So much journalism has become he said/she said, with no one bothering to check the facts, or even what he or she said before this.
Thanks to digital records, shows such as Rachel Maddow’s are doing this. And it is a revelation. I’ve thought for a long time that all print and broadcast media should do this, to keep politicians honest. This report, on what Republicans said after the recent attempted attack on an airliner by the groin bomber, and the one in 2001 by the shoe bomber, really illustrates the problems we have in the U.S. today.
What’s a media consumer to believe? And I think both sides could make similar illustrations. It seems the minority party does little more than attack the one in the majority, and offers little in the way of solutions on both sides.
Liberal or conservative, I’d love to know what you think of this report. I think it is among the most important news reports I’ve seen this year. If a conservative can convince me that this is in some way doctored, unfair, not accurate or not important, I’ll vote for Sarah Palin in 2012. I’d just take one interesting comment about the issue, not about my own politics.
I lke Maddow’s piece very much. It is an opinion piece.
In straight news pieces I also would like to see more motivation on the part of reporters to dig into the facts, rather than lazily relaying any he said-she said without qualification even when it is well established the information is false
Of course that has to be done a little differently than Maddow did her opinion piece but diligent reporting for news and opinion — yeah we could use more of that all around.
Oh, I shoud add that as far as liberal or conservative, well, it is an opinion piece. I mean, democrats do this kind of spin doctoring too against republicans. She didn’t do an overview of all spin doctoring by both sides, she went after Rep. spin doctoring. This is OK, she is allowed, it is an editorial and in this case, the detroit undie bomber was the topic and it was the republicans who were doing the major spinning on it.
Her piece is good. If she applies it to everyone whenever they pull the same thing, wow, she would become one of the most powerful journalists around.
George: I find nothing “compelling” about Miss Madow. If anything, I have found her to be, on those few occasions I’ve seen her show on MSNBC, snide, snarky and, to use a word little seen today, snotty. Or, liberal. The liberals in America today are remarkable for their lack of graciousness when engaging their political and cultural opponents, unlike their grandparents. A peurile bellicosity pervades the commentaries of the Madows, Olbermanns, Schultzes, et al, and it is most off-putting. Whatever message they try to deliver is lost on me because I can’t separate it from their style. Charlton Heston had it right when he responded to attacks on him by George Clooney, the liberal Hollywood actor and nephew of the singer Rosemary Clooney: “Class sometimes skips a generation.” You bet it has.