[thechat] Getting closer

William Anderson neuro at well.com
Sun Feb 9 06:35:00 CST 2003


Lauri Vain wrote:
> [tv news spin snippage]
>
> It's the same with written media (or parts of it, anyway) in the States.
> I sometimes read what CNN has to say and then I watch BBC World...
> totally different pictures, as far as I can see. BBC is a lot more
> critical towards poor evidence and dares to question the information
> that they are given, but CNN throws "news" as the absolute truth.

Something that I observed last Saturday was Miles O'Brien's superb handling
of speculation and some clearly uninformed observations around the Columbia
accident by playing them down, constantly reminding both callers and viewers
alike not to pander to speculation at such an early stage in both the
accident and any related investigations.

His and others professionalism that day endeared me once more to CNN US -
CNNi (the International variant we usually get here in the UK) didn't have a
clue, and quickly cut over to CNN US, as they did on September 11th, another
day I was impressed by both CNN's anchors and journalists, and their
coverage.

Despite information being very scarce for a long time last Saturday, CNN
felt much better to me than the other news channels I can get here (Sky News
[carried Fox News coverage for much of the day], Bloomberg [didn't touch it
AFAICT], BBC News 24, CNBC [carried MSNBC coverage for much of the day], ITV
News Channel, Euronews and Fox News.

Also, from what I can tell, CNN was the only news station carrying live the
press briefings being held at NASA HQ in Washington D.C., while other
channels just carried on with other things.

> It is very obvious that Bush has decided to go to war. Isn't congress
> supposed to demand evidence for themselves and the people before they
> approve any plans?


Hah, doesn't he have a hopped up Republican Congress behind him, all high on
patriotic rhetoric and the mere thought of mopping up yet another regime?

--
_ __/|   ___  ___ __ _________ "When Microsoft Office is your only hammer,
\`O_o'  / _ \/ -_) // / __/ _ \ pretty much everything begins to look like
=(_ _)=/_//_/\__/\_,_/_/  \___/ a nail. Or a thumb." -- Rob Pegoraro
   U - Ack! Phttpt! Thhbbt!     neuro at well dot com  http://neuro.me.uk/




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