CNN correspondent Diana Magnay hasn’t tweeted since Thursday, when she referred to a group of Israelis who cheered the bombing of Gaza as “scum.” And on Friday, the cable news channel said she’s no longer covering the conflict.
Magnay wrote the tweet shortly after she filmed a live shot from a hill near the Israel-Gaza border. During Magnay’s report, cheers could be heard off-camera as a missile descended upon the Gaza Strip.
“And it is an astonishing, macabre and awful thing really to watch this display of fire in the air,” she said.
Not long after that on-air report, Magnay sent the tweet before deleting it a short time later. A screenshot of the tweet can be viewed at Mediaite.
“Israelis on hill above Sderot cheer as bombs land on #gaza; threaten to ‘destroy our car if I say a word wrong’. Scum,” she wrote.
A spokesperson for CNN said in a statement to the Huffington Post’s Michael Calderone that Magnay has been removed from covering the conflict. She has been re-assigned to Moscow.
The spokeswoman said that although the reporter regrets the language, she said Magnay felt threatened by the group that had gathered to watch the Israeli bombardment.
“After being threatened and harassed before and during a liveshot, Diana reacted angrily on Twitter,” the spokeswoman said.
The CNN spokeswoman continued: “She deeply regrets the language used, which was aimed directly at those who had been targeting our crew. She certainly meant no offense to anyone beyond that group, and she and CNN apologize for any offense that may have been taken.”
Neither Magnay nor CNN responded to TPM’s request for comment.
She gets reassigned for accurately depicting them?
I have a feeling she isn’t the only person being sent to Moscow for an errant tweet…
Politically correct. indeed. Criticism of Israel must never be uttered in the American media. Criticism of the U.S. is okay, but a career can be destroyed by telling the truth about the wrong masters.
Isn’t that the truth. How dare she?
Now you know how it works with Israel.