CNN Hipocrisy

A few minutes ago while watching CNN, I became ashamed of myself for having that channel on my remote-control 'speed dial'.

During the John King show, a substitute for King at the helm, a story was told of an academy-award nominated, otherwise award-winning photojournalist's passing in Libya. She led the story with an accusation at the end of a wordy monologue that set this story as representation of all those who perish in the Middle East who go unsung. She asserted that perhaps those unsung remain so because maybe "... they don't look WHITE or WESTERN enough."

Her first guest dropped another name of a photographer who died in the attack that killed Britain's Tim Hetherington. His mentions fell on apparently deaf ears. This journalist who had just posed the theory that some are unsung for not being white enough carried on with her discussion about Hetherington even though other 'white westerners' died in THIS attack, nary a mention, even acknowledgment of the others.

Is it because she's racist? Of course not. Others unsung in this situation were white. What, then, might be the reason she continued a focus on Hetherington in the face of news spat right upon her nose?

Could it be that Hetherington is interesting for his award-winning popularity? Might it have NOTHING to do with race? Might setting this up with race simply represent the path that sells the most advertising? Of course it MIGHT and the level of hypocrisy represented in the CNN newsroom reeks of ignorance.

Yes CNN, the reason we see stories on only CERTAIN people who die ANYWHERE is because the likes of YOU choose what we see. Are you, CNN, going to sit back while you accuse yourself of outright racism?