CNN removes reporter after she refers to Israelis as ‘scum’
CNN correspondent Diana Magnay was pulled from covering the Israeli-Hamas conflict Friday after she reported on a rocket attack and referred to Israelis who were allegedly harassing her as “scum.”
Magnay fired off an angry tweet Thursday, shortly after she appeared on the air with Wolf Blitzer and reported on the rocket strike from a hill overlooking Israel’s border with Gaza.
“Israelis on hill above Sderot cheer as bombs land #gaza; threaten to ‘destroy our car if I say a word wrong.’ Scum,” she wrote.
Her tweet was later removed — but the damage was done once it was recirculated.
A CNN spokeswoman said Magnay was reassigned to Moscow.
“After being threatened and harassed before and during a live shot, Diana reacted angrily on Twitter,” a CNN spokeswoman said in a statement to The Huffington Post.
“She deeply regrets the language used, which was aimed directly at those who had been targeting our crew. She certainly meant no offense to anyone beyond the group, and she and CNN apologize for any offense that may have been taken.”
On the air, Magnay called the rocket fire “an astonishing, macabre and awful thing.”
New York political watchers said Magnay dug her own hole by using such an inflammatory word on Twitter for others to see.
“It ain’t good politics in the US to be calling a group of Israelis scum,” said Baruch College Professor Doug Muzzio. “The use of the word is unfortunate. It’s definitely something a professional journalist wouldn’t say on the air.”
While CNN had the right to reassign her, Muzzio said the Magnay controversy represents a new quandary for journalists about what’s private and what’s public.
“Can a journalist make a private comment on Twitter without running afoul of corporate bosses? It’s an awful gray area,” he said.
Magnay was not the only TV correspondent bounced from the Israeli-Gaza assignment.
Citing unspecified “security concerns,” NBC pulled Ayman Mohyeldin from the region after his report on four Palestinian kids killed in an Israeli airstrike.
The reassignment of both correspondents provides fodder by advocates on both sides of the bitter fighting to question whether foreign journalist are biased.
The controversy came as Israeli troops pushed deeper into Gaza on Friday in a ground offensive that officials said could last up to two weeks.
Magnay, previously based in CNN’s Berlin bureau, was lauded for her coverage of the political crisis in Ukraine and Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
She also reported on the jailing and release of the female protest rock band Pussy Riot.
She has been with CNN since 2001 and has completed stints in Seoul and Tokyo as well as Egypt, Iraq and South Africa.
With Post Wire Services
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