CNN Middle East editor fired after Fadlallah 'tweet'

Octavia Nasr, senior editor for Middle Eastern affairs at CNN, is leaving the U.S. television news network after sending a message on Twitter praising the late Shiite cleric Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah.

Tarih: 08.07.2010 16:42:30
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Nasr, who joined CNN in 1990, said in a “tweet” over the weekend that she was “Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah... One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.”

She followed that up with a blog post Tuesday on CNN.com expressing “deep regret” for her Twitter posting about the man considered the spiritual guide of Hezbollah and who figured on a U.S. terrorist list.

“It was an error of judgment for me to write such a simplistic comment and I’m sorry because it conveyed that I supported Fadlallah’s life’s work,” Nasr wrote. “That's not the case at all.”

The journalist said she was referring to his “contrarian and pioneering stand among Shiite clerics on women’s rights.”

“This does not mean I respected him for what else he did or said,” she wrote. “Far from it.”

Parisa Khosravi, senior vice president for CNN International Newsgathering, said in an internal memo forwarded to Agence France-Presse that she had spoken with Nasr and “we have decided that she will be leaving the company.”

“As you know, her tweet over the weekend created a wide reaction. As she has stated in her blog on CNN.com, she fully accepts that she should not have made such a simplistic comment without any context whatsoever,” Khosravi said.

“However, at this point, we believe that her credibility in her position as senior editor for Middle Eastern affairs has been compromised going forward,” the CNN executive added. “We thank Octavia for all of her hard work and we certainly wish her all the best.”

Nasr has covered virtually every major story in the Middle East story for CNN during the past 20 years and anchored CNN World Report and CNN International’s World News from 1993 to 2003. Before joining CNN, she worked for the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation.

Her departure from CNN comes exactly a month after veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas retired after coming under fire for controversial remarks about Israel.