When CNN tried to claim that the black X that appeared over the face of Vice President Cheney was caused by a “technical glitch”, I thought they were lying.
And, as Drudge is reporting this morning, I was right:
“We did it just to make a point. Tell them to stop lying, Bush and Cheney,” the CNN operator said to a caller. “Bring our soldiers home.”
The caller initially phoned the network to complain about the all-news channel flashing an “X’ over Cheney as he gave an address live from Washington.
“Was it not freedom of speech? Yes or No?” the CNN operator explained.
“If you don’t like it, don’t watch.”
OK, CNN, I didn’t like it. So I won’t watch anymore (not that I was watching much of your “news” channel lately anyhow).
h/t to Blonde Sagacity
You know that the individual you quoted here was a telephone operator and not an actual CNN spokesman, right? In other words, no, there’s absolutely no reason in the world to accuse CNN of lying the way you have here.
Please don’t turn into one of those crazy people who throws around the word “lying” like it doesn’t mean anything. There are enough of those people out there already.
Jeff, that’s a valid criticism (of me).
In retrospect, I think my charge of “lying” stems more from my cumulative experience and opinion of CNN rather than just this single incident.
Starting with the Tailwind story back in 1998 I’ve been skeptical of almost anything politcal being reported by the Ted Turner news network.
Is “lying” a bit of hyperbole? Perhaps.
While I commend CNN for acting quickly to fire the operator who made those statements, I still don’t believe their “technical glitch” claim either. Too much past bias in their reporting for me to give them the benefit of the doubt this time.
“Lying” is exactly the correct word to use. CNN propogated the malfunction theory before they ever investigated the incident. That’s assuming they did any kind of investigation.
CNN would have stuck to the ‘wardrobe malfunction’ lie had a caller not recorded the conversation with the CNN employee.
A perfectly reasonable explanation for the firing is that the employee wasn’t fired for ‘x-ing’ the Vice President, he was fired for admitting it.
In any case the fact that a technician felt empowered to pull such a stunt demonstrates the institutional basis that permeates CNN.
See? That’s why I object to throwing around the word “lie.†Poor Jim there ended up with totally the wrong idea of what happened.
Jim, it really was just a technical malfunction. The person who answered the phone was in no way connected to the control room at CNN Center where the problem originated. The person who was subsequently fired was speaking entirely out of his ass. There was no “stunt.†Okay? There really wasn’t. Pardon me for saying so, but blindly asserting that there was demonstrates a pretty remarkable ignorance of how television works.
And yet now this rumor is going to persist, making all of us conservatives look just ever so slightly more like crazy people. Great. Thanks a lot.
Jeff, I’m still not convinced that CNN has been completely honest in their explanations. Remember, just because it was a “glitch” doesn’t mean that it wasn’t intentional.
Remember this from the operator’s statement: “We did it to make a point”?
If these are his “personal views”, who is this “we”?
[...] What Media Bias? Part I [...]