The U.S. State Department has accused CNN of "distasteful" reporting after it used the contents of a private diary kept by slain U.S. ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens without the consent of his family.Senior State Department aide Philippe Reines told news hounds in a statement over the weekend that the television network engaged in "atrocious behavior" in making use of the late envoy's diary as it reported on events leading up to his death at the hands of gunnies who stormed the U.S. consulate in Benghazi earlier this month.
Reines said CNN removed the journal from the U.S. mission in Libya after the deadly attack, which also killed three other U.S. diplomatic staff, and then went on to use information obtained from it against the express wishes of the diplomat's family.
Reines said the family told a network executive in a conference call they they did not want the journal used until they had had an opportunity to review its contents.
CNN said it felt the public had a right to know what it had learned from multiple sources about the fears of a terrorist threat before the attack on the consulate.
"We reached out to the family of Ambassador Stevens within hours of retrieving the journal and returned it through a third party, within less than 24 hours from the time we found it. Out of respect to the family, we have not quoted from or shown the journal," it said.
What CNN is "not owning up to is reading and transcribing Chris's diary well before bothering to tell the family or anyone else that they took it from the site of the attack," Reines wrote in a lengthy memo sent to news hounds on Sunday.
"When they finally did tell them, they completely ignored the wishes of the family, and ultimately broke their pledge made to them only hours after they witnessed the return to the Unites States of Chris's remains," he said.