Senior Editor of MidEast Affairs Octavia Nasr has been fired by CNN after a tweet that raised a furor.Commenting on the death of Shiite cleric (and former Hezbollah leader) Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, she described him as "One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot." Since Fadlallah was virulently anti-American and is, in fact, labeled a terrorist by the US, it was definitely a tweet that garnered attention on the internet.
Tuesday, Nasr posted an explanation of her tweet on one of the CNN blogs, in which she described interviewing Fadlallah early in her career, acknowledged Fadlallah's terrorist acts but also pointed out that he was one of the most liberal clerics on women's rights. (A point also made by others on Twitter... even some CNN reporters.) But the post was not enough to undo the damage, in the eyes of CNN brass.
Report from the New York Daily News
Report from The New York Times
4 comments:
Wow. Will CNN also fire the pundit who
took money from the RNC.
I am so angry and outraged about the unjust firing of Octavia Nasr! How low can CNN sink until it's obliterated off the airwaves.
This woman deserved to be fired. CNN has enough problems without worrying whether one of their correspondents is "soft" on terror.
Costallanos, returned the payment from the RNC, according to TVN, and he did it immediately.
Good riddance, and congrats to CNN for doing the right thing. I never understood CNN's infatuation with Ms. Nasr. Her reporting on the middle east has always reflected a Middle Eastern Regional, rather than a global perspective. She is one of the least articulate talking heads at CNN. As a broadcast journalist, her English diction is sub-par.
She can probably pick up a job at Al-Jazeera within the next 24 hours or so - there she can have at it and take on a eulogy project on the dead Sheikh.
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