CNN sacks senior Middle East editor over Tweet on Hezbollah leader
By ANIThursday, July 8, 2010
WASHINGTON - US cable news network CNN has reportedly shown the door to its senior editor of Mideast Affairs for complimenting a Hezbollah leader from her personal Twitter account.
Octavia Nasr was fired after tweeting that she was “sad” to hear of the death of a Hezbollah leader.
It came as news of the death of Lebanon’s Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah broke over the weekend. She called him “one of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot”.
The US State Department considers Hezbollah a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
“At this point, we believe that her credibility in her position as senior editor for Middle Eastern affairs has been compromised going forward,” The New York Post quoted Parisa Khosravi, CNN Senior Vice President, as having written in a memo announcing the firing.
Nasr’s Twitter account has been quiet since the incident, though it still listed her as a CNN employee and was branded with the network’s logo.
She had worked at the company for 20 years in mainly off-screen roles. (ANI)
