The Resignation of Tareq Haddad From Newsweek Adds One More Journalist To Our List Of Those Fired or Self-exiled From Mainstream Media Outlets Because They Expressed or Wanted to Express Views (Like Being Critical of U.S. Wars) Unacceptable to the Outlets They Were Working For- Newsweek Was Burying A Scandal

Former Newsweek reporter Tareq Haddad who resigned

We have a list and its growing.  It’s our:

List of Journalists Fired or Self-exiled From Mainstream Media Outlets Because They Expressed or Wanted to Express Views (Like Being Critical of U.S. Wars) Unacceptable to the Outlets They Were Working For

The story of is Tareq Haddad’s resignation from Newsweek is a spectacular one.  He left because Newsweek was burying a scandal.  The scandal was about the covering up of evidence, now with an every greater number of whistleblowers coming forward, that a supposed chemical attack in Duoma, Syria, supposedly by the Assad regime, was faked to provoke the United States to escalate military actions in the country.  The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which had plenty of evidence, apparently a preponderance of evidence, that the attack was faked, but whistleblowers from the organization have come forward to say that, due to improper pressure, when the OPCW officially reported about what happened that evidence was withheld so that a report with what appeared to be an opposite conclusion could be published.

This was the story that senior people at Newsweek worked extra hard to suppress when Haddad sought to report it.  It is all quite spectacular.  The details of what happened to Haddad, the way he was treated at Newsweek, when he pressed to make the rational case that this was an important story that needed to be reported are harrowing.  They are harrowing, and extremely telling about how suppression of information works.

Haddad has now said of his choice:

    . .  On one hand, I could continue to be employed by the company, stay in their chic London offices and earn a steady salary—only if I adhered to what could or could not be reported and suppressed vital facts. Alternatively, I could leave the company and tell the truth.

    In the end, that decision was rather simple, all be it I understand the cost to me will be undesirable. I will be unemployed, struggle to finance myself and will likely not find another position in the industry I care about so passionately. If I am a little lucky, I will be smeared as a conspiracy theorist, maybe an Assad apologist or even a Russian asset—the latest farcical slur of the day.

Caitlin Johnstone was one of the first reporting the story.  See- Journalist: Newsweek Suppressed OPCW Scandal And Threatened Me With Legal Action, by Caitlin Johnstone, December 8, 2019

You can find a later report here: Inside Journalist Tareq Haddad’s Spectacular Departure from Newsweek- Tareq Haddad’s exposé of the corruption and collusion at the heart of modern journalism is something long-discussed by academics, but rarely does such a clear example present itself.  By Alan Macleod, December 20, 2019.

That later report emphasizes something else that Haddad stressed about suppression of information by mainstream corporate media quoting Haddad thus: 

    The U.S. government, in an ugly alliance with those the profit the most from war, has its tentacles in every part of the media — imposters, with ties to the U.S. State Department, sit in newsrooms all over the world. Editors, with no apparent connections to the member’s club, have done nothing to resist. Together, they filter out what can or cannot be reported. Inconvenient stories are completely blocked.

That report links through to Tareq Haddad’s own very detailed account, complete with screen shots of emails from his senior editors, of how his story was suppressed and how Newsweek mobilized with not so subtle efforts to communicate without saying so that he was out of line to think these kinds of stories should get published.  See: Lies, Newsweek and Control of the Media Narrative: First-Hand Account, by Tareq Haddad, December 14, 2019.

https://tareqhaddad.com/2019/12/14/lies-newsweek-and-control-of-the-media-narrative-first-hand-account/

Read Haddad's own report to learn about his documentation on the "imposters" in the media who sit in Newsrooms "with ties to the U.S. State Department."

If you want to absorb something more recent that shows just how reasonable, and sensibly grounded Haddad is, there is Aaron Maté’s interview of Haddad.  Haddad does not come across as a grandstander, not in the least.  See:  Newsweek reporter quits after editors block coverage of OPCW Syria scandal-  Journalist Tareq Haddad explains his decision to resign from Newsweek over its refusal to cover the OPCW’s unfolding Syria scandal, by Aaron Maté, December 19, 2019

For the video of Aaron Maté’s interview of Haddad see: Newsweek reporter quits after editors block coverage of OPCW Syria scandal, December 19, 2019.