The Daily Beast is no stranger to criticism from yours truly nor from NewsBusters in general, but today I have to give kudos to Michael Moynihan for his excellent critique of sloppy journalism from CNN.

In "What Hassan Rouhani Really Said About the Holocaust," the Daily Beast culture news editor took the news network to task for reporting that the newly-installed Iranian president, unlike his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was NOT a Holocaust denier. But it seems that CNN was relying on Rouhani's official translator, who, it seems, deliberately watered down the English translation for American consumption. Moynihan explains (portions in bold reflect my emphasis):

Seventeen days before Election Day and 45 months after Barack Obama's inauguration following a presidential campaign during which he expressed his eagerness to meet enemy leaders "without preconditions" (Obama responded "yes" to a 2008 presidential debate question containing those words), the New York Times is reporting that the U.S. and Iran "have agreed in principle for the first time to one-on-one negotiations," despite the fact that the White House has "denied that a final agreement (to negotiate) had been reached," and despite a reactive AP report (saved here for future reference, fair use and discussion purposes) claiming that while "The White House says it is prepared to talk one-on-one ... there's no agreement now to meet."

Despite the supposed certainty of the Times's headline ("U.S. Officials Say Iran Has Agreed to Nuclear Talks"), the paper's Helene Cooper and Mark Landler report that "American officials said they were uncertain whether Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had signed off on the effort." If Khamenei isn't on board, it doesn't matter what anybody else, including Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, says or does. Three years ago, two AP reporters covering the government's crackdown on dissidents noted Khamenei's "virtually limitless authority," i.e., he's the country's behind-the-scenes dictator. In a piece that's supposed to be about a supposedly important international development, Cooper and Landler predictably blow through quite a bit of ink and bandwidth trying to paint this development as a problem for Obama's GOP opponent Mitt Romney (bolds are mine):

In a pre-recorded interview with former President Bill Clinton aired on Tuesday's Piers Morgan Tonight, CNN host Morgan fawned over the former Democratic President and complained about the "God damned Twenty-Second Amendment" as he suggested that Clinton should be President "for the next 30 years."

Last Thursday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad posted on his website his most recent anti-Semitic tirade, saying global forces should join together to annihilate Israel. Meanwhile, in Orlando, Fla., President Barack Obama had a takeout plate of pulled pork and rice.

The Jerusalem Post reported Ahmadinejad as saying, "Anyone who loves freedom and justice must strive for the annihilation of the Zionist regime in order to pave the way for world justice and freedom."