CNN displayed Giuliani attack ad against Clinton, while reporting on Cheney criticism of MoveOn ad

On the September 17 edition of CNN Newsroom, anchor Betty Nguyen reported that Vice President Dick Cheney "weigh[ed] in" on a newspaper advertisement that the liberal group MoveOn.org placed in The New York Times on September 10, titled, "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" Although Nguyen's remarks were limited to controversy surrounding the ad, including Cheney's criticism of it, CNN did not display the original MoveOn ad during Nguyen's report. Instead, for 10 seconds, CNN showed the top portion of a full-page ad Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani placed in the Times on September 14 accusing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) of executing a "character attack" on Gen. David Petraeus, Commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq, and reprinted a smaller version of the MoveOn ad next to a quote from Clinton. Despite CNN's showing the Giuliani ad for 10 seconds, neither Giuliani nor Clinton was mentioned in the actual report.

From the 3 p.m. ET hour of the September 17 edition of CNN Newsroom:

NGUYEN: Well, the anti-war group MoveOn.org sparked a controversy last week with an ad accusing General David Petraeus of "cooking the books" on the Iraq war. That ad played off the General's name, asking, "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" Well, now, Vice President Dick Cheney is weighing in.

CHENEY [video clip]: Like most Americans, I admire the integrity and the candor that General Petraeus showed in his hearings before Congress, and the attacks on him by MoveOn.org in ad space provided at subsidized rates in The New York Times last week were an outrage.

NGUYEN: The Vice President making those comments at a fundraiser in Kansas City for a Republican congressman.

—K.H.