The stacked debate
Nov 17, 2007 Medialites, Politics and Poker
The MSM giveth, and the MSM taketh away — they gaveth this one to Hillary, and the blogs — right and left – are screaming bloody murder! Not only is Wolf (or perhaps, “Puppy”) Blitzer’s tender loving care raising eyebrows, but so is the utter preposterousness of having the post-debate analysis on CNN delivered by three people of whom two are former or present Clinton staffers — and, of course, not even mentioning it in the discussion.
But Noel Sheppard gets to the real heart of it:
Of course, the truly delicious hypocrisy is that these same folks haven’t in any way been angered by Carville, Gergen, or [Anderson] Cooper’s continual rants the past seven years against President Bush, members of his administration, and any politician with an “R” next to his or her name. Those opinions were certainly impartial, and by no means affected by any prior political affiliation.
Throw in George Stephanopoulos, even Patrick Buchanan — there are plenty of others presented to the public on the small screen as fair brokers but who have in fact been personally and professionally part of the political scene in active, i.e. non-journalistic, roles. If any other field of endeavor had this much revolving-door logrolling going on as the mainstream media, the journos would be huffing and puffing with indignation. At least give the New York Times credit on this one for calling out CNN — guess they’re sore they didn’t get into the game.
Fourth Estate indeed!
November 18th, 2007 at 8:42 am
It used to be that the role of an independent press was to keep an eye on the government. Not anymore. Now, it’s all about ratings and entertainment value.
For example, have you seen the porn that passes for news on the Fox News Channel?
YouTube requires an age check to access this video…but all of it was aired on FOX News at one point or another.
But wait, there’s more…
November 19th, 2007 at 10:44 am
CNN’s still around?
Gee I hadn’t noticed…