What am I missing?
Posted : March 3, 2007 at 11:37 am [America/Los_Angeles]
Sometimes I really wonder in all earnestness - Do people like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and their likes on Cable think they’re performing genuine public service by giving voice to what they think most of this country actually believes in (or better yet, wants to hear) or are they just parroting stuff cause they think that’s what their political and ideological masters would want them to say on their show? Do they think they’re anchoring a fact-based “news” program where a news is a news no matter what, especially when it does not fit their ideological inclinations or are they completely aware of the cherry-picking of facts that goes on in their “show” just so that it would conclude what they already believe in?
Will the real “news” anchor stand up? Or is it too much to ask for in a democracy, especially one which has been proud of its democratic heritage for more than three hundred years.
- Anand
Category: Green |
2 Comments »
Why do you think Keith Olbermann is in the same league as Hannity, Limbaugh, Savage, O’Reilly? I agree he comes across pretty intensely in his personal beliefs but hes the only who seems to be matching the intensity with which this administration is touting their agenda. Is it wrong to speak out strongly against such stuff? Hes definitely a liberal - but it seems like the majority of issues on the liberal agenda actually make sense - compared to the issues on the conservative agenda. Isnt that what Edward Murrow did when he strongly spoke out against Joseph McCarthy?
Posted by: Chandu at March 6, 2007 @ 1:57 pm
True, except I think covering just 5 news stories in an hour is doing NO JUSTICE to the main news stories of the day. And the amount of time he gives to Libby or Anna Nicole or Bill O’Reilly leads me to believe one of two things - he is cherry-picking news like others that helps him vent (kinda like folks on the right, albeit a lot mildly) or he does it cause he knows his audience wants to hear those stories again and again. Either way, I don’t like it too much.
Bottom line, I wish he tweaked his format where he spent far lesser time on the Nicole or Spears of the world and spent a lot more time covering news stories that really deserve greater time on the air. I think he is trying to a really wide spectrum of audience, and that might really be what I am not liking about his show. As a result, I’ve absolutely noticed occasions when he has not covered news stories that I think at least deserved a mention.
Let me be clear - I like Keith and listen to him everyday (almost). However, there are days when I feel he is just doing an action replay of the show that he did the previous day - Story 5 on Bush Bashing/Iraq thrashing, Story 4 on Libby/Cheney, Story 3 is always the new one (albeit the one where he spends time on Billo more often than not), Story 2 and Story 1 are generally things I could care less about as they seem to be Hollywood related. That said, I do absolutely love his Special Comments section. But they are few and far between for my taste.
Anand
Posted by: anand at March 6, 2007 @ 3:44 pm
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