CNN & ACORN
CNN's reporting on the "ACORN" story continues to frustrate and now anger me. It is at best partial reporting and at worst selective reporting, which makes it biased. This evening on This Week in Politics the Truth Squad told half truths. It, as well as many other recent CNN segments, neglects pertinent points. For instance not once has there been a recognition that ACORN is obligated by law to turn in all voter registration forms. They can't police the bogus forms turned in by part time workers essentially ripping ACORN off. If anything ACORN may be guilty of poor hiring practices. Linking Barack Obama to ACORN by saying that years ago he trained them and that he represented them in a lawsuit without mentioning that, oh by the way the DOJ was a co plaintiff skews the reporting to purposely make Obama look bad. And while his campaign did pay a group subcontracted by ACORN to do voter registration during the primaries, so what? There are no reported voter fraud related incidents related to that legal business transaction. Again selective and biased reporting meant to leave "doubt." Further there was not, nor to my knowledge has there been any mention in CNN's reporting of a possible politically motivated tie in of the FBI investigation of ACORN to the election. An ex-DOJ veteran Gerry Hebert called the news of the FBI's probe of ACORN "a continuation of injecting DOJ into what has clearly become a political issue." David Iglesias the former US Attorney fired by the Bush administration has called the investigation a scare tactic reminiscent of the issues he refused to prosecute and that ultimately resulted in his dismissal. One wonders if CNN will ever begin to get the picture? Tie that together with the usual attempts of voter suppression that occurs every four years and the picture becomes even clearer. When will CNN try and pull these threads together and do some real investigative reporting instead of looking for higher ratings and shortchanging the public out of important information - when? Right now, between Lou Dobbs and this type of reportage, if CNN were a newspaper it wouldn't be worth the paper it's printed on. For goodness sake a freshman journalism major could do better reporting. CNN needs to grow a set and get after this story,





I tune out Lou Dobbs, he is too biased.
I like his panels and the other reporters, but his commentary has become invective, scolding.
October 19, 2008 12:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
There needs to be a restoration of standards -- in the minds of viewers as well. "Commentary" is not journalism.
October 19, 2008 5:08 AM | Reply | Permalink