CBS News - A Special Update
Having carved up one turkey yesterday, it seems only fitting that I turn my knives on the largest turkey out there today, CBS News.
Ordinarily, I would not pick on a defenseless MSM like this, butsince Les Mooves has been playing at the notion of CBS taking a serious look at Rathergate, it is reasonable to review their recent performance as an objective news team. The results are, well, predictable.
I will begin with Iraq, because CBS did just that. CBS began its newscast with the report that a number of political parties in Iraq want to delay the elections, as if to say that the country is being forced to hold elections it does not want. In actual fact, even the United Nations (grudgingly) agrees Iraq is ready for elections.
The situation, when you look deeper, is that the more radical and smaller parties would like a delay, in order for them to have a better chance. Of winning or simply stirring up trouble, I will let the reader discern.
Then there’s Iran. President Bush worked with European leaders to help negotiate a diplomatic resolution to the crisis caused by Iran’s enhancement of uranium, and praised the agreement without mentioning his care to speak softly while the negotiations progressed, but CBS News did not mention the accord anywhere on its news page.
In what I consider a related indicator of how CBS sees its job as a source for information, CBS’ telecast tonight promised to explain telephone charges besides the normal rates, but when they got down to playing their piece on the air, the highlight was an interview with a Mensa member apologizing that even he could not decipher the various phone company fees and tariffs. The network put their piece on their website, but apparently realized the conflict between their promise and the facts, and did things the ‘CBS Way’; they ignored the problems in their presentation, and hid the evidence; they seem to have removed that page.
So, all in all, CBS News continues to provide the same level of quality and integrity they have maintained for the past 30 years. Not that’s a very high level of standards, but at least they’re consistent.
Consistent BS News, as always.
UPDATE: I neglected to add the key word “telephone” to the rates question. As always, alert readers ellsworth butler and Von Aras caught it imediately.
— DJ Drummond