I’m going to have to disagree with Newsbusters on this one — I don’t see a lot of spin in Public Eye’s report on the CNN “get angry” imbroglio that went down yesterday. If anything, the report confirmed that CNN was coaching guests. I joked yesterday that you don’t really have to tell talking head pundits to get angry, but that seems to be what CNN did and Montopoli seems to be making fun of them for it.
My biggest problem with Public Eye so far is not spin — it’s boredom. Did anyone else watch the exclusive, behind-the-scenes video of the CBS News editorial meeting? Zzzzzzzz. Where are the liberal plotters devising conspiracies to undermine Bush? This is like Fox News videotaping its editorial meetings but cutting out the parts where Karl Rove hands out the daily talking points.
My point is, and I only speak for myself, that I could care less about watching some jerky footage of a roomful of news executives — who are all painfully aware that they are being filmed — discuss mundane details of news production. I want to know things like why the lead story on CBSNews.com right now misquotes President Bush in the lede:
President Bush Tuesday took responsibility for government failures in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and said the disaster raised broader questions about the government’s ability to respond to natural disasters as well as terror attacks.
Read on and you see that Bush actually said, “Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government, and to the extent that the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility.”
It’s admirable that Bush is taking responsibility for FEMA’s failures. But he made very clear that this breakdown occurred on the federal, state and local level. Meanwhile, CBS News rushes to pin all the blame on Bush. Why?