I'm sitting here watching Cynthia McKinney and her attorneys being interviewed by Wolf Blitzer and it's cracking me up. I've always considered McKinney to be little more than a buffoon and a huckster. The moment you submit a bill to crack the government conspiracy against Tupac Shakur, you've pretty much lost your credibility with me. But what cracks me up, as always, is how inept the media is and how politicians get away with idiotic answers without being challenged. Blitzer asked her point blank, "Did you strike the police officer at the capital building?" McKinney didn't even attempt to answer the question. She went on about racism and the police attacking black people, but she never answered the question. No follow up. He didn't say, "Wait, you didn't answer the question. Did you or did you not strike the officer? Yes or no?" He just let her babble. For crying out loud, could our media be any more lapdogs for the politicians? It's a business where Rita Crosby, a bubbleheaded sycophant if ever there was one, has a reputation as a tough interviewer for crying out loud. They sit there every day as press secretaries and politicians tell the most ridiculous lies - and they know they're lies - and they just shut up and report those words without a peep of protest. And most absurdly, they call that objectivity rather than what it is, which is dereliction of duty.
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At least it's not a bill to indefinately extend the Patriot Act.
Oh, wait.
The almost inevitable failure of most interviewers to follow up when the subject ducks a direct question like McKinney did has always irritated me greatly. I have on occasion yelled at the radio in my car "How can that idiot not call them on that lie?!?!".
Pity US journalists do not model themselves on the ones I hear nightly on BBC World Service. The UK journalists exemplify the stereotype of the 'British Bulldog'. One of them sunk her teeth into Condi Rice the other day and was shaking the Sec. of State like the proverbial rag doll.
Rep. McKinney and the police officer should apologize to each other and shake hands, and then everyone should get on with their lives. This whole incident is considerably smaller than the sum of its parts.
The kindest, most deferential I have ever seen one human being to another (short of a mother to her baby) was Bill O'Reilley interviewing Laura Bush. I thought he was going to offer to kiss her ring.
Ed
Consider the possibility it may not be Blitzer's ineptness. Everything on the boob-tube is now demographics-driven. I suspect the "name" TV journalists, especially the ones with their own shows [bread-and-butter for an entire staff], have an excruiciating understanding of who their audience is, what specific part of the host's personality the audience is buying, and a more or less clear understanding of where the economic boundaries are of their on-screen personsas.
Reputations, personalities, I'd bet even the political views of a few media wingnuts -- all should be considered manufactured. Sooo....no interviewees = no revenue. How many channels?
But that's just my intuition. Does that make me cynical? I don't think so.
Nah, skookumplanet's right. Most of the TV commentators now are just talking heads with no journalistic ethic, Blitzer included. Gone are the days of ostensible non-bias, fairness and devotion to a professional code of ethics. The Fourth Estate has dwindled to a few remnants of what once was a great American institution. We have replaced bulldog devotion to unearthing the Truth with facile, opinionated drivel. Just listening to AM radio now turns my stomach.
Blitzer has some good reportorial creds, but seems to have sold his soul to the devil of ratings. FoxNooz, well, it's the spawn of the devil himself.
Helen Thomas is still sticking it to the White House, but she's not immortal. It's hard to see who will fill her shoes when retirement comes.
This link is a fairly well known example of how a number of the British news presenters interview their subjects (follow the link and open the video).
Complaints from politicians here in the UK are that interviewers are too hard on politicians. It makes me cringe when I go home to NA and watch the various American and Canadian news programmes. Our right to speak out in the UK may not be as absolute as that in the US, but this seems to make the media absolutely determined to use it, and you rarely see papers or news programmes on TV engage in the self-censorship prevalent in the US media during the early stages of the Iraq invasion.
My ability to create html links is apparently poor. Here it is in full form.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/newsnight25/4182569.stm
I was just about to suggest that the U.S. engage in a journalist exchange program with BBC radio 4, but I see I've already been beaten to the punch.
Actually, I do think that sometimes they (British journalists) are too hard on the people they are interviewing. Interviewing and interrogation are not supposed to be the same thing. But it would definitely be nice if their attitude would rub off a bit.
Drowned -
Create links by using the following format:
[a href="Place URL here"]TEXT[/a]. The TEXT will be clickable (don't forget the quote marks). Note that you need to replace the square brackets I have here with the corresponding 'less than' and 'greater than' angled brackets.
Rep. McKinney and the police officer should apologize to each other and shake hands, and then everyone should get on with their lives. This whole incident is considerably smaller than the sum of its parts.
I'd just LOVE for that to be the case, but the shooting incident in New York's City Hall tells me otherwise. Security at a place like this should be *absolute*. If you don't have what credentials you're supposed to be carrying, you are pulled aside, period.
The day someone can just yell "I'm a congressman" and run past the gates without any interference is the day congress itself gets assassignated.
I hate it, but New York's incident showed us exactly what can happen and McKinney for her "i'm the race victim here" arrogance is simply asking for her own death.
The day someone can just yell "I'm a congressman" and run past the gates without any interference is the day congress itself gets assassignated.
Yes, but the whole point of this is that this wasn't what was going on. A security officer physically blocked someone without asking for ID; she overreacted and whacked him.
"Rep. McKinney, I'm sorry I blocked your path, but there's no way that I can recognize each of the 435 representatives at a glance, and I have to be strict about identification for your own protection and that of your colleagues."
"Officer ----, I'm very sorry that I overreacted and hit you. I know that you were looking out for everyone's safety. I wasn't thinking when I did it."
What's so difficult about that?
You make sure all of your ducks are in a row before you even consider striking an officer. Regardless of the fact that he may have not asked for her ID, you don't hit a cop for doing his job.
Espescially if you are a sitting member of Congress.
As for Blitzer, consider 2 things that can lead to an alternate explanation for his backing down.
1) her lawyers were present and probably wouldn't have let her answer the question in any instance.
2) Blitzer has a teleprompter in clear site at all times (there's one above or under every camera in a news room) and the director of the show might have used that to tell him that the lawyers wouldn't let her answer that question.
when there are charges being filed, you don't confess to a possible crime on national TV no matter how many times a reporter asks you.
Of course, its also possible that Blitzer knew the question wouldn't be answered (or wasn't even permitted by an agreement before the interview) and asked anyways just to avoid appearing "going soft on her", in which case, you are right in that it failed and backfired.
What's so difficult about that?
everything.
have you ever been married or are you married now?
if so than you know that NOBODY admits to a mistake or a misunderstanding up front and it takes quite a bit of bickering to get through it.
McKinney is on the defensive right now because she did what she did and may get arrested for it. that she's pulling the race card is just making the situation worse for herself and for blacks because it really is irrelevant.
an apology from the cop is not going to change what she's done since the incident so there's no point in the cop apologizing.
especially when he wasn't in the wrong.
I agree with SkookumPlanet that the reason for this timerity is access. If they're hard on a politician, they don't get access to them again. They don't get those "anonymous" phone calls from them outing a political opponent for their "exclusives" the next day. They don't get invited to do interviews or even get a spot on the campaign bus or plane.
McKinney would have had to have been an idiot to answer the question posed by Blitzer in the manner that Ed suggests. Any yes or no answer that she gave could--and probably would--have been used against her if she goes to trial.
Actually, she was an idiot for going onto Blitzer's program, but that's another issue.
I agree with SkookumPlanet as well. As a White House correspondent Blitzer might have been more tenacious, but as a studio anchor who most probably serves as a producer as well, he's going to err on the side of caution because his job is to get the talking heads on his show. Blitzer's MO on his show is different from Lou Dobbs or Tim Russert, both who make attempts to get real answers from their guests (especially Dobbs, who has no problem telling a guest how ridiculous a particular answer is).
2) Blitzer has a teleprompter in clear site at all times (there's one above or under every camera in a news room) and the director of the show might have used that to tell him that the lawyers wouldn't let her answer that question.
FYI, I work in local news, and the prompter isn't used for relaying messages from the booth. That's what the earpiece (called an IFB) is for--and it would be the show producer in the booth speaking to the anchor, not the director