How far has the Tiffany Network fallen?
The former home of such journalistic heroes such as Edward R. Murrow, Eric Sevareid and Walter Cronkite has been a pale shadow of its former self for some time. And, when Katie Couric was given the job at the CBS Evening News, most held out little hope.
But I don’t think people expected it to get this bad.
Last night, they aired an interview with John McCain, in which they actually replaced the senator’s answer to one question with his answer to another.
They didn’t just cut out an answer-and-question pair, as often happens when an interview is trimmed to fit the available space or time. They aired the question, then followed it with an answer that had been given in another part of the interview.
Bizarre? You might think so. Here’s what a CBS spokesman had to say, as reported by TPM:
As all news organizations do with extended interviews, last night’s Obama and McCain interviews were edited to fit the available time and to give viewers a fair expression of the candidates’ major differences. The full transcript and video were and still are available at cbsnews.com.
A “fair” expression?
What?
Wouldn’t it have been better to aim for an “accurate” expression? The kind which would have required showing the candidates actual responses?
Fair? Who determines what’s fair, in this context? This question seems particularly relevant, since, as it happens, the answer that was deleted contained a major McCain misstatement regarding the timing of events in Iraq. McCain claimed that the surge played a major role in the Anbar Awakening, when, in fact, the Anbar Awakening had started months before Bush announced the surge, or any additional troops arrived. Instead of showing footage of McCain making this absurd statement, CBS cut in ‘B roll’ footage of troops in Iraq, while playing audio of McCain from a different part of the interview, talking about the “sacrifice” of our “brave” troops.
So, is it a “fair expression of the candidates’ major differences” to hide the fact that one of them, Obama, actually knows the facts and the other, McCain, doesn’t? And worse, that McCain accuses Obama of making a “false depiction” of it? I wouldn’t think so.
But the people who hired Howard Beale might.
I suspect neighbors of the Greenwood cemetery in Brooklyn may be hearing a deafening spinning sound.