In the wake of accusations of anti-Israel bias in its coverage, Cable News Network announced Monday that its Israel bureau chief, Robert Wiener, has been reassigned and that its chief correspondent in Israel, Michael Greenspan, has resigned.
The changes came two weeks after Ted Turner, president of the American cable television network, publicly apologized to Hebrew University Professor Israel Gutman for the “unintentional” distortion of an interview the Israeli Holocaust scholar gave CNN last May.
Gutman’s complaint was submitted to CNN in December by the Israeli office of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. It charged that the interview implied Gutman likened a decision by the West Bank town of Ariel to have Arab day laborers wear yellow ID tags to the yellow Star of David forced on Jews by the Nazis.
ADL also objected to what it said was CNN’s coverage of the intifada in a way that reflects poorly on Israel.
It accused the network of “repeated use of undocumented file footage” depicting Israeli soldiers beating Palestinians, “as if it were new material.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
