Senior Israeli official taken off U.S. flight -- CNN Travel, August 12, 2002.

CNN reports that a senior Israeli official was pulled from a flight yesterday because there were questions about the paperwork for a sidearm that his armed guard was attempting to carry on board. CNN points out that FAA regulations permit the pilot this sort of discretion, and that once the paperwork error was corrected, the official was allowed to continue. Overall, the news report was concise, to the point, and a good piece of reporting.

Now, if you think back to last December, a very similar event happened to an Arab-American Secret Service agent. Walied Shater, a plain clothes Secret Service agent was in route to Crawford, TX to meet up with President Bush's security detail on Christmas Day, 2001. Shater was barred from flying because of an error in the paperwork required to take his sidearm on the plane.

A search of CNN.com shows that they ran no less than 6 separate stories on the event stretching from December 27, through at least January 7. Take a look at some of the headlines and inflammatory innuendo that they contained.

Pilot barred Arab-American Secret Service agent -- The pilot was troubled by "inconsistencies" in the paperwork required for the agent to carry a weapon on the aircraft, an American Airlines spokesman said. -- CNN US News, December 27, 2001.

Pilot acted in 'best interest' in removing agent -- CNN Law Center, January 3, 2002.

Witnesses: Secret Service agent didn't act angry -- made the flight crew "uncomfortable." -- CNN US News, January 4, 2002.

Notice the use of the 'scare quotes' around 'inconsistencies', 'best interest', and 'uncomfortable'. This is similar to what Reuters uses around 'emotive' terms such as 'terrorism', because after all, "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." Also notice that the stories about Shater are in the US NEWS and LAW CENTER sections, while yesterday's story was buried on the TRAVEL page.