CNN: Contrived Nigerian News

According to a report being circulated on the blogosphere (and assiduously avoided by the mainstream media), a CNN reporter has been fired for paying money to Nigerian resistance fighters to stage a phony story. Even worse, it was his steamy long-distance affair with a Swiss author that gave him away.

For months, CNN's Jeff Koinange had been dogged by allegations that in February, he paid off gunmen to put on a show for a story about Nigerian resistance. The accusations from Nigerian government officials were so strong that CNN gave a denial during a February broadcast. "CNN did not pay for or stage any part of the report," anchor John Roberts said. "CNN does not pay for interviews."

The accusations would have ended there, perhaps-- if Koinage's love affair had not ended also.

In an email to CNN President Jim Walton, author Marianne Briner (who has a questionable past herself, according to the same reports) said that she began writing to Koinange last August, about a book she'd written on the killing of a Kenyan government minister. "Soon after, he started to call me and things changed to very private and personal matters," Briner admitted. A face-to-face meeting apparently led to sex and then to a long-distance correspondence. Koinange used his CNN e-mail address to communicate with Briner.

At that time, Koinange told Briner via email that he was consequently scolded for talking dirty via his CNN email account. "I have been reprimanded by CNN from e-mailing anything other than the basics," he admitted in one exchange. But in another email, Koinage also confessed that he did indeed trade cash for the Nigerian story (as alleged by the Nigerian government).

"Of course I had to pay certain people to get the story," Koinange says, according to the e-mail. "But you do not get such a story without bribing . . . You have to have financial resources. But at the end, it was worth it. CNN has its story and I have my 'fame.' "

After about a month, the married CNN reporter broke off the affair. Soon thereafter, the Swiss author launched a blog that detailed her affair with Koinage and his alleged admissions. On her blog, "Distant Lovers," Briner wrote: "Jeff should have known that this could one day create a problem. But obviously, he did not regard this [as] serious."

Of course, Briner's blog mysteriously disappeared the minute this story broke, so you'll have to content yourselves with excerpts from this site.