{"id":107209,"date":"2020-11-07T17:10:34","date_gmt":"2020-11-07T14:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/how-cbs-and-cnn-went-from-reporting-the-news-to-distorting-it\/"},"modified":"2020-11-07T17:10:34","modified_gmt":"2020-11-07T14:10:34","slug":"how-cbs-and-cnn-went-from-reporting-the-news-to-distorting-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-cbs-and-cnn-went-from-reporting-the-news-to-distorting-it\/","title":{"rendered":"#How CBS and CNN went from reporting the news to distorting it"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#How CBS and CNN went from reporting the news<\/a> to distorting it<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n When Sharyl Attkisson discusses media<\/a> bias, she isn\u2019t just sharpshooting from a distant perch. She\u2019s a true insider, having worked at CNN in the early days, when it was all news instead of peacocking personalities and venting about politics. She went on to be a star correspondent and anchor for CBS News, from which she resigned in frustration six years ago. When she talks about what kinds of stories get on the air and why, she has specific, damning details. In her new book \u201cSlanted: How the News Media Taught Us to Love Censorship and Hate Journalism\u201d<\/a> (Harper), out later this month, she brings the receipts.<\/p>\n

The book opens with a stunning array of examples of undisguised bias from her superiors and colleagues as she fought to get investigative stories on the air at CBS. Back in 1996, when media mogul Steve Forbes was running for president, the following assignment came down to her at the Washington bureau: \u201cDo a story on why Steve Forbes\u2019 flat tax won\u2019t work.\u201d Forbes was running for president on a revolutionary idea about simplifying federal income tax so that an entire family tax return would fit on the proverbial postcard. Attkisson wasn\u2019t told, \u201cDo a story on the pros and cons of this\u201d or \u201cLook into whether this would work.\u201d She was handed a conclusion and told to pick whatever facts might lead to it.<\/p>\n

Later she did a story on people who misused New York state stimulus payments intended to be spent on school supplies \u2014 \u201cpeople were taking money straight from the ATM machine to buy beer, cigarettes and lottery tickets,\u201d a bodega owner in Manhattan told her. Attkisson was told to yank the piece because \u201call of the people are \u2014 of a certain color.\u201d She pointed out that the people profiled sympathetically in the story were also \u201cof a certain color,\u201d including a concerned social worker, a needy family that spent its stimulus money as intended, and workers at the bodega. The report never aired.<\/p>\n

\"Sharyl
Sharyl Attkisson\u2019s book, \u201cSlanted,\u201d reveals stunning examples of undisguised bias from her superiors and colleagues as she fought to get investigative stories on the air at CBS.<\/span>Alamy Stock Photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Motivated reporting meant to lead the consumer to a given point of view, or hide inconvenient info, is everywhere in the media, and sometimes it perplexes reporters who mistakenly believed they were going into the business to explore the world and follow the truth wherever it led. When a colleague came into Attkisson\u2019s office in 2014, she said she\u2019d been assigned to do a story on how vital food pantries were to poor people. But \u201cevery food pantry family she connected with had proven to be relatively well off financially.\u201d Attkisson wondered, \u201cWhy not report what she was actually learning from her experience in the field?\u201d This idea, that she would simply tell the truth about what she had discovered, led the young reporter to look \u201cat me as though I had grown a second head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attkisson herself spent considerable time researching a story for CBS Weekend News to locate and profile a family that was struggling to get by on minimum wage. Despite starting out, as reporters usually do, by turning to an advocacy group with an interest in the matter, Attkisson couldn\u2019t find a family that fit the bill. The anti-poverty activists she spoke to couldn\u2019t locate any families in which two parents were raising kids while on minimum wage. So Attkisson hit the bricks herself.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Long before the media was biased against Trump, Attkisson remembers CBS ordering up a hit piece on George W. Bush while declining to give the same treatment to Democratic opponent John Kerry.<\/span>AFP via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At McDonald\u2019s, a manager told her, \u201cI\u2019ll be honest with you. Even if I had someone starting at minimum wage, they don\u2019t stay there. If they just show up for work every day, they get a 25 cent raise every three months. Nobody here is living on a minimum-wage salary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Media bias kicked up to a delirious new level in the Trump era, which was marked not only by hysterical exaggeration by the likes of Brian Stelter but a litany of errors Attkisson lists in a damning 25-page app<\/a>endix of false media reports. Still, the raging desire to harm Republicans and cover for Democrats has been there all along.<\/p>\n

Any version of events that counters \u2018the Narrative\u2019 is called partisan spin.<\/p>\n

\u00a0–\u00a0Former network journalist Sharyl Attkisson on how the media distorts news instead of reporting it<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Attkisson explored discrepancies in John Kerry\u2019s Vietnam record she met a total lack of interest \u2014 \u201cVietnam was a long time ago,\u201d a colleague told her \u2014 even though the same people were obsessed with finding evidence that Kerry\u2019s opponent George W. Bush had used cocaine around the same time. A story Attkisson did on school-lunch fraud \u2014 she discovered big corporations were cheating schools out of millions of dollars \u2014 was killed because it might have embarrassed Michelle Obama, a cheerleader for school lunch, she says. Producers refused to even read the script of her story, she adds.<\/p>\n

Motivated reasoning was everywhere Attkisson looked: If a societal trend is at issue, journos carefully handpick extreme, antagonistic figures to be the public face of some idea they hate, but choose wonderful, nice people to embody policies they like. When Attkisson set out to cover a story on religion in America that included a profile on a group of Christian teens in Maryland, she at first got a thumbs-up from a senior producer at CBS headquarters in New York. The next day, the producer changed her mind: \u201cCan\u2019t you find someone with a more extreme position?\u201d she asked, suggesting a profile of the polarizing TV pastor Jerry Falwell instead of the likable Christian teens.<\/p>\n

\"Lou
Lou Waters told Attkisson that what\u2019s become of CNN \u201cdepresses\u201d him.<\/span>\u00a9CNN\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The weekday evening news program dropped the story, so Attkisson pitched it to the weekend program she hosted. She happened to be walking by the desk of the show\u2019s executive producer when she discussed the contents of that week\u2019s edition. \u201cThe anchor has a pro-Bible story she wants to air,\u201d the producer said, on a speakerphone conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a sniff of clear distaste in her voice,\u201d Attkisson recalls. The story wasn\u2019t \u201cpro-Bible.\u201d<\/p>\n

And even if it had been, since when has it been beyond the pale to mention the Bible in a favorable way? It\u2019s hard not to remember New York Times chief Dean Baquet\u2019s startlingly candid admission, shortly after the 2016 election that, \u201cWe don\u2019t get religion. We don\u2019t get the role of religion in people\u2019s lives.\u201d Baquet promised to do a better job covering average Americans and their concerns. Instead he turned the paper into the leading voice of the anti-Trump Resistance.<\/p>\n

Selecting and shaping facts to fit a predetermined narrative, rather than starting with curiosity about the way things work, is what used to be considered a tawdry approach to the news. Now it\u2019s what virtually the entire media establishment does, from tabloids to buzztastic websites to the most prestigious newspapers to the cable news channels.<\/p>\n

\"Ted
In 2018, Ted Turner said that the network he founded had become too political.<\/span>Getty Images for TCM<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Take CNN. When Attkisson was an anchor there, in the early 1990s, the company brand was all news, all the time. Political quarrels were not the focus. \u201cBack then, I think we were just about as \u2018just the facts\u2019 as it was possible to be,\u201d she recalls. \u201cWe news anchors wouldn\u2019t have dreamed of slamming political figures or giving editorial monologues about them \u2026 Most of the news we aired wasn\u2019t Washington, DC-centric.\u201d<\/p>\n

Things went so far in the other direction that even CNN\u2019s proudly left-wing founder, Ted Turner said, in 2018, \u201cI think they\u2019re stickin\u2019 with politics a little too much. They\u2019d do better to have a more balanced agenda.\u201d A former network official tells Attkisson, anonymously, \u201cWe\u2019ve decided that commentating is more important than news. I left cable because I couldn\u2019t understand the screaming. I fought the fight to do quiet, straight journalism. And it didn\u2019t win at CNN.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lou Waters, an avuncular anchor, told Attkisson in an interview that in the early years, anchors were admonished not to make themselves the stars. Initially they weren\u2019t even supposed to identify themselves to viewers. Waters says, \u201cIt depresses me actually\u201d to see what has become of CNN. \u201cBack in the day, we did very little politics.\u201d \u201cCrossfire,\u201d a 30-minute show, was about it.<\/p>\n

A former prominent CNNer, whose name Attkisson withholds, notes sadly that \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of showboating going on on television at every level, now. News was the star. And now the star is the star. \u2018Hey, look at me!\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

\"Slanted<\/p>\n

Yes, that means divas like Jim Acosta. A former top CNN exec (again, the name is withheld by the author) tells Attkisson, \u201cIf I were chairman of CNN, I would call [Acosta] and say, \u2018Nobody elected you, and you\u2019re not there to fight with the president of the United States.\u2019\u2009\u201d At the old CNN, Attkisson says, \u201ca Jim Acosta would not have been possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a convenient term for all of the tendencies Attkisson identifies: \u201cthe Narrative.\u201d Once the Narrative is established, Attkisson writes, \u201ccontrary views, facts and science<\/a> must be shoved down the memory hole.\u201d Serving the narrative may involve approaches as simple as taking facts out of context, making too much of some information or, sometimes, amplifying false allegations via insinuation.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny version of events that counters the Narrative is called partisan spin,\u201d she notes. Those who advance the Narrative may be acting in accordance with what they truly believe is in the public interest, but they tend to believe that they\u2019re \u201csmarter than you are\u201d and that therefore \u201cthey do not trust you to process information and draw your own conclusions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because you might draw the wrong ones. America\u2019s news media see themselves as your teachers, thought leaders and protectors, and it\u2019s vital that you believe exactly what you\u2019re told.\n <\/p><\/div>\n

\n

For forums sites go to Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#How CBS and CNN went from reporting the news to distorting it” When Sharyl Attkisson discusses media bias, she isn\u2019t just sharpshooting from a distant perch. She\u2019s a true insider, having worked at CNN in the early days, when it was all news instead of peacocking personalities and venting about politics. She went on to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/11\/jim-acosta.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[79021,4941,71324],"class_list":["post-107209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-11-7-20","tag-donald-trump","tag-media-bias"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}