This is the first time I've felt moved to write a diary entry, but I'm seething right now and want to raise this issue. We're all here because we appreciate the real thing, not the watered-down swill that passes for news and analysis in the media business.
I just fired the following off to CNN.com:
Right now, at 7:45 pm eastern time, your lead story on CNN.com is about two people sharing a reward in the DC sniper case. What brand of editorial judgment makes this minor followup to last year's news more important than global protests against the war in Iraq? The brand that prizes cheap sensationalism over significance? The brand that covers for an administration's rot by glossing over bad news for Bush?
The story you do run on the global protests is less than thin on details. There is no mention that protesters numbered in the hundreds of thousands worldwide, with anywhere from 30-100 thousand in NYC alone. In fact, NYC isn't mentioned at all. But you found space to mention a flag burning in Cairo in the third graph. You don't even get to mentioning protests here in the U.S. until the ninth graph, and that description is a thin generalization.
The balance of the report is taken up with quotes from Bush justifying his lies and reckless actions, and a summary of violence and disasters for the past week in Iraq.
All in all, it's far worse than a poor performance by CNN. Editorially, journalistically, informationally, this is just pure crap.
CNN has obviously made a choice and a gamble. You are gambling that the 50+% of the American public that is against this war and disgusted with this administration will not notice your pandering to the Bush pro-war crowd. You've made a choice to soft-peddle bad news for the administration and hype wishful thinking with round-the-clock gusts of breathless reporting on the non-surrounding and non-capture of "high-value al-Qaeda." You've made a decision to become a Fox News wanna-be. Don't think it hasn't been duly noted by the majority of the American people who don't support this kind of distortion of the news.
We here spend time reading and posting because we've been completely discounted, if not written off, by the mainstream media.
I submit that it's time to remind them what they've lost. They should be called on it every time we spot egregious bias, lousy editorial decisions, sloppy reporting, and pandering to the administration.
That's what the right-wing did for years, and they succeeded in getting what they wanted: a media that caters to their viewpoint. Well, we have eyeballs too, and money to spend, and choices to make. Even Murdoch would overhaul Fox News if he thought that's where the money was.
What I'm saying is that every time we see one of these hatchet jobs and post about it here, or on Whiskey Bar or Atrios, we might think of firing a round at the offending news outlet to remind them that they're losing business until they see the error of their ways.
