International Law

Still, it?s pretty extraordinary ?

By Rob Hyndman

Indeed it is: Still, it’s pretty extraordinary that CNN — the most trusted name in news — would invite a high government official onto its news program to invoke his authority and claimed expertise to scare Americans into believing that we’re all going to be killed by Terrorists unless President Bush gets what he wants, and have the “journalist” conducting the interview admit upfront that he knows nothing about the topics. What’s the point of the exercise? Why allow a government official to come onto your show and make statements that the interviewer — due to total ignorance about the subject — has no ability to analyze, scrutinize, or subject to critical inquiry? Providing a platform to government officials to make controversial claims with no scrutiny is (by definition) called “propaganda,” not journalism. But of course, it isn’t. It’s entirely ordinary now.

Full post as published by Rob Hyndman .com on February 26, 2008 (boomark / email).