A NETWORK COVER-UP? – AT 8:21 A.M. ET:  The despicable sexual assault on CBS correspondent Lara Logan by an Egyptian mob last week was bad enough.  But there are charges that CBS is compounding the outrage by withholding facts that don't conform to the accepted "narrative" that the crowds in Egypt were just enlightened, modern, peace-loving protesters.  From the Boston Herald:

“[60 Minutes] correspondent Lara Logan was repeatedly sexually assaulted by thugs yelling, ‘Jew! Jew!’ as she covered the chaotic fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo’s main square Friday.”

Powerful reporting on an important story. Two problems: It didn’t run until yesterday, and CBS didn’t run it. The quote is from the New York Post. And it was The Wall Street Journal that reported “the separation and assault lasted roughly 20 to 30 minutes.”

CBS did not report the story of Logan's assault for five days.  I personally sympathize with CBS's initial decision to stay silent because of the sexual nature of the attack.  But, once the facts started coming out, CBS had a journalistic obligation to report the whole truth, which it clearly has not done:

Some women journalists, like WGBH’s Callie Crossley, complain that CBS should never have reported the story, that Logan should be treated like a rape victim in the United States. But I’m with liberal columnist Richard Cohen of The Washington Post:

“The sexual assault of a woman in the middle of a public square is a story  . . .  particularly because the crowd in Tahrir Square was almost invariably characterized as friendly and out for nothing but democracy,” Cohen wrote.

Watching the same complicit media we all saw, Cohen notes most journalists covered the mobs “as if they were reporting from Times Square on New Year’s Eve, stopping only at putting on a party hat.”

Even CBS’s own statement said Logan was “covering the jubilation” and was attacked “amidst the celebration.”

These are good points.  We still don't actually know what many of the protesters actually want.  The press was burned in Cuba in 1959, when Fidel Castro was reported as a good-hearted revolutionary, aided by his revolutionary Tonto, Che Guevera.  And it was burned again in Iran in 1979. 

And we saw what happened when Gaza was permitted a free election.  The people went to the polls and elected Hamas, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Iranian mullahs.

It's time to ask some tough questions.  As Americans, we favor democracy.  But we also favor freedom, civil liberties, and human decency.  All those terms are not interchangeable, no matter what the media party line.

February 17, 2011