Just when you thought 24/7 cable news TV couldn’t get stranger, starting Tuesday night, viewers are likely to see advertisements on CNN “attacking” Lou Dobbs during his prime-time show on the same cable channel.
And if that simply seems to be one more instance of the polarizing rhetoric and toxic nastiness of cable news TV, it’s not. Dobbs has become a real problem for CNN, and a liberal media watchdog organization has found a way to highlight what it sees as reckless behavior by Dobbs.
Dobbs has consistently been lending credence to the “birthers” movement, which claims President Barack Obama is not a U. S. citizen, and thus, not eligible to be president because he was not allegedly born in the United States. The view has been widely and thoroughly discounted — most notably by Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate. But despite such facts, Dobbs has persisted.
The Media Matters ads on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News will take Dobbs to task for his on-air actions in relation to that issue. It is a clever and sound strategy in the world of corporate TV.
CNN can’t really afford to ditch any ads that don’t violate standards and practices. And if they refuse this one, which can still be seen on their competitors, they have a credibility problem.
Credibility is the real issue here, and loss of it is the great danger for CNN.
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Updates:
10:15 am EDT, August 3rd, 2009 — Lou Dobbs challenges his own network
4:40 pm EDT, August 3rd, 2009 — Is this really smoking gun of Obama’s Kenyan birth?
I usually don’t watch Lou Dobbs, but his take on news items is definitely not the CNN company line regarding many issues (immigration, illegal aliens, government mismangement etc.). He’ll probably end up with a substantial golden handshake. He makes Glenn Beck look moderate. Cheers.
Guess he’ll be the next one moving on over to Fox?
I don’t know how Glenn Beck could stand it there for so long.
Notice the use of the term “lending credence”, in that Lou Dobbs has been “lending credence” to the “birthers” movement. In other words, even though Lou Dobbs is not a “birther” himself, since he has always stated that he believes that President Obama was born in the USA, and has only been asking why the current administration was sold to the American people as the most transparent Presidency evah, when it is in fact the opposite of transparent, in that it tries to hide everything, no matter how insignificant(ie a simple long form birth certificate), about Obama, his administration, and what they are up to.
It is a sad day when a journalist reporter is basically told through all the major media players to shut up and start towing the Obama line. Lou Dobbs is not a media lap dog, and while this is no doubt a “problem” for the left, CNN is better for it, and it is not Lou Dobbs whose credibility is at issue.
Brian has pretty much said it all!!
I agree with Soccermom. Lou needs a new home when his contract expires and Fox News sounds like a match made in heaven.
“While CNN generally has lower prime-time ratings than its angry, opinionated competitors on the right and the left, it does have credibility and a kind of journalistic highground by “playing it down the middle.” And that pays off on big news events when viewers want verified facts and information provided without partisan spin. The ratings during the election — and even on events like Michael Jackson’s death — are consistently big for CNN.”
Other than the part about CNN having lower prime time ratings…. (and even that sentence is dishonest in its implications) the entire paragraph and the entire article is a gross misrepresentation of the facts.
The attempt to paint CNN as some somber, unbiased, objective, separate the facts from the spin sort of news organization is laughable.
The only reason there is any “polarization” of the cable news media is that there is now a centrist outlet (FOX) instead of a singular leftist outlet (CNN)
Pretty soon it will just be the ridiculous Wolf Blitzer and the self serious Anderson Cooper left.
Fox Centrist? Best joke all year.
Fox’s hard news reporting is really quite fair, Cynapse. The morning and afternoon news shows are really quite fair to Obama and truly present both sides.
Yes, they have biased guys like Hannity, Beck and to a lesser degree O-Reilly, but they are commentators, not reporters. They are paid to have an opinion and to present it. No one is forcing anyone to watch these guys – they are editorialists. You can change the channel everytime. They even state their biases up front and of course you can’t help but get that from them. But they also get the highest ratings. That should tell you something.
What bothers us is journalists who are supposed to be doing hard news reporting, but end up NOT telling the whole story or are giving their point of view. That’s not reporting. And then acting like they are fair and balanced and the authority on what is happening, a la the CBC.
“We Report, You Decide”. And that’s the way it should be.
Let the editorialists have their own shows; just don’t try to pass that off as the evening news.
Soccermom:
After watching all the major US news services for about a week (trip to the Deep South), HLN and CNBC are the only stations in the USA that come even close to living up to “We report, you decide”. The latter is a business station so really all that remains is HLN, which is not even meant to be a top-tier news service.
I did watch several hours of Fox and did not hear ONE positive thing about Obama. I did hear a lot of chatter about his medical plan (understandable). I heard Hannity insinuate to death about Obama’s birth status (feeding the mob).
Clearly, Americans don’t think FOX is fair and balanced – in most restaurants I went to, one TV was showing CNN and the other was showing FOX, as though the two need to balance each other out for some reason. FOX’s only “objective” material comes from the AP wires, which means it’s everyone’s objective material. But people didn’t switch to FOX for the omnipresent AP wire, they switched for Hannity, Beck and O’Reilly. They want to see some good ol boys stick it to the liberals.
All America watched good old boys stick it to Bush and Republicans on CNN for years. I am no fan of Bush and am hopeful for Obama! But I am a big fan of FOX. In my humble opinion they are the closest to balanced reporting in North America. Bill O’Reilly is the best!
Those two stations you mention don’t have “talk” shows where editorialists get their kicks in. I’ll stand by my statement that the morning and afternoon hard news shows on Fox are doing the reporting (maybe showing some stuff that CNN et al wouldn’t dare talk about?); the evening guys are doing the editorializing.
CBC is egregious for saying they are reporting but they always manage to get a dirty shot in and editorialize. They certainly are not fair and balanced.
“They want to see some good ol boys stick it to the liberals.” Anything wrong with that? Nobody else is calling these corruptocrats out!
Fay is right when she mentions Bill O-Reilly. He’s the mildest of the bunch and has gone out of his way to be fair to O. He’s the last one to call O out on some of his shenanigans and has often defended O. He’s so mild I have a hard time watching him anymore!
Kate at SDA had a good post and link up:
“Soviet Socialism, as it turned out, was a perverse system that killed motivation even as it made fear as natural as breathing.
Why wasn’t this reported in the Western Press?
As it turns out, the preponderance of journalists are Democrats. And socialism, with its idyllic, “progressive” programs, has formed an increasingly important role in Democratic policies. Who wants to investigate a possible dark side of your own party’s plank?”
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/scalliwag/200908/why-most-journalists-are-democrats-view-the-soviet-socialist-trenches
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I think that explains CNN, MSNBC, and CBC to a tee. Fox was not afraid to criticize Bush and his policies and they did quite often. Even the commentators, Hannity included, criticized Bush. It’s rare to see CNN question Obama. Or take on Al Gore’s ridiculousness even.
These stations tell a story, but they never tell the whole story. Fox digs a little deeper and we get more of what’s actually going on.
CBC / CTV has not followed up on the wafergate/fakergate story. Why not? Because they would rather not find out what’s lying beneath the surface. Why did these same stations focus on the Coalition rallies and barely mention the Anti-Coalition rallies? Because it’s so ingrained in their brains they can’t even see how unfair they are.
Well said Soccermom!
In my best Elvis voice, Fay, “Thank you, thank you very much!”