LETTER MAILED TO THE CNN CEO on August 21, 2013 Jeff Zucker President, CNN Worldwide P.O. Box 105366 One CNN Center Atlanta, Georgia 30348 Mr. Zucker, This letter is prompted by: a) My built-up frustration, anger and dismay at CNN and its wanton disregard and disrespect for Egypt and Egyptians in purposely ignoring the historical events that unfolded on June 30, 2013 culminating on July 3 in the ouster of Mohamed Morsi, and when you finally could no longer brush those events off, distorted, twisted and shaped many facts presumably under pressure from “above”. b) A recent interview conducted with Dr. Mostafa Hegazi, official spokesperson of the interim president of Egypt, with your Hala Gorani during which she was constantly on the attack, disdainful and obnoxious. She vehemently denied his statements about CNN’s lack of coverage of the atrocities committed by the Muslim Brotherhood against the people of Egypt, opting instead to portray the terrorists as the real victims. So much for professional neutrality and truthfulness in reporting. Your self-proclaimed slogans: “The Worldwide Leader in News”; “CNN = Politics” and; “The Best Political Team on Television” are meaningless, obsolete and antiquated. I repeat: Your coverage of the ongoing events in Egypt has been sorely lacking in objectivity, neutrality and journalistic integrity. Your disparate treatment of the terrorist cult known as The Muslim Brotherhood and the rest of Egypt’s secular freedom-seeking population is nothing short of disgraceful. Specifically: 1) Where was CNN on June 30, 2013 when the largest number of peaceful protesters descended in the streets of every city in Egypt to demand that the “first democratically-elected president of Egypt”, as you repeatedly and shamelessly like to describe prison- escapee-turned-president Morsi, step down? You knew damn well that the “freely-held elections” were tainted and rigged with votes bought from millions of well-meaning poor Egyptians with cooking oil, sugar, rice and the promise of a better life. Why did you choose not to report the FACTS on the ground and expose the lies, deceit and conspiracies carried out by a terrorist group whose actions together with its allies and offshoots caused the loss of over 3000 American lives on 9/11? 2) How could you have the nerve to lecture Egypt about democracy, democratic institutions, and the rule of law, the right to free speech, non-violence, just solutions and a whole sleuth of worthless and hollow proclamations when we experience civil rights violations, street violence, campus shootings, police brutality, heinous murders, rapes, abductions and wrongly convicted people routinely here in America? 3) Why would you cast a negative light on our military and police forces whose valiant actions are preventing Egypt from falling into a dark hole from which it could never come out? If you are so enamored of the terrorists we are trying to annihilate, you should grant them asylum in the US. We may as well; we’ve been welcoming to our shores a significant portion of humanity who have taken our pleas of “Give us your tired, your poor, your hungry, your huddled masses yearning to be free” quite literally and "We the People" are subsidizing them with our tax dollars. 4) Your inconsistence, skewing of facts and omission of others is scandalous. You deliberately insist on mislabeling our continuing revolution by calling its most current phase a “coup”. I challenge you to cite only one example since the dawn of civilization of a “coup” announced to the world 90 days in advance as a result of over 20 million signatures collected in a petition conducted by a grass-roots movement of citizens dissatisfied with the atrocious state of affairs in their country. Are you suggesting that because our military rightfully sided with the majority of their countrymen to protect them from the terrorist thugs, its action should be branded as a “coup”? Indeed it is a “COUP DE GRACE”, or a blow of mercy, inflicted by the people of Egypt against authoritarianism, ignorance, obscurantism and the forces of darkness. How can you be so callous as to indict us for attempting to restore law and order in our country and abstain from condemning murderous terrorists who hide behind women and children and use them as human shields after raping them and torturing them? How can you ignore the targeting of the Christians of Egypt murdering them in cold blood and burning their churches, homes and businesses? 5) If you think that the US has leverage in Egypt or indeed in the Arab Middle East, please think again. The $1.3 billion in military aid that the Egyptian military has been receiving serves to create jobs and sustain employment within the military contracting community in the United States. As your own station reported only a few days ago, this year alone, Lockheed-Martin was paid $2.5 billion for the F-16s whose delivery to the Egyptian air force has yet to be made. General Dynamics got $400 million for additional military gear. So who’s got leverage? Who’s kidding who? Besides, who would be most inconvenienced if passage through the Suez Canal or access to Egyptian airspace were no longer available? This administration had better think long and hard about this simple risk-reward equation before making another blunder by withholding earmarked aid funds. As you know, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain have pledged over $12 billion of assistance funds to Egypt making the US Aid pale by comparison. These nations are savvy enough to realize that the Muslim Brotherhood is a menace to the security and survival of the entire region if not the entire world. When will the western world learn from its past mistakes? Finally, as a news organization utilizing publicly-owned airwaves, you are duty-bound to keep us, the public, aware of global news and events that affect our lives. You should always remember that you have fiduciary responsibilities which unfortunately you have sorely breached. I look forward to your comments.
Posted on: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 01:34:54 +0000