CNN: Hezbollah's Shill

How do you like this? CNN reporter Nic Robertson finally admits that his "tour" of bombed "civilian" areas of Lebanon was "under the control" of Hezbollah, ie, that he basically served as a mouthpiece for propaganda, rather than reporting on the situation as he saw it. Without taking sides on the issue of Hezbollah's attack and Israel's response in general, doesn't it seem--from a journalistic perspective--that presenting something as reportorial fact when it is not, is appalling--and career ending?

Nic Robertson to Howard Kurtz yesterday: "[Hezbollah has] very, very sophisticated and slick media operations,” that the terrorist group “had control of the situation. They designated the places that we went to, and we certainly didn't have time to go into the houses or lift up the rubble to see what was underneath,” and he even contradicted Hezbollah’s self-serving spin: “There's no doubt that the [Israeli] bombs there are hitting Hezbollah facilities.”

But the closest Robertson came to making any of these points in the taped package that aired last week was admitting that “we [he and his CNN crew] didn’t go burrowing into all the houses,” after pointing out (for the second time) that “we didn’t see any military type of equipment” in the area Hezbollah chose to let them tour."

Gee, CNN cutting corners on journalistic integrity? I'm neither shocked nor surprised. How Robertson still has a job (and credibility)is beyond me.

Newsbusters