CNN Becoming Broadcast Wing of Conservative Newspaper?

By: TheGreenMiles
Published On: 4/9/2007 10:40:38 AM

Last Friday afternoon, CNN briefly became the broadcast arm of the New York Sun, doing-back-to-back full-length reports based on recent Sun editorials.  Both editorials were so radically delusional, I doubt even many conservatives would agree with them.  But CNN gave those fringe ideas more than five minutes of nearly unopposed air time.  The video after the jump.


The first report by Gary Nurenberg is based on this New York Sun editorial calling for Vice President Dick Cheney to run for president in 2008 despite popularity ratings that have been frozen solid in the high teens for much of the Bush/Cheney era.  Nurenberg's tag line, and I am not making this up:  "It could be fun!"

The second report by Carol Costello is a TV version of a recent New York Sun column calling environmentalists stupid militants.  CNN never cites the Sun column in its story, nor does it provide an opposing view to balance Bob Murray's batshit insane point of view.



And then at the very end, CNN gives 20 seconds or so to some boring report about how climate change could kill millions of people or something like that.


Comments



Increasingly Looks that Way (FMArouet - 4/9/2007 9:56:31 PM)
Tonight on Blitzer's "Situation Room," CNN's Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware seemed to be cut off in mid-observation as he was discussing the implications of Moqtada al Sadr's anti-American demonstration in Najaf. The incident looked like censorship at its crudest rather than merely a sloppy edit. Ware's "Neverland" undressing of McCain a week ago clearly did not sit well with the White House or with the corporatists, and it looks as though Ware is now receiving the Establishment's typical payback.

My guess is that the Bush/Cheney/Rove White House is now in full panic mode. The word has gone out from Rove and his minions to the media corporatists to try to smother the rising public criticism of the corruption, incompetence, and illegality of White House actions.

The result is extensive favorable coverage of the fringe wingnut elements you mention above, as well as the Washington Post's hideous hit piece last week (likely Fred Hiatt's work) on Speaker Pelosi and her trip to Syria. Tim Russert and company were just as supportive of the Party line in their negative coverage of Pelosi's trip.

On the flip side, look at "Establishment" Joe Klein's brutal assessment of the  performance of Bush and his administration in this week's Time Magazine. My guess is that any journalist with a remaining molecule of integrity will increasingly chafe at the corporatist directives to suppress "bad news" on the Bushies and to promote more "happy talk" for the "Surge" in Iraq and in support of the stellar management abilities of AG Alberto Gonzales.

We can hope that as the scandals wear on, journalists will become less fearful of corporatist retribution and that gradually, one by one, they will do what they can to abandon fealty to the Rovian Party line. But it's not a sure bet.

The media struggle becomes more interesting by the day. At least the blogosphere can serve as a catalyst to push a portion of the MSM toward the reality-based universe and away from the alternative universe of Rovian spin and propaganda.