. . overpower any sense of objectivity.
From Snopes:
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/cnn.htmOrigins: No, CNN did not air decade-old footage of Palestinians dancing in the streets. Eason Jordan, CNN's Chief News Executive, confirmed that the video used on CNN was in fact shot on Tuesday, 11 September 2001, in East Jerusalem by a Reuters TV crew, not during the Persian Gulf conflict of 1990-91 — a fact proved by its inclusion of comments from a Palestinian praising Osama Bin Laden (whose name was unlikely to have come up ten years earlier in connection with the invasion and liberation of Kuwait) as well as the appearance in the video of post-1991 automobiles. The person who made the claim quoted above has since recanted.
(The argument that the footage CNN used could not possibly be real because it showed Palestinians in broad daylight not long after the attack — even though Palestinian territory is several time zones ahead of New York — is not valid. Eastern Daylight Time in the United States is six hours behind the area of the Middle East referred to as Palestine. Thus, when the first attack occurred in New York just before 9:00 A.M., Palestine time would have been 3:00 P.M., and the area would still have been bathed in plenty of mid-afternoon sunlight.)
Reuters, the international news agency whose camera crew shot the footage, issued the following statement:
Reuters rejects as utterly baseless an allegation being circulated by e-mail and the Internet claiming that it circulated 10-year-old videotape to illustrate Palestinians celebrating in the wake of the September 11 tragedies in the United States.
Reuters welcomes a statement by the Universidad Estatal de Campinas-Brasil (UNICAMP), one of whose students was the author of the original e-mail, setting the record straight.
The videotape in question was shot in East Jerusalem by a Reuters camera crew on September 11 in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the United States. The footage was broadcast by CNN and other subscribers to the Reuters video news service.
statement:
There is absolutely no truth to the information that is now distributed on the Internet that CNN used 10-year-old video when showing the celebrating of some Palestinians in East Jerusalem after the terror attacks in the U.S. The video was shot that day by a Reuters camera crew. CNN is a client of Reuters and like other clients, received the video and broadcast it. Reuters officials have publicly made the facts clear as well.
The allegation is false. The source of the allegation has withdrawn it and apologized. It was started by a Brazilian student who now says he immediately posted a correction once he knew the information was not true. This is the statement by his university — UNICAMP — Universidad Estatal de Campinas-Brasil.