Hotel chain lops CNN after airing insurgents' video

CNN and its Headline News sister network have lost a flock of Midwest viewers in hotels as a result of televising its Oct. 18 "exclusive look through the gun sights of an insurgent sniper team" that picked off U.S. troops in Iraq.  Insurgents supplied the video to CNN.  (See Oct. 23 Grumpy Editor, CNN's enemy snipers footage triggers complaints.)

Stoney Creek Hospitality Corp., which manages 10 inns in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin, has yanked the cable news channels from all its rooms.  Gutsy Stoney Creek president James H. Thompson called the multi-repeated footage "offensive," declaring, "We will not be a party to propaganda for terrorists."

Thompson added, "As a concerned citizen, I just couldn't see providing content like that to my patrons.  I thought CNN had stepped over a line that I could no longer accept as a standard by which I conduct myself and felt I had the obligation to no longer cooperate with them."