On March 2nd, a couple of days into the war with Iran, one of Iran's proxies, the terrorist group Hezbollah, entered the fray launching rockets and drones into Israel from Lebanon, in their first attack since a November 2024 ceasefire ended the previous round of fighting. As you might imagine, the reporting from the liberal media on Israel's retaliation for those attacks are not always fair and balanced, as was the case last Saturday during CNN's coverage of the war on Newsroom, and one guest spoke up about it.
Host Jessica Dean ran a package from correspondent Matthew Chance from Beirut, who strangely implied that Israel "pounded" Lebanon in response to a few missiles and drones, and nothing really happened in Israel: "For a week now, Lebanon has been pounded. Israel says it's targeting Iranian backed Hezbollah after the militia launched missiles and drones to avenge the killing of Iran's Supreme Leader."
Of course Hezbollah is called a "militia," not a terrorist group, which they are.
Chance put the emphasis on "massive" destruction from Israel:
CHANCE: We've come into what is the most dangerous part of the Lebanese capital, which is a very important stronghold of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia group. It's the place where Israel has been focusing and you can hear the gunshots outside there that Israel has been focusing its activity its intensive campaign of airstrikes against the Hezbollah group. The destruction is massive and plain to see. Israel's military campaign against Hezbollah, as we found out, is still far from over.
Amid airstrikes and hundreds of thousands of displaced people, we report from Beirut on how a tense Lebanon has been dragged into the Iran war https://t.co/76PpZpNoEA
— Matthew Chance (@mchancecnn) March 8, 2026
Following that report, Dean brought on former Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, and he wasted little time in aggressively shaming CNN about their anti-Israel tilt:
DEAN: We just heard that reporting from our colleague Matthew Chance. We know that an Israeli military spokesperson was asked if Israel was preparing a large-scale ground invasion into Lebanon. He responded, all options remain on the table. I'm curious what you see as the next steps for Israel in all of this.
OREN: Good to be with you, Jessica. Let me just first comment on Matthew Chance report, a very lengthy report, which somehow did not mention once, one of the 220 rockets that Hezbollah has fired at northern Israel in the last five days, that has displaced thousands of people wounded dozens, killed, I mean, if you don't do that, you have not done your job as a reporter.
DEAN: Well, he was, I mean, he is reporting on the ground. Hang on, hang on. He is reporting on the ground about Lebanon, just to be fair, but I hear your point, I hear your point, I hear your point about how Israel is also being attacked.
Quite an admission from Dean, but there's no reason a man standing in Beirut can't mention the attacks going the other way. It's not like he's unaware of such a thing. Oren continued to explain on what Hezbollah's actions are doing to Israel.
OREN: We have a million people under fire from Hezbollah tonight, a million people. All right....We've had to run to our shelter ten times today, ok. These are missiles still firing, but they've divided it up.
So Hezbollah is taking over part of the missile fire at Israel. Israel will take whatever measures it needs to take to defend itself. And that -- if that includes a ground invasion, it includes a ground invasion.
If your family was being shot at 10, 20 times a day by very large rockets that can blow apart your house, believe me, you would want your army to do exactly the same thing.
DEAN: Right. And so, ok, so let's just take it down one notch for a second because I do want to have a discussion about this.
In other words, no attacking CNN while you appear on CNN. She changed the subject to what Israel's next step might be, and then Dean ended the interview by going to bat for Chance and his report one more time.
DEAN: All right. Mr. Ambassador, thank you. We really do appreciate your time. We also do appreciate your time., and I do want to note that Matthew Chance did report about rockets. And we also of course, I have to say, stand by him and his reporting. He and his crew in dangerous conditions there. And we stand by what he's doing.
Oren, whose microphone had apparently been cut by then, could be seen saying a word or two, but did not have a final chance to respond. But Chance's report right before Oren spoke had zero mention of rocket attacks on Israel.
