CNN Throws Grenades...At Itself

Politics daily has a great post on CNN's inability to actually report facts and figures. Instead CNN has become a partisan in pushing the Obama Administration agenda.

In an epic segment on Oct. 12, Stewart spent 11 minutes -- half of the entire Daily Show -- pouring through clips of CNN's blatant disregard for fact checking the statistics spewed by actual politicians and pundits on its shows. According to Stewart, "Fact checking is the function of news. This is the public service provided." Never one to make a point without sarcasm, Stewart added, "It is one of the reasons the health care debate has been so fruitful."

As usual, Stewart nails it. He argues that the news organizations should educate the nation with fact checking and an open, intelligent evaluation of each side of political debates so that the public discourse is not mired in lies and partisan bickering. Idealistic as it may sound, there is a word for this: journalism. Instead, CNN brings together partisan experts that bash each other in divisive quarrels masquerading as real information. Issues such as the uninsured and the deficit take a back seat to fiery buzzwords like death panels and socialism/fascism that have no basis in the reality of the health care overhaul. We are constantly bombarded by the explosive attacks of partisan conflict and emerge deaf to the real substance of our political debate.

Basically, CNN, MSNBC, NBC & CBS are failing in their mandate to report the news. They have become defacto propaganda arms of the Obama Administration. They never, ever report anything negative or adverse. On the other hand, they constantly reported on negative aspects of the Bush Administration. This goes hand in hand with the inability of the Obama Administration to take responsibility of any of their actions or of the present situation the country is in. It's all "inherited" and the "news" organizations fully support this meme. Fox News now has a larger audience than ALL the other news networks combined. Yet, those networks refuse to see the problem that their biased reporting as a problem, all the while they bleed viewers. Print media has the same problem...and I don't think either will wake up until it's too late.

Our democracy requires a robust news media that reports facts on what our political "elites" are attempting to inflict upon us. Without it, we are doomed. Right now, only Fox News the Wall Street Journal and a few regional papers attempt to present reasonably balanced reporting. This cannot continue...but the Obama Administration has declared war on Fox News, and is attempting to marginalize it because they are not fully supporting the aims of this administration. It's wrong and will probably result in a huge backlash, just as Nixon's "enemies list" did 37 years ago.