Viewpoint with James Zogby 2/14/08 - Helen Thomas Part 2

[cascadiance]

Run time: 09:54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQV2M9uDSsY   Posted on YouTube: February 17, 2008 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: February 17, 2008 By DU Member: cascadiance Views on DU: 813

 
Part 2 of James Zogby's interview with Helen Thomas on Valentine's Day of this year.

Cover's Helen's critique of the various remaining presidential candidates. Talks about her feelings of Bush's and Congress's handling of FISA vote failure, Iraq, prospects of Iran invasion, the press's coverage of this administration.

Next up is the video with DU's pic of her with our flowers...

[muyojoe]

1. BAM

She succinctly lays out Cliton's problems and my concerns about Obama.

[gateley]

2. But she doesn't get the chance to delve into it much --

For example, a criticism of O was that he doesn't say anything about Single Payer health care -- well, neither does Hillary. (This jumped out at me because one of my biggest frustrations is that except for Dennis and Gravel, NO candidate has even CONSIDERED it.)

I'd rather hear Helen do an in-depth interview on comparing the candidates point by point, rather than the one or two liners she gets to deliver here.

On her statements regarding both Hillary and Obama, I'd like to ask her "why" and "what about this...." -- just get a little more insight.

[cascadiance]

3. My guess is that Zogby wouldn't be one to grill her for details like this..

I think that Zogby was probably a bit surprised by the depth and importance of the questions asked by his audience in that show then. He usually doesn't have an extra segment that pretty much solely has audience questions like he did with Helen then, which allowed them to ask stuff like impeachment and Infraguard questions. Dealing with those topics was done in a lot more depth than is usually done on that show, and he usually has a bit more editorial control over them I think. I think it was interesting that the impeachment question that was called in where the caller was dropping in and out got "converted" to a question just about impeaching Cheney by Zogby, and not of BOTH Bush and Cheney, which I think the caller was asking. Didn't really make the substance of her response much different, but it was interesting to see how that worked. I don't know if that was a conscious "edit" by Zogby or not, or just that he didn't really hear the questioner's voice clearly enough either.

Just a week ago or so, his show was originated from Dubai (which sponsors this show), where he was talking to local officials that were helping to organize a big conference on outsourcing and globalization that would have been a Tom Friedman's pipe dream, but for many of us, it would have been nice to have had a Q/A call in segment, which they didn't, to contend with some of the notions of that conference. Even if they did have a call in segment, I'm guessing that some of the questions we might want to have would have been filtered out, being perceived as against the Dubai financier's interests.

Yes, I think we have a thirst for a lot more after watching this interview, which is one big reason I chose to put it on YouTube. But I think that, even though Zogby does well with a lot of other shows, and covers things in ways the MSM doesn't, he still has his own filters as well that get in the way towards providing the types of journalism we really want. It was so clear that there was bias in that show when the Dubai port scandals happened for instance.

Hopefully we can get another nationally syndicated show that could really have a more lengthy and in depth and perhaps multiple segments covering in more detail the topics that were discussed on Thursday in this show with someone like Helen talking about them. That's a day we can hope to work towards....

[gateley]

4. Yes, an entire "Helen" show where each segment is devoted to a specific

topic and which would allow discussion. We would be so much richer for that experience.

Interesting about Dubai, though not surprising in the least.

I wasn't aware of Zogby's show until I saw these posts from you -- thank you so much.