Last week the BBC, one of the world’s most esteemed news outlets, was rocked by scandal as a report emerged concerning unethical handling of an infamous interview with the late Princess Diana. On our own shores, the once-respected CNN continued to shame itself. Take the recent dismissal of Rick Santorum for ostensibly unseemly remarks and contrast it with the network’s treatment of anchor Chris Cuomo. Cuomo aggressively promoted his beleaguered brother, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, even going so far as to commit the ethical sin of counseling the governor on how to conduct damage control in the wake sexual misconduct allegations. Both networks tacitly supported malfeasance by failing to stop it. And both unwittingly illustrated the insidious issues of bias that plague media today.
CNN’s refusal to discipline the younger Cuomo for participating in strategy calls with his brother raised eyebrows elsewhere in the media. The Washington Post averred: “Now CNN’s Chris Cuomo has a full-blown scandal on his hands” Fox News aptly summarized: “Santorum booted from CNN over 'racist' comment, but keeps scandal-plagued Chris Cuomo.”
Chris Cuomo might be “scandal plagued,” but it is a family enterprise. We now know that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s mishandling of Coronavirus cost lives. But, as The New York Times reported, Cuomo’s staff attempted to cover up the damage by preventing “state health officials from releasing the number of nursing home deaths.” The governor also shamelessly put his family ahead of the general public, ordering prioritization of their COVID test results. And you can hardly escape reporting on multiple allegations of sexual abuse on the part of the governor.
Against this backdrop of shame, “The Most Trusted Name in News” acted essentially as an extension of Governor Cuomo’s press team. The governor’s brother spearheaded this effort, providing plenty of positive airtime in addition to his extra-curricular stint as a crisis PR advisor.
All of the troubling bias was allowed by the network in service of the Cuomo brothers’ relationship and Cuomo’s party affiliation. Kyle Smith rightfully wrote in the New York Post that “CNN’s failure to punish him for grossly unethical behavior can only mean that it believes ethical standards simply don’t apply to Democrats.”
Across the pond, the BBC was confronted by everyone from Prince William, to Members of Parliament, to Scotland Yard as a damning report exposed events surrounding a blockbuster 1995 interview of Princess Diana in which she revealed her marital woes. It was discovered that journalist Martin Bashir used deception and forgery to secure the interview and lied about it to network executives.
The cover up that followed was every bit as bad as the crime. BBC’s competitors started to follow the story that BBC executives tried to sweep under the rug, even after the Corporation’s internal investigation of Bashir led to his exoneration. To add insult to injury, the deceitful journalist was even rehired in 2016.
News giants BBC and CNN not only shame themselves in these crises, they fail in their mission to inform — in fact, they actually misinform a news-hungry public vulnerable to “fake news” with every mouse click.
In her soon-to-be-released book “Slanted: How the News Media Taught Us to Love Censorship and Hate Journalism," former CNN and CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson sheds light on the pathology that has cost the credibility of some of the world’s most trusted news outlets. She speaks of what many of us already suspected: a narrative of bias exists at CNN which allow it to immediately expel a conservative like Santorum while shamelessly preserving Chris Cuomo, even in his flagrant nepotism.
So too, the BBC’s bias, called out by many in Boris Johnson’s government, can be understood through Ms. Atkinson’s pages. She explains that newsrooms have no faith in the public “to process information and draw your own conclusions because you might draw the wrong ones.” Compounding damage occurs because in order to keep their jobs, editors succumb to pressure to conform to a biased narrative from corporate headquarters.
In the U.K., heads have rolled, dismissals have occurred (including Bashir's), and urgent reform has been demanded of the BBC. Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden has urged “…a new emphasis on accuracy, impartiality and diversity of opinion” to ensure the sins of the past are not repeated. CNN would do well to take such advice before it is afflicted with similar scrutiny.
Lee Cohen, a senior fellow of the Bow Group and the Danube Institute, was adviser on Great Britain to the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee and founded the Congressional United Kingdom Caucus.