Is Misleading the Public A Duty of CNN?

When CNN aired an interview with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani this week that misled the public and the world media through its falsified translation of the President’s remarks about the Holocaust.
CNN and its host in the interview, Christiane Amanpour, are still trying to acquit themselves of any shortcoming and flaw by releasing the transcript of the interview and airing the voice of the translator that they claim to have been introduced by President Rouhani’s companions (as Washington Post, Business Insider and a number of other US media have quoted CNN as saying). And this makes the case even worse because now they insist on insulting the public understanding, unless we come to believe that CNN and its host are so lost that they are not acquainted with professional courtesy, honesty, trustworthiness, truthfulness, and professionalism. However, I don’t think that’s the case.

CNN officials and Amanpour seem to be escaping or ignoring their responsibility: informing the public with honest and unbiased information. Do they not owe an apology to the public opinion, and not just to the people of Iran, but to the Americans and the rest of the world, specially the tens of the world media outlets that misinformed their nations just on the basis of a wrong broadcast.

Even if we accept that CNN is not to be blamed for the wrong translation, we cannot ignore the fact that the network should have first fulfilled its vital responsibility for checking the veracity, authenticity and trustworthiness of the translation of the remarks of the president of a country about such an important issue as the recognition or rejection of the Holocaust, specially when it is the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran speaking about this topic. Should world public opinion accept that CNN and Ms. Amanpour had not checked their rival’s interview with President Rouhani which was aired only five days before the CNN interview, where NBC News correspondent Ann Curry asked the President the same question of the Holocaust twice and President Rouhani repeated twice that “I am not a historian…”.

Yet again, now that the network knows the untrustworthiness of the translation, it has the responsibility to inform the public of the mistake and air the interview again, but this time with a deserving translation. This plus a professional apology will be the least thing the American network can do to make up for its gross mistake, instead of whitewashing what, otherwise, would be the purposeful falsification of the remarks and views of the president of a world state and projecting the blame on others.

If the translator has been hired by the Iranian delegation in New York, CNN certainly had the responsibility as a profession media outlet to check the translation to see if it met the standards and criteria. CNN’s claim in this regard means that the translator was an outsider introduced by the Iranians, and this means that she should account for her work to the Iranians and not to CNN. How can one believe that such a professional network is not worried about its professional reputation and takes everything for granted.

Checking the accuracy of the translation would have been too easy and too effortless for the network to have gone unnoticed. Why? Because Christiane Amanpour was there. Amanpour knows the Persian language well enough and even greeted President Rouhani in Persian at the beginning of the interview. She appeared so attentive during the interview that it is almost impossible to believe that she could have missed a part or failed to grasp the meaning of President Rouhani’s words. Or maybe she has not checked the translation in the course of production. A journalist like Amanpour, who is seen by many young western reporters as an icon, makes such a mistake! It’s hard to believe. Some may say that her knowledge of the Persian language is not very good. If so, the CNN could have hired a reliable translator to verify or check the translation. Yet, it’s not bad to know that Ms. Amanpour has many videos on the internet showing her speaking in fluent Persian and even translating her sentences into English for the audience.

She has also had long chats and discussions with Iranian reporters, including an FNA editor, in Persian and she has appeared very fluent in Persian everywhere.

Or perhaps CNN and Ms. Amanpour have checked the translation before (or maybe after) airing the interview, but have found it proper and trustworthy as they pretend to be the case, thus shunning our criticism.

Well in that case, it’s not bad to look at the judgment of some well-known western media outlets and journalists:

When WSJ Assistant Book Editor Sohrab Ahmari is asked to compare the translations of FNA and CNN to see if there is any ground for complaint, Ahmari (an Iranian-American) says in a tweeted message on Wednesday:

“Fars is right! I read/listened to #Rouhani in Pers. He condemns Nazi crimes but says Shoah “for historians to verify”
@SohrabAhmari Could you hear Rouhani’s answer behind the voiceover? If so, is Fars’s transcription accurate? And their translation?

@GileadIni Fars News translation IS accurate. I’m literally at my wits end re how far some journos will go to sell this moderate narrative.

@SohrabAhmari Thanks. The transcription, too? Fars’ Persian script matches the audio?

@GileadIni Yes! Much more felicitous.

A Wednesday article of the Wall Street Journal (a version of which also appeared on page A14 in the U.S. edition on Thursday) strongly supports FNA’s objection to CNN, saying:

“According to CNN’s translation of Mr. Rouhani’s remarks, the Iranian President insisted that ‘whatever criminality they [the Nazis] committed against the Jews, we condemn.’ Yet as Iran’s semi-official news agency Fars pointed out, Mr. Rouhani never uttered anything approximating those words. Nor, contrary to the CNN version, did he utter the word ‘Holocaust’. Instead, he spoke about ‘historical events’. Our independent translation of Mr. Rouhani’s comments confirms that Fars, not CNN, got the Farsi right.”
Elsewhere, the WSJ article says:

“We’ll leave it to CNN to account for its translation, and why it made Mr. Rouhani seem so much more conciliatory than he was. Meantime, points for honesty go to the journalists at Fars, who for reasons that probably range from solidarity to self-preservation aren’t disposed to whitewash their President’s ideological predilections.”
Commentary Magazine in an article on Wednesday says a comparison of FNA’s translation with the one which has been aired by the CNN reveals:

“When the two are compared it is clear that the network expanded on what he (i.e. President Rouhani) said to help convey the impression that he was condemning Holocaust denial when it is clear that he did no such thing.”
“While the two have similarities, there is no doubt that the news outlet (i.e. CNN) airbrushed Rouhani’s comments to the point where they are far more acceptable for a Western audience. The actual remarks make it clear that Rouhani is as much of an agnostic about the extent of the Holocaust as Ahmadinejad.”

Elsewhere, Commentary adds:

“It is up to CNN to explain this attempt to falsify the content of the interview that goes beyond the usual discrepancies that often pop up in translations and crosses over into editorial malfeasance.”
You may also add to the list a report by Business Insider which says:

“Now a third translation of Rouhani’s comments concurs. The Wall Street Journal writes today that their independent translation agrees with Fars. Rouhani did not say the word ‘Holocaust,’ instead speaking vaguely about ‘historical events.’
“So what happened? A CNN source told Business Insider that the translator who worked on the interview was ‘hired by the Iranians’, and the interview was ‘re-voiced/dubbed exactly as she translated.’ CNN has now posted the entire transcript online.”

“Perhaps it seems like semantics, or an honest result of different translation styles. However, given how closely the interview was being watched — not to mention the fact that the interviewer, Christiane Amanpour, is fluent in Farsi herself — it’s a big issue.”

And when the above-mentioned media and many others express their independent judgment out of professional courtesy, Ms. Amanpour shows her uncontrollable fury in several tweets and insults both Fars and them for the sin of practicing professional journalism:

Christiane Amanpour
Stunned by willingness of @WSJ ed page and others to jump into bed with Iranian extremist mouthpiece like Fars….

Christiane Amanpour

…”Points for honesty go to the journalists at Fars” ? Really???…

Now that it is clear that the translation has contained false information, CNN needs to correct its mistake and air the interview with a proper translation. As long as the American news network insists on its stance, people are entitled to continue adding to the negative comments that they have left in different world media outlets in protest at CNN’s attempted falsification of information.

Finally, since Wednesday when we started criticizing CNN, our only goal has been to stop an unethical practice and also feed true information to the public as required by the codes of professional journalism, especially since a lack of such a practice by the Iranian media during President Ahmadinejad’s years in office provided an opportunity for many in the West to misinterpret and mistranslate his words in a bid to provoke public sentiments and stir tensions between Iran and the US. Such dishonest practices served no one’s interest, but those who are hungry for war.

We have not pursued any other goal as alleged by certain media outlets. President Rouhani is the head of our country and representing the Iranian nation at the UN. His remarks are ours. Moreover, he is an erudite man vested with full authority by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei. This means he receives enormous support for his actions and policies from the Iranian nation. This can be seen in the support that his address to the UN General Assembly meeting received from a large number of state and military officials as well as political figures from across the political spectrum.

We all condemn crime, murder and genocide no matter who is the perpetrator or who is the victim.

We all deplore the atrocities that the Nazis did in the World War II and feel sympathy for all those who have lost their lives or lost a family or friend in that war no matter whether they are Jews, Christians or Muslims.

But, what we stand against is the falsification, fabrication and purposeful misinterpretation of statements or beliefs, especially when they are directed at our esteemed president.