CNN was alright. Not great, but alright. They presented the conference, and didn't play too much of the spin game. Basically, it was nothing like their election coverage (the best freakin' political team in the history of journalism, or whatever their nonsense catch-phrase was), which was all-nonsense, all-the-time.
But then came Charlie Gibson and ABC News. And it is Charlie, not Charles, because it was news for the kiddies - if you want your kiddies to be stupid. Substanceless, sanitized, foolish, empty. The only way to truly describe it is to contrast it with the CBS News that followed.
I don't want to break down each story, so I will just focus on the coverage of the latest batch of Nixon tapes that were released today. According to ABC, they showed a happy, care-free Nixon at the height of his political career, "both a powerful President and a doting dad" in the pre-Watergate months, basking in the success of his re-election campaign and getting "gushing" calls from Bob Hope and director John Ford, calling Nixon the greatest President evah, and the praise of Pat Nixon over her husband's brilliant Vietnam policy. On CBS, on the other hand, we learned about Nixon's acknowledgement, following the decision in Roe v. Wade, that abortion wasn't a black-and-white issue [wow, did I mishear that one - see my update below, and realize that Richard Nixon was more evil than you ever imagined] and that there were circumstances where it was appropriate; his conversation with Billy Graham about how sad it was that Jews were so often subject to anti-Semitism and how the Jews somehow always seem to bring it upon themselves (really - "it may be they have a death wish, that's been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries"); and conversations with Al Haig and Chuck Colson over Vietnam policy.
Which isn't to say that CBS News was perfect. Their coverage of the health care reform debate was pretty pathetic. Pointing to the press conference today, they showed a clip of President Obama commenting that the government wouldn't force you out of a private plan. "That's technically correct; but what the President didn't say," they continued, is that a public plan could create conditions where your employer changes your plan. Except, of course, he did say that - as I mentioned, I actually was able to watch the press conference. And that was the whole purpose of the President's comment - that the government wouldn't force you, but employers may make their own decision based on the perceived value of the various plans. (Which, of course, is nothing different than our current situation - my employer has changed health insurance plans on me three times in 7 years.) Even looking past that comment, though, CBS blew the story. Once on their narrative, they spent the story talking about how the government would destroy a fair marketplace for healthcare. Their expert for that determination? Michael Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies at the "libertarian" Cato Institute, which opposes government involvement in everything (we've previously talked about Cato in connection with high-speed rail). Did they tell you what the Cato Institute is? Of course not. Did they lace the story with unsupported suppositions about how the government was going to force your doctor to refuse government insurance because the government would only be paying doctors 75 cents on the dollar? Of course. Nice objectivity there, CBS.
Nevertheless, aside from that complete failing, CBS News was head-and-shoulders above ABC. Substantive reporting on real issues. I had not expected seriousness from Katie Couric; I still think of her as the Today Show host. But hats off, and good job. But Charlie, please go back to morning television. Perhaps cartoons.
Which isn't to say that CBS News was perfect. Their coverage of the health care reform debate was pretty pathetic. Pointing to the press conference today, they showed a clip of President Obama commenting that the government wouldn't force you out of a private plan. "That's technically correct; but what the President didn't say," they continued, is that a public plan could create conditions where your employer changes your plan. Except, of course, he did say that - as I mentioned, I actually was able to watch the press conference. And that was the whole purpose of the President's comment - that the government wouldn't force you, but employers may make their own decision based on the perceived value of the various plans. (Which, of course, is nothing different than our current situation - my employer has changed health insurance plans on me three times in 7 years.) Even looking past that comment, though, CBS blew the story. Once on their narrative, they spent the story talking about how the government would destroy a fair marketplace for healthcare. Their expert for that determination? Michael Cannon, Director of Health Policy Studies at the "libertarian" Cato Institute, which opposes government involvement in everything (we've previously talked about Cato in connection with high-speed rail). Did they tell you what the Cato Institute is? Of course not. Did they lace the story with unsupported suppositions about how the government was going to force your doctor to refuse government insurance because the government would only be paying doctors 75 cents on the dollar? Of course. Nice objectivity there, CBS.
Nevertheless, aside from that complete failing, CBS News was head-and-shoulders above ABC. Substantive reporting on real issues. I had not expected seriousness from Katie Couric; I still think of her as the Today Show host. But hats off, and good job. But Charlie, please go back to morning television. Perhaps cartoons.
UPDATE: Over at the Dish, Sullivan points to this regarding the Nixon tapes:
“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” - Richard M Nixon. So the 37th president would have aborted the 44th.
So, the "black and white" wasn't about situations where the answer was unclear, but rather an argument to abort a bi-racial fetus? Wow. I'm not sure about that interpretation. I generally assume the worst about Nixon, but that one just floors me.
I assumed that the "a black and a white" statement was simply a statement that there were often difficult circumstances where it wasn't clear whether abortion was justified - the same struggle that Sullivan so forcefully displayed on the Dish recently. Seeing Sullivan's comment on the Nixon quote has me stunned and disgusted. Was Nixon really advocating for abortion in the case of - and I hate to use this word, but I will since it reflects the core indecency of the viewpoint - miscegenation? Was Nixon even more vile a human being than I even imagined (it really puts the "doting dad" presentation in the ABC News piece in a different light); or do we just always assume the worst with that man?
So now I've gone to the CBS News site and listened again to the actual audio clip (now linked above). CBS News leads into the tape with the impression that the comment is just about abortion not always being out of the question. Yet they then let you listen to the actual words, and I admit, it's difficult, when you listen again, to not hear Nixon and Chuck Colson the way Sullivan interprets them:
"When you have a black and a white...."
"Or rape."
"Or rape."
That "or" is terribly damning, and it becomes pretty obvious that, yeah, that's exactly what Nixon meant. Those are indeed the two times when an abortion is appropriate in Nixon's view: multiracial children and rape. And what's the difference, right?
Despite the words, my gut reaction is to just not go there. But then it occurs to me that Bruce Hornsby wrote "The Way it Is" and "Talk of the Town" about that exact kind of thinking ("Talk," if you don't know the song, is about the reaction of townsfolk when a white boy and black girl date - "Predictors of doom think this is it"), and you realize that to comment on it, it must not have been all that long ago that people really did think that way, and how far we have come, and how far we still have to go.
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