On Cable, a Fog of Words About Kerry's War Record

[Catt03]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/politics/campaign/24watch.html


By ALESSANDRA STANLEY

Published: August 24, 2004


here is the fog of war and then there is the fog of cable.

Over the last few weeks, 24-hour news networks have done little to find out what John Kerry did in Vietnam, but they have provided a different kind of public service: their examination of his war record in Vietnam illustrates once again just how perfunctory and confusing cable news coverage can be. Facts, half-truths and passionately tendentious opinions get tumbled together on screen like laundry in an industrial dryer - without the softeners of fact-checking or reflection.


Somehow, on all-cable news stations - CNN as well as Fox News - a story that rises or falls on basic and mostly verifiable facts blurs into just another developing news sensation alongside the latest Utah kidnapping or the Scott Peterson murder trial. (It is particularly confusing on Fox News, where so many of its blond female anchors look like Amber Frey.)


That kind of air-kiss coverage is typical of cable news, where the premium is on speed and spirited banter rather than painstaking accuracy. But it has grown into a lazy habit: anchors do not referee - they act as if their reportage is fair and accurate as long as they have two opposing spokesmen on any issue.

[Supersedeas]

1. CNN and FOX lumped together

Time for someone to document OutCNNed

[Kahuna]

2. I love how people are beginning to openly criticize cable "news.."

When Kerry wins, we have to put the spotlight on these bozos. I want Judy and Wolf on the hot seat. The next batch of blank VHS tapes I buy, I'm going to start randomly recording CNN and MSNBC. When we hold hearings on these people, I will volunteer my tapes of their "coverage."