Why Should We Believe CNN?

What's the point of have a bureau in Iraq if it is only pemitted to disseminate Iraqi propoganda? When Eason Jordan finally admitted what most of us already knew, that CNN taylored its news coverage to satisfy Saddam Hussein, he gave a number of excuses including the need to maintain a presence in Iraq. But why bother?

Franklin Foer asks much the same question in his Wall Street Journal opinion piece today.

"With so little prospect for reporting the truth, you'd think that CNN and other networks would have stopped sending correspondents into Iraq. But the opposite occurred. Each time the regime threatened to pull the plug, network execs set out to assiduously reassure them. Mr. Jordan made 13 of these trips."