Tuesday, March 06, 2007

CNN latches on to talking points like a baby to it's mama.

It shouldn't be any surprise that the media, MSM, continues to work at, what feels, the LCD, Lowest Common Denominator, level of quality.

Earlier, I covered the attempts to rewrite the past weeks events in Selma, AL.

Senators Clinton and Obama, gave speeches at different churches, in memory of the Civil Rights movements and those key moments that happened in Selma. In the wake of Clinton's speech.

Some have suggested different strategies based on where her husband was, others have talked of her use of religious language. It is fair analysis. As far as it is an attempt to read events one way or another.

But the attempts to rewrite her own words are plain insulting. Matt Drudge was a leader in this.

[I'd display the Drudge headline, but I'm on a dial up at the moment. And I am impatient.]

No one was covering this story. CNN certainly wasn't. None of their people even brought up the notion. Then on Monday Drudge came out and brought it up. Suddenly, CNN was making a big deal of it. People, who listened to it Sunday, that analyzed it afterward were instantly jumping to it Monday afternoon. It was a packet of instant Big Deal.

From the Horse's Mouth:
Let me make the case. On Sunday, the day Hillary spoke in Alabama, CNN devoted substantial coverage to her speech. This was a day before Drudge posted his huge banner headline yesterday pointing out her southern drawl, a story that this blog has done its best to debunk.

Interestingly, none of CNN's Sunday coverage even took notice of Hillary's "drawl" at all, as best as I can determine. CNN's Sunday pieces on the speech are here, here, here, and here. Can you find any attention being given to the drawl? I can't. A Nexis search turned up nothing. I can't promise that there was none whatsoever on the air, but it certainly looks as if they didn't take note of it.

At the very least, it's very obvious that the CNN reporters, editors and producers who watched the speech simply didn't think the drawl very noteworthy, if at all. CNN analyst Candy Crowley commented directly on the speech without mentioning it, too.

...

After that, CNN was suddenly all over the drawl. On Monday CNN's Paula Zahn and John Roberts completely followed Drudge's lead, airing the quote out of context exactly as Drudge had done and pointing out what a pandering phony it revealed Hillary to be. CNN's Lou Dobbs -- who on Sunday didn't cover the drawl -- dutifully aired the video of it on Monday. And CNN's Candy Crowley -- who a day earlier had commented on the speech without noting the change in accent -- suddenly had lots to say about it...


And again, it isn't even a true story. She was misquoted! If any of these people, after reading Drudge had gone back to confirm her words...they could have done journalism. But they probably had a full day...

Bad media! Bad!

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