Alert the Media

Last Friday, Walter Isaacson, the chairman and CEO of Cable News Network (CNN), dropped by The Jewish Journal’s offices.

Such visits are not the natural order of things along the Great Media Chain of Being, unless someone’s got a book to promote. But these are unusual times. There’s a war raging in the Middle East, and there’s a battle over public opinion at home.

For months now, CNN has found itself a combatant in the latter war. Many in the Jewish community have blasted the network for what they perceive as a pro-Palestinian bias. As far back as 1997, the pro-Israel media watchdog group CAMERA sent out this memorable press release: "CNN Poisons Airwaves Against U.S. and Israel."

But, as they say, that was then. Isaacson’s visit with us was his bid to turn the tides of war. "I came to tell people we’re actually doing a good job now," Isaacson told Managing Editor Amy Klein and me.

Viewers can see for themselves the evidence of the network’s new effort, he said. CNN now offers regular profiles of the Israeli victims of Palestinian terror on its broadcast, and dedicates a section of its Web site, cnn.com, to victims of terror. Wolf Blitzer hosted a five-part series from Jerusalem earlier this month, meeting with Israelis who have lost loved ones to Palestinian terror.

What galls Isaacson is that the bias rap is hard to shake. Viewers lambasted the network for running an interview with the mother of a suicide bomber, but not one it had conducted with Chen Keinan, whose mother and daughter were killed by the terrorist. That was a mistake, Isaacson acknowledged at the time, and many times since, and the network immediately put the Keinan interview into rotation. "I think that interview got more air time than President Nixon’s resignation speech," Isaacson said.

People will still blame the media for broadcasting the Palestinian lie that Israeli troops massacred civilians during the Israeli army’s April incursion into the Jenin refugee camp. But, as Isaacson proudly — and correctly — points out, CNN did not. "Our coverage was exemplary," he said. "We did real coverage saying there was a real firefight and no massacre of civilians."

Then there was Ted Turner. In a June interview with The Guardian newspaper, the network’s founder equated Israeli actions with Palestinian terrorism. Though CNN made clear that Turner "has no operational or editorial oversight of CNN" and was speaking for himself, the quote — two months old at the time it was printed — was a P.R. nightmare.

It came just as Isaacson, who had been at CNN for about a year, was hoping to encourage CNN’s pro-Israel critics to take a fresh look at the network’s coverage after he’d had a chance to shake things up.

Even CAMERA acknowledges that CNN, while not perfect, has greatly improved. "I agree CNN has done a better job since Walter came," CAMERA Executive Director Andrea Levin told Gary Rosenblatt of The New York Jewish Week.

Isaacson said that it was not the thousands of protest letters, phone calls and e-mails CNN receives which influenced the network’s new direction. When asked whether CNN’s changes were provoked by the growing popularity of the more conservative Fox News, Isaacson dismissed the idea. CNN has more international bureaus than three networks combined, he said. "We’re covering this with a whole lot of real reporters," Isaacson said, "not just offering opinions."

Complaints and competition aren’t what changed CNN coverage, he said. The turning point was the suicide bombing at a March 27 Netanya seder that killed 29 people. "That’s when we realized the story really is changing," he said.

Before, reporters covered the conflict as a series of ongoing skirmishes between a military giant and Palestinian underdog. Netanya — combined with the lingering lessons of Sept. 11 — changed that. "The extent to which we were aloof and not personalizing violence came across to us," he said.

The changes at CNN seem to be mirrored in media across the country. National Public Radio (NPR), the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post all have come under withering criticism for their handling of the current intifada. All of them have revised coverage to include more reports on the victims of Palestinian suicide bombers, the cost to Israeli society of the ongoing conflict, the larger context behind a single story. "The situation in the Middle East has caused people to listen with an intensity I need to understand," NPR President and CEO Richard Klose told a group of Jewish journalists last month.

Whether these changes have come as a result of consumer complaints or because, as Isaacson maintains, the bigger picture has changed, may be impossible to determine. The very idea that pressure and public outrage could sway coverage — might even be a good reason to sway coverage — doesn’t sit right with many journalists.

Since Sept. 11, the stakes for accurate and responsible coverage are higher than ever. I get a sense Isaacson understands that. "The coverage of terrorism," he said, "is the story of our time."

Now there’s a CNN statement I only wish was wrong.