CNN Criticizes Fox for ‘Outrageous’ Libya Report

CNN’s senior international correspondent Nic Robertson angrily criticized Fox News’ defense correspondent Jennifer Griffin and foreign correspondent Steve Harrigan live on air Monday.

Griffin reported she instructed Harrigan to skip a press tour of Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan compound because he intended to use journalists as “human shields” against a rumored British army attack.

On Wolf Blitzer late Monday, Robertson, who attended the tour, called Fox’s report “outrageous and hypocritical.”

“When you come to somewhere like Libya, you expect lies and deceit from the dictatorship here. You don’t expect it from the other journalists,” he snapped.

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Robertson said Fox News sent one non-editorial member of its team to the tour — and also criticized Harrigan.

“If they had actually been there, Steve Harrigan, the correspondent here, is somebody I have known for many years. I see him more times at breakfast than I see him out on trips with government officials here,” he said. “…We very rarely see the Fox News team..if I sound angry, it’s because I am.”

Speaking to Greta Van Susteren later Monday, Griffin admitted she had made a mistake — and that a security guard had gone on the tour instead of Harrigan. “It’s my mistake, and I apologize for the error,” she said.

Harrigan, she said, stayed in his hotel because he “wanted to stay on the air to provide full coverage.”

She refused to back down from her report that Libyans are using journalists as human shields — and said there is “frustration” among foreign correspondents that journalists on going on government tours. Watch the back and forth below.