CNN Staffers Complained About Calling Hamas 'Human Animals'

How CNN would cover the Israel-Hamas was the first editorial question the news cycle forced new CEO Mark Thompson to answer. According to a report from The Intercept, several staffers disagree with his direction.

Specifically, reporter Christian Amanpour confronted Mark Thompson over what she described as a "double standard" regarding the network's coverage of the war.

Staffers feel like the network favors Israel and thus does not challenge Israeli officials enough. 

"I think a lot of us felt very strongly about the fact that there were very senior anchors not challenging people like, comments like the defense minister using what is considered under international law, genocidal language, ‘human animals,'" a staffer said.

Amanpour is right in that news networks should challenge both sides and ask the requisite questions. I'm with her. However, it would appear the complaints from the staffers were about not providing Hamas with a preferable cushion. 

Hamas presented us with the worst of humanity — the slaughtering of the innocent, the abduction of women, and the beheading of civilians. 

That's genocidal. Those actions warrant genocidal language, as in "human animals." 

Imagine arguing against that type of language. 

And it's not that CNN was overly harsh in its coverage of Hamas, anyway. For months, the network described the organization as a group of "militants" as opposed to "terrorists."

However, the U.S. Department of State designated Hamas as a "foreign terrorist organization" in 1997.

Hamas' playbook resembles that of ISIS, by way of purposely targeting women and children for kidnapping and then for sexual assault and slavery.

Further, staffers complained to Thompson about having to run their reporting through a "SecondEyes" verification program, a department in the network's Jerusalem bureau that fact-checks sources.

The CNN reporters claimed the process slows down reporting on Gaza and filters news about the war through journalists in Jerusalem who operate under the shadow of Israel's military censor."

"You’ve heard from me, you’ve heard my, you know, real distress with SecondEyes — changing copy, double standards, and all the rest," Amanpour said, according to a leaked recording of the meeting. 

"So you’ve heard it, and I hear what your response is and I hope it does go a long way."

Ultimately, Thompson defended the network’s coverage of the war but admitted "it is impossible to do this kind of story where there are people with incredibly strong opinions on both sides" without making mistakes.