As Syrian President Bashar al-Assad defiantly refused to implement
democratic reforms and his security forces fired on protesters on
Wednesday, the networks continued to ignore [1]Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Sunday comments labeling the dictator as a "reformer."
On Wednesday's CBS Evening News fill-in anchor Erica Hill read a news
brief on the latest crackdown by the Syrian government: "There's more
turmoil in Syria today after a hard-line speech by President Bashar
al-Assad. Instead of announcing reforms, as expected, Assad blamed
recent protests on a foreign conspiracy....In the port city of Latakia,
witnesses say Syrian troops opened fire during an anti-government
protest." Despite Clinton having made her gaffe on CBS's Face the
Nation, Hill did not mention it.
The
NBC Nightly News actually did a full story on Syria, with correspondent
Ron Allen explaining: "For days the Syrian government had crushed
protests with brute force. Dozens are believed dead. Today many expected
al-Assad to bend, but he took a very hard line and blamed the unrest on
outside conspirators....Today the president said announcing reforms
under pressure would be a sign of weakness. The same iron hand that kept
his father in power for 30 years before him." Again, no mention of
Clinton's comments were included in the report.
ABC's World News on Wednesday did not cover the newest round of
violence and the Thursday network morning shows all avoided the topic.
- Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here. [2]