "What other journalistic institution would race to be the first to give an [accused] murderer a platform from which to boast about any murder?" Schonfeld asked at the time.

17/09/2009