Very sad news from CNN. Octavia Nasr, the network’s Senior Editor for Middle East Affairs, is now the network’s former Senior Editor for Middle East Affairs.
Turns out you can’t tweet about your respect for a Hezbollah honocho even at left wing cable networks. Well, not at CNN at least. The same tweet would probably get you a promotion at MSNBC.
Mediaite.com has story:
In the latest case of new media (or oversharing) gone wrong, CNN’s Senior Editor of Mideast Affairs Octavia Nasr is leaving the company following the controversy caused by her tweet in praise of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah.
Mediaite has the internal memo, which says “we believe that her credibility in her position as senior editor for Middle Eastern affairs has been compromised.”
Nasr tweeted this weekend: “Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah… One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.”
Parisa Khosravi, a Senior VP in CNN’s International unit, issued an “internal memo” to make sure the network’s staff understands that Nasr hadn’t resigned:
I had a conversation with Octavia this morning and I want to share with you that we have decided that she will be leaving the company. As you know, her tweet over the weekend created a wide reaction. As she has stated in her blog on CNN.com, she fully accepts that she should not have made such a simplistic comment without any context whatsoever. However, at this point, we believe that her credibility in her position as senior editor for Middle Eastern affairs has been compromised going forward.
Of course, CNN wants you to know that their Hezbollah-lovin’ Senior Editor for Middle East Affairs had no absolutely no impact on the network’s vaunted impartiality. They swear their Middle East reporting was just as impartial as the rest of their news.
And that’s one part of this story that no one can dispute.
H/T: Mediaite.com
