Day: 6/15/2007

Michael Moore On The Media

Posted by on June 15, 2007 at 3:27 pm. NO Comments :

Appearing on ABC’s Good Morning America to promote his new film “Sicko,” Michael Moore discussed the media’s complicity with the horror that is Iraq:

“Had ABC News, NBC News, CBS News been more aggressive in confronting the government with what they were telling us back in 2003 about Iraq, you might have prevented this war,” Moore said. “3500 soldiers that are dead today may not have had to die had our news media done its job.”

Well said, Michael. Now how about making the media the subject of your next film? What could possibly be more important? There is no problem that our society faces that can be fixed without fixing the problem of the media first. And as you point out, lives are truly at stake. Without an informed populace it is impossible to move policy and politicians to effect real change on health care, the environment, civil rights, Iraq, or any other issue. The media is the forum for educating people on a mass scale. Unfortunately, it is also the forum for deceiving and sedating them, which is how it is used most frequently these days.

Campbell Brown Joins The Dobbs Brigade At CNN

Posted by on June 15, 2007 at 2:34 pm. NO Comments :

If current reports from Media Bistro (via Drudge ?) are correct, Paula Zahn will shortly be leaving CNN. That’s no big loss as far as I’m concerned. But I do worry about speculation that Campbell Brown will be filling the void.

Brown is an NBC reporter who is married to Dan Senor. Senor’s resume overflows with rightist associations from serving as senior adviser and spokesman for Paul Bremer’s Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, to White House Deputy Press Secretary, to representative to Vets for Freedom, the Republican front group that advocated both the war in Iraq and the Senate candidacy of Joe Lieberman.

Senor recently declined a position on the campaign staff of Republican presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney, because of the potential conflict it would pose for his journalist wife. But the presence of such a conflict is already evident in his past and current activities, including his role as a consultant with his own Senor Strategies. And we don’t have to look to Senor for reasons to doubt the objectivity of Brown, who in an appearance earlier this year on the Today Show said:

“It’s difficult to say that you’re against the war and at the same time not say that you’re against the troops.”

That GOP talking point seems to have been pulled right out of her husband’s emails from Karl Rove. With this staff adjustment, CNN is enhancing the Lou Dobbs wing of the network – a wing that already includes the likes of Nancy Grace and Glenn Beck. If their goal is to turn the network into a cheap imitation of Fox News, they are doing an outstanding job.

Congratulations, CNN.