BS: On fair, accurate & balanced reporting..

Subject: On fair, accurate & balanced reporting..
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Apr 02 - 10:29 AM

Torture is watching MSNBC

Anchor Rick Sanchez is the leader of this new pack of media wolves

By Barry Crimmins / barrycrimmins.com 04.09.02

I don't get much news from television these days.

But then, neither does anyone else.

On the morning of Wednesday, April 3, I made the mistake of turning on the TV in search of information about the madness in the Middle East. I started with CNN but saccharine-induced nausea seemed a high price to pay for chit-chat from happy people lounging around an absurd living room news set.

I jumped to C-SPAN where a paranoid Republican caller had the floor, which was warping badly. I checked C-SPAN II where reporters sucking up to some Pentagon slick at a news briefing drove me off.

MSNBC was next. I knew this was dicey. The GE/Gates Net actually features a show called "Alan Keyes Is Making Sense." To whom? Moonies freebasing LSD? But it was MSNBC or "Fair and Balanced" FOX News (not to be confused with self-effacing and generous-of-spirit Rush Limbaugh) and it was after 9 a.m. so the bigoted, power elite-fellating, Court-appointed President Bush butt-kissing Imus show was over.

So I gambled on MSNBC.

I lost.

The first thing I saw was Ashleigh Banfield, the finest electronic journalist this side of Stone Phillips, wandering around a hospital parking lot in what should be Palestine. Until I saw all of her protective gear, I hadn't realized that MSNBC has an Armored News Division. She looked farcical in a flak jacket that could have easily doubled as a futon. "PRESS" was written across her chest. She also sported an oversized helmet emblazoned front and back with "TV" as she interviewed several grieving Palestinian women adorned in protective scarves.

In Banfield's defense, Israeli forces seem to have the same sort of trouble discerning journalists and other innocents from terrorists that U.S. forces have differentiating Red Crosses from bullseyes. Still, standing there with unprotected Palestinians, wearing everything but a frying pan on her head, she loaned a certain Monty Pythonesque air to the proceedings.

Post-9/11 Banfield is to journalism what George W. Bush is to statesmanship. They are both Texas-rooted lightweights (she was a Dallas talking head, he was just a head) who've been deified by a scared and scarred nation, devoid of credible information and leadership. America used to get Edward R. Murrow and FDR. Now it's someone to whom hair color is an issue and a guy who only fears fear itself when Omaha is fogged in.

Despite Banfield's comical appearance and relentless dedication for advancement in the Cult of Personality, her story was compelling and heart-rending because of its inescapable specific gravity.

She spoke with several emotionally devastated survivors of people about to be buried in a mass grave in the hospital parking lot. The corpses had piled too high inside and public health was endangered by so much rotting flesh. It was a terrible situation. Footage showed a backhoe break up the concrete in the parking lot and then dig the grave. Pallets of shrouded dead were in evidence. The true price of violence was on display.

Across the way in Israel, similar heartbreak had occurred again and again in recent weeks. Violence was begetting violence. The Grim Reaper was working all the OT he wanted. Sadness and futility crushed me into my chair, frozen under the weight of the world.

Banfield wrapped up her report and threw it back to MSNBC studio anchors Alex Witt and Rick Sanchez. Sanchez said something about it being a "great story." I couldn't believe someone could employ a superlative after seeing a tale of such boundless grief and horror. But then, this was my first dose of Rick Sanchez.

Within the next few segments Sanchez demonstrated that he is a media Post-911 wonder. He's quick to editorialize, smugly supportive of the Purported War on Terror, and always interrupting what little information trickles from other MSNBC staffers and guests. Cable news has become a word association test for dopes like Sanchez.

Holding up a headline from a New York tabloid about violence in Bethlehem, he expressed outrage by bellowing, "BETHLEHEM -- WHERE JESUS WAS BORN!" Now there was something we needed in a story about the Middle East -- religious zealotry from a news anchor.

Another editorial comment came during a story about wide-scale regional protests against Sharon's assault on Palestinians. A camera cut to Mu'ammar Gadhafi at a Libyan demonstration and Sanchez scoffed something to the effect of "no surprise he's there." This courageous journalist isn't one to miss a chance to demonize someone his audience already reviles.

The capper came when Sanchez actually endorsed torture of U.S.-held prisoners by having allied governments do the dirty work. "The Egyptians have been known to torture people and get pretty good information," he offered cheerily.

Maybe so, but then again it's torture watching Rick Sanchez and you get pretty bad information.

An ex-CIA agent (I missed his name because by this point I was retching pretty violently) served as the voice of reason in the torture interview. The former spy suggested that you can't trust all information provoked by torture. This obviously disappointed Sanchez, who then tried to rally by puzzling over why we should be concerned that the rest of the Arab world would be upset with de facto U.S. torture of Purported War on Terror prisoners. The CIA guy paid lip service to maintaining ethical standards. Sanchez scoffed again. Then the mole said Bush needs to keep his war alliance happy. This finally caused the light bulb to click above Sanchez' thick anchorhead. Relieved, he said, "Oh, I get it -- P.R."

That's right, Rick, torture equals bad public relations. See "Inquisition, The." That was when a bunch of people, who thought BETHLEHEM, WHERE JESUS WAS BORN, was an important place, committed atrocities against innocents. Hundreds of years later they're still getting bad P.R.

I turned off the TV but remembered the name, "Rick Sanchez." This new breed news anchor candidly expresses his reactionary ignorance and, because of it, his days with MSNBC are numbered. FOX News is bound to steal him away very, very soon.

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Barry Crimmins' column appears on his website www.barrycrimmins.com. Join his mailing list at www.barrycrimmins.com/Mail.html

© 2002 Barry Crimmins

URL: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemId=13110

Subject: RE: BS: On fair, accurate & balanced reporting..
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Apr 02 - 09:52 AM

Yes, it is "new journalism!" Mucking at its best.