Octavia Nasr

Tom Friedman stepped into a journalistic controversy in his Sunday New York Times column, "Can We Talk?" protesting CNN's firing of senior editor of Middle East affairs Octavia Nasr for posting this message on Twitter upon the death of Hezbollah founder Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah: Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah... One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot.…

CNN fired an editor for expressing "a lot [of] respect" for a Hezbollah leader the US had designated a terrorist.  So how has ABC dealt with someone with similar views?  By hiring her and awarding her the prestigious plum of host of This Week.So what's the difference between Octavia Nasr and Christiane Amanpour?  Not much, says Cal Thomas, when it comes to their views.  It's just that Amanpour…

AOL News contributor Paul Wachter launched an inflammatory attack on Pope Benedict XVI in a Thursday post where he also defended recently-fired CNN editor Octavia Nasr for her eulogy of Hezbollah's spiritual leader. After hinting that the network "overreacted," Wachter suggested that CNN should also fire "anyone who speaks highly of the pope, who...has contributed to the deaths of millions from…

Reporting on CNN's firing of Octavia Nasr, AP's David Bauder buried the lede in his 7-paragraph July 8 story. Here's Bauder's fourth paragraph wherein he described the Lebanese cleric that Nasr had praised as "[o]ne of Hezbollah's giants [she] respects a lot" (emphasis mine):Lebanon's Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah died Sunday after a long illness. He was staunchly anti-American and…

[Update, 2:22 pm Eastern: CNN.com put up an article on Nasr's "leaving" at 12:31 pm Eastern on Thursday, just before this item went up. H/t: NewsBusters reader johnny dollar.]Both CNN and CNN.com have punted on the firing of Octavia Nasr, the network's senior editor of Middle East affairs, after she mourned the death of Islamist cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, "one of Hezbollah's giants…

On Monday, NewsBusters wondered how CNN would handle one of its senior editors expressing regrets for the death of the Hezbollah cleric that possibly orchestrated the 1983 bombing of two Marines barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. Two days later, the self-professed "most trusted name in news" dropped Octavia Nasr for tweeting, "Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.. One of…

CNN's senior editor of Middle East affairs on Sunday publicly expressed regrets for the death of Hezbollah's Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah the cleric that possibly orchestrated the 1983 bombing of two Marines barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. According to the New York Times, he also "justified suicide bombings and other tactics of asymmetrical warfare by arguing that if Israel and its allies used…

They're a militant Shiite Muslim organization defined by the U.S. government as a terrorist group, but don't tell that to CNN senior editor of Middle Eastern affairs, Octavia Nasr. In a July 4 post on her Twitter account, Nasr openly admitted to mourning the loss of Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah: Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.. One of Hezbollah's giants I respect…