CNN FINALLY DISPLAYS JOURNALISTIC TESTICLES

CNN took every possible opportunity to disappoint me with most of its coverage -- until close to the very end -- of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, receiving an overall D- in terms of any seriously hard hitting reportage or stand-up-on-the-hind-legs journalistic courage in its Trump coverage until the GOP convention.

Until then the CNN's coverage essentially treated Trump as little more than a loudmouth buffoon whose rantings made great video snippets, but they in almost no way took into account the idea that he might win the nomination and did very little to show that he was thoroughly unfit to be elected street sweeper, much less president of the United States. At times, they even seemed to be quite cozy with him allowing him to frequently call in to say something or respond to something in a manner not really accorded to other candidates Republican or Democrat. I don't think they allowed this in order to give him an edge over the other candidates but rather they did it because they thought it was humorous and just ASSUMED their viewers would understant Trump was just making a fool of himself. Well, you know the old saw about the word "assume," and it the end CNN did make an ass out of itself.
Now that it's too late, I think CNN is finally doing a responsible job of covering Trump's pathethic "presidency." Nothing CNN has done, however, has really wowed my in the area of journalistic courage as much as its response to the incredibly childish and frighteningly ominous tweet that Trump released over this past weekend showing him in a WWE wrestling mode, violently taking down a person whose face was replaced on the video with a CNN logo. If you've not seen or heard CNN's pull-no-punches response, here it is and it earns the network my first "BRAVO" in a very, very long time:

“It is a sad day when the president of the United States encourages violence against reporters. Clearly [deputy White House press secretary] Sarah Huckabee Sanders lied when she said the president had never done so.
Instead of preparing for his overseas trip, his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, dealing with North Korea and working on his healthcare bill, he is instead involved in juvenile behaviour far below the dignity of his office. We will keep doing our jobs. He should start doing his.”

This is the first time, in a long time, that CNN has looked like the news network Ted Turner founded. Now, CNN, STAY STRONG!!

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WHERE DOES THE BLAME BELONG FOR THE ABORTED GARLAND, TEXAS, TERROR ATTACK?

Although I sometimes lapse into the belief that just because I spent more than 44 years in the newspaper business I had pretty much seen it all, there are still occurrences almost daily in the news that befuddle and amaze me.

Such is the case with today's latest "revelation" regarding last weekend's shooting incident in Garland, Texas, in which two home-grown, wannabe, Islamic terrorists got themselves killed in a botched attempt to wreak Charlie Hebdo style mayhem.

So, let's see if I have this right.

According to CNN (and other media outlets), ISIS is claiming "credit" for the two assault-weapon-wielding nincompoops who -- after wounding a security guard at an ill-advised “Draw Mohammed” cartoon contest in Garland put on by a group whose only purpose is to hate and inflame all Muslims -- got themselves killed by a sharp-shooting traffic cop armed with only a pistol?

Seems to me that ISIS should be running from the blame/credit for this one, especially since it's questionable whether anyone in the Islamic terrorist organization had ever even heard of the two fools before they got themselves dispatched to collect on their virgins.

In case you haven't already seen it, here is the link to CNN's report on the claim of "credit": www.cnn.com/2015/05/05/us/garland-texas-prophet-mohammed-contest-shooting/index.html

For what it's worth, I think that in this story, CNN does a reasonably good job of trying to not play into the "we're all gonna die at the hands of Islamic terrorists" hysteria. However, I shudder to think how this is being handled by Fox News, which specializes in ginning up fear of everything. Despite my better judgment, I guess that, out of morbid curiosity, I am going to have to check on how Fox is playing this latest "development" and how far back into their "news report" it pushes Mike Huckabee's announcement that he is launching yet another costly and futile bid for the GOP's 2016 presidential nomination in an already overcrowded field.

To me, the bigger question in all of the latest media buzz over the two Garland moron "Muslim martyrs" is how in the world did the FBI lose track of them, especially since it had been keeping tabs on at least one of the two, Elton Simpson of Phoenix, since apparently at least 2011 when he was arrested and convicted on federal charges of making a false statement involving international and domestic terrorism.

According to various news reports over the past few days, Simpson had recently been posting all sorts whacked out tweets on Twitter that one would expect just might seem suspicious to the FBI. I suspect, of course, that when it comes to tracking head cases like Simpson, the FBI has its hands more than full.

Getting back to the issue of who really deserves the "credit" for the Garland attack, it seems to me that Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, co-founders of the far-right-wing, Islamic hate group the American Freedom Defense Initiative -- which organized the contest for artists to draw demeaning cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad -- are a pair of good candidates. It's hard to believe that Geller and Spencer didn't have a clue that such an "event" might be the equivalent of tossing a can of gasoline onto a burning fire.

Although to most American's Geller has, at least until now, been a fairly obscure figure outside of far-right-wing circles, the Garland attack has propelled her into some prominence. A May 4, CNN opinion piece by Haroon Mohgul turned an interesting spotlight on her and her hateful stand against all Muslims. Here is the link to that report: http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/04/opinions/moghul-texas-shooting-gellar.

Although there seems to be lots of blame -- or "credit," if you want to call it that -- to be shared for the Garland attack, it's fortunate that the only people to die were the two men most deserving of being sent off to their just rewards.

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IS CNN HEADED FOR ANOTHER BLACK EYE?

Could CNN -- which has been nailed several times in recent years for lack of transparency or jumping the gun without all of the facts in it's reporting on certain stories -- be headed for another black eye for possibly failing to check into or to reveal details of former U.S. Army Sgt. Josh Korder's military background before giving him pretty much free rein in calling Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl a deserter?

Shortly after Bergdahl's release on May 31, after five years in Taliban captivity, CNN aired an interview with Korder, who served in the same unit with him, in which the former sergeant accused Bergdahl of being at best a deserter and "at worst a traitor." Although CNN and other media outlets have since broadcast or written about other former soldiers making similar accusations, Korder remains as the center of the political maelstrom swirling around Bergdahl's release in exchange for the release of five Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Now. a new undercurrent is percolating with regard to Korder and his accusations. Beginning last Friday, a number of liberal websites started reporting that Korder received a "less than honorable" discharge from the Army and suggesting that his type of discharge may be providing him an ulterior motive for lashing out at Bergdahl. Thus far, I can find no evidence that CNN or any other "mainstream" media outlet has reported anything about this.

How true this tidbit of information regarding Korder is I can't say since I haven't had time, or really even the need, to do any research into it myself since I'm retired and no longer a member of the active news media.

However, if it is true, it's something that should have been checked out before Jake Tapper's original CNN interview with Korder was aired and should have been revealed in conjunction with that interview. That would have been the proper and transparent thing to do. It seems to me, that if this information is true, viewers were entitled to know it in order to help them assess how much of what Korder said -- despite having signed a non-disclosure agreement with the Army -- to believe.

Throughout my nearly 35 years as at various editor levels at newspapers, I always insisted that reporters look into the background of those who came forward to provide information for "GOTCHA" stories and to, at least briefly, reveal in those stories anything possibly negative in the accuser's background that readers ought to know as they weighed the veracity of the accusations.

The need to do that as a matter of credibility was one of those things drummed into my head by editors during my reporting years at the Louisville (Ky.) Courier-Journal & Times -- sister morning and afternoon newspapers that were among the first to have a written and strictly enforced news department code of ethics.

If CNN failed to run a background check on Korder, including looking at the type of Army discharge he received, it was significant example of lackadaisical basic reporting and the viewing public has a right to expect better from a media organization that still has loads of resources and bills itself as the nation's premiere all-news network.

If a background check was run by CNN and Korder was honorably discharged, that fact -- to insure fairness to Korder, who they should have known would come under attack from Bergdahl defenders -- should have been reported somewhere in connection with the original Tapper interview.

If a background check was run and it was learned that Korder received a "less than honorable" discharge and that information was not revealed as part of the Tapper interview, CNN richly deserves any black eye that might develop as a result of its failure to do so.

If you want to know more about what constitutes a "less than honorable" discharge, there is an easy to understand explanation of it here:  http://usmilitary.about.com/od/justicelawlegislation/l/aadischarge1.htm

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