CNN News Web Site Features Bush Images with Derogatory File Names

[Woodmonkey]

CNN News Web Site Features Bush Images with Derogatory File Names

By Jimmy Moore
Talon News
November 5, 2004

WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- An online photograph of President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush accompanying a story about his reelection appeared on a Netscape web site with the CNN logo on it featured the derogatory file names a**hole.jpg and moron.jpg.

Appearing on Netscape web site featuring CNN news, the .jpg file has since been changed to georgelaura135.jpg after numerous complaints about the file name were reported to both Netscape and CNN.

The photo of the president and first lady was featured with the headline, "How Bush Won the Election."

The caption beneath the photo reads, "President Bush convincingly won the popular vote thanks to strong backing from his party's conservative base, as well as increased support from minority voters, according to exit polls."

The original photo was taken by an Associated Press photographer on Tuesday and was cropped for this story.

The caption appearing with the AP story on the Yahoo website states: "President Bush with first lady Laura wave before entering The Crawford Fire Department to vote in Crawford, Texas, Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004. Daughters Barbara and Jenna are in the background."

CNN spokesman Matt Furman said people should not blame CNN for the incendiary name used for the Bush photo.

"It was an image produced by an employee of another company," Furman told World Net Daily. "We didn't know anything about it and had nothing to do with it."

In fact, Furman said the photo "was never on CNN.com."

"It's our picture, but it never appeared on our site," he explained to WND.

WND noted that the photo actually did appear on cnn.netscape.cnn.com, or "Netscape network news with CNN."

In a statement released on Thursday, CNN distanced themselves further from the hate-filled .jpg file name that was used for the Bush photograph.

"A Web image and text disparaging President and Mrs. Bush currently circulating on the Internet was not created, disseminated, or posted by CNN at any time, as is alleged," CNN maintained in the statement. "It was done by an employee of Netscape and posted on Netscape.com. CNN had no knowledge of it until it surfaced on other websites."

Netscape spokesman Andrew Weinstein made it clear that CNN had no knowledge of this and acknowledged that an employee working for them committed the heinous act against the president and has since been dealt with accordingly.

"A junior employee at Netscape identified two election photos with image tags that used inappropriate, disparaging terms," Weinstein told WND. "As soon as the situation was discovered, it was immediately corrected, and the employee has been terminated."

Weinstein apologized on behalf of Netscape to CNN and to people who were offended by the slur against the president.

http://www.gopusa.com/news/2004/nove...gs_bushp.shtml

[scott.voigt]

At least they changed the file name. No matter how much you hate Bush... It's not a good idea to call the leader of your country a moron and do so representing a news agency.

[Thunderw]

I'm not suprised by this. CNN's not the only news organization that would call him such names if they got the chance. It is good to see that they changed it.