Starting with Wednesday’s The Lead and continuing through Saturday night, CNN gave a massive 56 minutes (56:29) to repeated airings and subsequent fawnings over a supposed exclusive trip inside a Damascus, Syria prison by chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward that resulted in what they billed as the discovery and release of someone who insisted he had been stuck inside a notorious Assad regime prison for three months.
Some basic skepticism about its implausibility and public pressure later, CNN conceded they would investigate the circumstances of Ward’s report and a CNN.com article early Monday night confirmed a finding by a Syrian watchdog group that the man’s name was Salama Mohammad Salama (when he had claimed it was Adel Khurbar) and he was a lieutenant in Assad’s air force.
The whole thing seemed fishy, starting with the bizarre…
