When CNN's star Africa reporter Jeff Koinange left the network at the end of last month, his sudden departure was widely blamed on the contents of a steamy email correspondence with a former confidante.
Marianne Briner, a 66-year-old Swiss businesswoman, has waged a campaign to 'expose' Koinange, publishing email exchanges between the two of them on a blog.
And last month she sent a complaint to his boss at CNN's Atlanta HQ, claiming Koinange (right) had admitted to bribery and hoaxing an exclusive report from Nigeria. She attached an email from Koinange to her which read: "Of course we had to pay certain people to get the story... You do not get such a story without bribing."
In an exclusive interview last week with The First Post, the 41-year-old, who reported for the Atlanta-based |
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The news network’s ex-Africa man tells mark paterson the truth behind rumours of a hoax and an affair |
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news network for six years from Darfur, New Orleans and Niger, admitted: "I've let my wife down... I've let the people who care about what I do down."
The report, aired in February, showed Koinange being surrounded by masked gunmen in speedboats - described as rebels with the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta - who later took him and his crew to a group of Filipinos who they were holding hostage. It sparked outcry from the Nigerian government which claimed Koinange had paid some people "to put on a show".
Koinange denies the allegations - "How do you stage that? It's not Hollywood here." But he admitted his communications with Briner had been "an obvious error in my judgment".
The silence from CNN over Koinange's departure has been deafening and in sharp contrast
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