I’m no fan of Dan Rather. I personally believe him to be second only to Keith Olberman for being a biased news anchor who had no business in the chair. But these idiotic attacks on him for using the analogy that Obama couldn’t sell watermelons by the side of the road if the state troopers were directing traffic to him was not racial. It wasn’t intended to be racial, and I believe that anyone who thinks it is racial is either 1. An idiot or 2. A racist.
Here’s the clip, judge for yourself:
CNN Coverage of Washington
Politics is not the main news story today, but there is enough focus on that. While America is focused elsewhere, we have decided to keep our eyes on the media coverage of other things.
The White House in it’s war against FOX News, Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director, stated “But let’s not pretend they’re a news organization like CNN is”
Apparently CNN has decided to show it’s appreciation for the White House endorsement by slanting the Health Care debate for the White House. I’m very disappointed in CNN, because they have had a fairly good record with Obama. CNN is a liberal organization, so there is going to be some slant. I understand this. CNN has, for the most part, been mostly fair. Since the White House comment, that fairness seems to be slipping further to the left.!
You can see this with today’s headline about the Health Care protests yesterday. The headline on CNN is highlighted in the image. Thousands showed up to protest and urge Congress to “Kill the Bill!” Of those thousands, 12 were arrested outside of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office for disorderly conduct. CNN’s headline: “Tea partiers arrested”
Really? All of the possible headlines about the thousands and this is the most important line of the day? I’ll let readers decide, but it really sounds like how a propaganda machine like the White House Communications Office would want it spun.
You be the judge.
Nothing about protests or Republican Bill
This is the agency the Obama administration thinks delivers real news? On the front page of Foxnews and MSNBC the stories of the President announcing his health care backing of AARP and the AMA (Strategically muscled to counter the Republicans announcement of their plan) and the protests going on at the Capitol building.
If you get your news from CNN, you wouldn’t know that anyone other than the President and Nancy Pelosi is even in DC today. ABC managed to cover both in separate stories. CBS is, as usual, oblivious to almost everything going on in the world. (But hey, you can ask Katie Couric questions on facebook at 3PM) It is truly sad that journalism has deteriorated to the level that it has. Thank God for the internet and bloggers. It seems that the only way anyone knows about many things going on in this nation is thanks to bloggers. Is it any wonder that Rockefeller wants to give the President a “kill” switch for the internet?
As you all probably know, by now, I am a big critic of the press. I’ve sided with Fox News in the war with the White House and I like to call the press on shabby reporting. Looking at the websites of the major 3 cable news networks today, CNN is by far the most fair and balanced coverage of last night’s election. MSNBC, is ridiculous as always. Fox is the big loser though, because while it wasn’t as bad as MSNBC, it had farther to fall, and it did.
In a time where the White House is accusing them of slanting the news towards the Republican Party, this would be a good time to re-enforce the “Fair and Balanced” idea. Yet, Fox News failed to do that. It seems that the entire nation, especially Fox News, has been focused on 3 elections: New Jersey Governor, Virginia Governor, and New York Congressional District 23. A Democrat won in the Congressional election while Republicans won in the other two. CNN and MSNBC mention both. CNN makes excuses for the Republican win and MSNBC just whines about it as usual. But trying to find results of the New York race on Fox News proved difficult. I did find the results in an opinion piece on Fox News. I have to say, I expect than kind of coverage from the others.
Fox News, you let me down.
FOX News Election Coverage
CNN Election Coverage
MSNBC Election Coverage
I would like to commend CNN, NBC, CBS, and ABC.
Yes, you are on the correct web page. As you all know, based on the previous posts, I have no tolerance for what I view as lack of journalistic integrity. However, since I am so quick to point out when they lack it, I should be just as quick to point out when they do a great job of showing it.
Yesterday, they did a great job of showing it.
The White House setup a group of Round-Robin Issues for the press pool with the Pay Czar, but excluded FOX. The other networks stepped up and said that if FOX was not included that no one would participate in the Round Robin.
Kudos for the other networks for realizing that no government entity should work that hard to silence opposition.
