Update to CNN

FAIR now has an Action Alert out on the CNN coverage of last Friday's hearing.

Host Campbell Brown:
Campbell@cnn.com

CNN President Jonathan Klein:
212-275-8263


My further response to CNN:

After watching and reviewing the coverage of last Friday's (July 25) Judiciary Subcommittee on the The Constitution's hearings on abuses of Executive Power, I feel compelled to complain about the poor quality of the coverage.

Before introducing the story, Anchor Brown and reporter Hill both joked about the hearing's irrelevance and "stagecraft." However, none of the 35 charges of criminal acts documented in the Articles of Impeachment precipitating the hearing were mentioned.

They include knowingly ordering torture of innocent detainees, innumerable First Amendment violations including unlawful warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, mass murder of Iraqi civilians, neglect of American citizens in need of Federal Emergency Management Assistance after Hurricaine Katrina, conspiracy to profit from war and energy market manipulation, among many others.

These seem to me to be far from a laughing matter.

I'm sorry CNN has fallen so far as to mock the American people, our Congress, Constitution and Justice System, and our right to know -- objectively -- what our elected officials are doing in our name.

I hope CNN will try to do better next time.

Fair& David Swanson

[Go to video]

My reply to CNN:

The Brown & Hill report on last Friday's congressional hearings on the limits of executive power was disturbing in its dismissive tone.

It disregarded the question of whether or not the evidence for impeachment bears any legal basis.

The commentators laughed and disregarded the six hour hearing as "kabuki theater" without covering its substance or trying to inform the American public about the 35 charges.

Both comentators stated that the hearings represented a "waste of taxpayer money" without explaining why they believed the substance of the hearings were so unwarranted.

They openly sided with the Republican opposition and implied that it wasn't worth the Republicans' time to show up at the hearings.

They then showed President Bush kissing a baby and declared him to be "undisturbed" by the hearings.

Such baseless, partisan and contemptuous broadcasting is far from news. Brown and Hill are not journalists but talking points puppets who repeat what their bosses in the CNN corporate offices want them to say.

Members of the public, ordinary working people, citizens without special statusl, means, or access to the media have worked for years to have a hearing like last Friday's.

It occurred in spite of the effort by CNN, Fox, MSNBC and ABC to tell the public that it doesn't matter if the President and his Administration commit felonies and shred the Constitution.

Ha ha ha. Just a laughing matter, according to CNN's anchors.

CNN needs to issue a formal apology to the American people for the disservice they performed last Friday, and continue to perform by deliberately misreporting the news.

The Upcoming Elections

Chomsky in the (foreign) media (again.)

No, the public is the same, it's been saying the same for decades, but the public is irrelevant, is understood to be irrelevant. What matters is a few big interests looking after themselves and that's exactly what the public sees.

Read more

Looking Forward To Hanging Up Dirty Laundry

Bill Moyers did a film called, Buying the War.

The transcript is available online.