The Trouble With Sitting On The Story

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The public, Jordan responded to his critics, did not need CNN to prove that Saddam was a monster: "Iraq's human-rights record and the brutality of the Saddam Hussein regime were well known." But CNN's decisions affected more than its coverage of one regime. They confirmed the popular suspicion that there is one story for insiders and another one for regular suckers--the journalistic equivalent of Martha Stewart and ImClone. Too many Americans already live in parallel universes, one controlled by a vast right-wing conspiracy, another in which Vincent Foster was murdered. In even more polarized and desperate quarters, people believe the Mossad brought down the World Trade Center. At the extreme, this world view is the mind-set of terrorism: that history is a hermetic system and the only way to get inside it is to smash it from without. In law-abiding society, it's an excuse for cheap cynicism, an excuse that CNN's decision makes that much harder to refute.

Of course, other news organizations make such calls too, and after CNN's roasting, we will probably never learn who else did so in Iraq. Jordan's belated candor was brave, but it also presumed a tolerance for media paternalism that has not existed for decades. CNN's audience had the right to decide whether its reports were worth trusting, despite the pressures underlying them. Instead, CNN arrogated that right to itself. And yet it may also have made viewers more sophisticated, if less trusting. Jordan has made several trips to North Korea, as he did to Iraq, and says he has not cut deals for access there either. Yet the next time CNN reports from Pyongyang, the audience will be straining to see past the edge of the screen, looking for the man who--metaphorically or not--is holding the gun.