Or, if you prefer, “CNN’s journalism ethics show.”
On the host of CNN”s unreliable media ethics and criticism show, Reliable Sources, slammed Fox News:
STELTER: Boy, has Fox News spent a lot of time over the past two years focused on the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, and I mean a lot of time. […] But when a new Benghazi report came out on Friday, there was hardly a peep, and maybe that’s because the report, which was Republican led, it was by the , debunks many of the myths that have run rampant on Fox News and in conservative media circles. […] So I have to wonder: will Fox will stop aggressively pushing its theories about Benghazi? Probably not. With its audience largely in the dark about the latest findings, the myths may, and perhaps will, live on.
Wheels within wheels, deceit within deceit, hypocrisy within hypocrisy. The criticism was correct and deserved, as Fox News’ own media critic (and the former unreliable host of Reliable Sources) noted as well. It also was notable for what it left out:
- Despite being routinely ridiculed as a witch-hunting political mob, the Republicans on the Committee fought for the investigation. That it exonerated the Administration is pure moral luck: apparently CNN has forgotten Hillary’s famous shouted “what difference does it make?” The fact that there was, in the end, nothing sinister to cover up doesn’t excuse the administration for obfuscating, dragging its feet and sending Susan Rice out to lie on talk shows to avoid scrutiny, and it was that conduct that convinced many that something was rotten in Libya.
- This result does not excuse CNN’s network for its complicity in assisting the White House’s efforts before the 2012 election to pretend there were no facts to clarify. CNN failed to cover this story sufficiently before the truth was known, and had Fox News and the Republicans not kept the inquiry alive, we would not have a definitive report for Fox to emulate the liberal- biased media by burying. Stelter’s snide comments are the height of hypocrisy.
- Fox News failed to give sufficient coverage to the Benghazi report, now hardly an issue burning up the social media, the week it was released. That’s bad. It was a legitimate topic for a journalism ethics show. It was not, however, the worst example of biased news omission, or the most noteworthy. Both ABC and NBC failed to cover the revelations by MIT economist Jonathan Gruber regarding the intentional deception worked on the American voters and the Congressional Budget Office in order to get the Affordable Care Act passed, and have not acknowledged the existence of the controversy yet, three weeks after the series of smoking videos appeared. CNN gaves its ideological pals in the mainstream media a pass on a worse example of biased news selection, while condemning Fox for a lesser offense of the same nature.
- CNN’s failure to cover the non-coverage by ABC and NBC of the Gruber scandal is itself as unethical as Fox failing to cover the House report on Benghazi. It deserved similar criticism, but Stelter couldn’t mention that failure of fair and balanced reporting because he was in the midst of committing it.
A journalism ethics show on either CNN or Fox is an oxymoron.
Ethics Alarms 
Or NPR, for that matter – and they do a weekly media roundup, too. Let’s stipulate that all the networks – TV and radio – that do media analysis shine through their own prisms. If one’s a media junkie, like me, one can actually get a reasonably good idea of the past week’s media foibles – just not from one source.
What’s more ridiculous from an ethics standpoint is that the Washington Post actually thought it appropriate to do a “fact check” on this week’s Saturday Night Live cold open, which satirized the president’s executive order on amnesty (it was a brilliant skit, btw). Leaving aside the preposterous nature of fact checking comedy shows in the first place, can you remember the last time the WaPo fact checked an SNL skit skewering Republicans – or any bit from the Daily Show or the Colbert Report?
Gee, me neither.
Ooooh. Gotta post on that one. Phooey…just cancelled the Post. Just when I think I’m out, they puuuull me back in!
Just Factchecked the Factcheck story. From your comment, I thought Glenn Kessler, the real Post Factchecker, had taken leave of his senses. No, the official Post Factchecker did not FactCheck SNL, which would be ridiculous, but the hack who co-writes the Post “Wonkblog” did.
This was still the Post imitating Media Matters, and it does not become them….
Just saw Fox cover the report.
Meanwhile, ABC and NBC have yet to enlighten their audiences regarding Gruber.
I wonder if the reason that Fox took literally hours before they covered the report is because someone there actually read it? Maybe even more than one person.
We don’t read things before talking about them! We need to talk about them to know what they say!
Talking points! You need talking points!
Maybe even more than one person.
***********
That just cracked me up.
Just had to turn CNN off…Most of the female reporters sound like they are from another planet…Poppy Harlow was on and I had to turn it off…she has an extreme vocal fry voice, and so annoying. Why are they allowed to talk like this? Others have commented on this subject and feel the same way. A couple of females and all of the male commentators are fine…what is going on? Do they take lessons in talking like this? If so, save the time and money and let them speak normally. Thank you. Howard Drinkwater
As a stage director and sometimes vocal coach, it drives me nuts too.
Yes, CNN deaf to vocal fry, not to mention listener comments!