No Palestinian remarks in US Gaza veto story

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CNN.com's Saturday afternoon story 'U.S. vetoes U.N. condemnation of Israel's Gaza strikes' did not contain any remarks from Palestinian officials, but did include several quotations from the US and Israel. The Palestinian response to the veto showed up later (at 4:37AM on Sunday) in a more obscure 'Wire' section of CNN.com.

The two versions have identical first and second paragraphs:

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UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- The United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution Saturday that would have condemned Israel for its military operations in Gaza.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said the resolution, which also called for Israel to immediately cease military operations in the Palestinian territory, was "biased against Israel and politically motivated."
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The wire followed with:

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The U.S. veto angered Hamas government spokesman Ghazi Hamad, who called the veto "shameful" and "not the first time" the United States has used a veto "just to protect Israel."

The veto, Hamad said, is to "give Israel covering in order to continue its massacres and killings among our people. It is giving legitimacy to Israel to continue the aggression against our people."
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But CNN editors did not include any of these quotes (or any other Palestinian remarks) in its more prominent online article all day Sunday and Monday, until cnnX exposed the bias. After emailing CNN Vice President of News Standards and Practice Rick Davis about it on Monday afternoon, the Palestinian remarks were put into the original story within a few hours.

CNN's original story neglected well-known journalistic standards when it did not include Palestinian statements. According to Wikipedia.org's Journalism entry, journalists must use "multiple original sources of information, especially if the subject of the report is controversial" and must "report every side of a story possible".

*Correction: in our original story exposing the bias, we said CNN editors pulled Palestinian quotations out of the original article. The original article contained no such quotations. They were posted to the CNN news wire at 4:37AM the next day.

Full text of the wire:
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UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- The United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution Saturday that would have condemned Israel for its military operations in Gaza.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said the resolution, which also called for Israel to immediately cease military operations in the Palestinian territory, was "biased against Israel and politically motivated."

The U.S. veto angered Hamas government spokesman Ghazi Hamad, who called the veto "shameful" and "not the first time" the United States has used a veto "just to protect Israel."

The veto, Hamad said, is to "give Israel covering in order to continue its massacres and killings among our people. It is giving legitimacy to Israel to continue the aggression against our people."

The resolution, proposed by the Qatar delegation, particularly condemned Israel for Wednesday's shelling in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun that killed 18 people, mostly women and children.

The proposal also condemns Palestinians who fire missiles from Gaza into Israel. (Posted 4:37 a.m.)
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Full text of the original article: (this link now goes to the most recent version)
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POSTED: 2:21 p.m. EST, November 11, 2006
UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- The United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution Saturday that would have condemned Israel for its military operations in Gaza.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton said the resolution, which also called for Israel to cease military operations immediately in the Palestinian territory, was "biased against Israel and politically motivated."

Qatar proposed the motion, which focused on Wednesday's shelling in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun that killed 18 people, mostly women and children. (Watch mourners carry bodies of victims through the streets -- 1:49)

The blocked resolution also condemned Palestinians who fire missiles from Gaza into Israel.

Israel's military said it has been targeting militants in Beit Hanoun who have been firing Qassam rockets into Israel, and blamed a "technical failure" for the misfire that killed the 18 civilians.

The United States cast the only vote against. Four council members abstained and 10 voted for the resolution.

Before the vote, Bolton said the United States joined the other countries in "deeply regretting" the injuries and loss of life in Wednesday's shelling, but said Israel has promised a full investigation.

Bolton said the resolution's text was "unbalanced."

"We are disturbed at the language of the resolution that is in many places biased against Israel and politically motivated," Bolton said. "Such language does not further the cause of peace and its unacceptability to the United States in previous resolutions is well known."

Bolton said the text was wrong in equating what he called Israel's legal defense operations in Gaza with Palestinian acts of terrorism against civilians in Israel.

"We are disturbed that there is not a single reference to terrorism in the proposed resolution, nor any condemnation of the Hamas leadership's statement that Palestinians should resume terror attacks on a broad scale, or calls by the military wing of Hamas to Muslims worldwide to strike American targets and interests," he said.
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