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Edited on Mon Aug-30-04 10:58 PM by Sparkly
My letter is below his reply. And he's wrong, they did NOT always have an "offsetting point of view" any more than they've had them tonight.
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Subject: Re: Fair and Trustworthy News Coverage at CNN Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 11:59:38 -0400 From: "Jordan, Eason" <Eason.Jordan@turner.com>
Thank you for sharing your suggestions and concerns. CNN certainly will invite most of the liberals you suggested to appear on CNN during the Republican convention. Whether they appear unrebutted is another issue, especially since virtually all conservative guests appearing on CNN during the Democratic convention appeared with an offsetting point of view guest.
Sincerely, Eason
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Sent: Wed Aug 04 11:56:58 2004 Subject: Fair and Trustworthy News Coverage at CNN
CNN:
My husband and I work from home, follow politics closely, and keep our televisions on, tuned to news, through most of the day and night. Never have I been more infuriated, or more baffled, by your "news" coverage. It's become increasingly obvious that you seek to boost your ratings by emphasizing the sensational and the trivial, yet I can understand putting revenues above responsibility as a rationale. But not even profit motive can entirely explain your astounding efforts at propping up George W. Bush.
During the 2000 presidential campaigns, I thought you were simply bending over backwards in an effort not to appear "liberally biased," but would correct yourselves and find balance eventually.
After the USSC's decision about Florida in 2000, I thought you were just trying to prevent riots by spinning facts to pacify a public who'd just had democracy ripped out from under them.
After 9/11, I thought you were just trying to unify a country longing to be united under strong leadership.
But at this point, I can't imagine what you're thinking.
Your reporting on the Democratic primary campaigns was stunningly insulting, especially regarding your former commentator, General Wesley Clark. You've re-run "A Flyboy's Story" at least four times, for no apparent reason. And you continue to employ Bob Novak, who's seriously betrayed national security on a level that's traitorous beyond excuse.
From Judy Woodruff to Paula Zahn, Tucker Carlson to Kate O'Beirne, Wolf Blitzer to Candy Crowley, I've come to distrust nearly all of your anchors, reporters, and talkers. They seem utterly unable even to report common-knowledge facts as given by the AP and Reuters. I know for a fact that corrections, complete with URL citations of wire services, are sent to you routinely (do you read your feedback?), and yet the lies -- or errors -- persist. Only Lou Dobbs and Aaron Brown have remained on the routine schedule of our TV, but at this point all loyalty has faded.
The last straw was your reporting on the DNC convention last week, which was absolutely amazing in its malice. By Monday, I decided I couldn't stand CNN for ongoing coverage, but only as a periodic check-in (thanks, C-Span). By Thursday, CNN check-ins became virtually indistinguishable from Fox check-ins, and MSNBC "After Hours" was the only palatable television discussion of the convention. (It says a lot when CNN makes Joe Scarborough seem rational.)
You paved the way with Sunday night's "Born to Run." Perhaps I should have run when I heard Candy Crowley's byline, but Aaron Brown introduced it asking, "What does John Kerry stand for? What does he really believe? And most importantly, what sort of president would he make?"
Trusting Aaron, I watched. I watched the repetition of every now-familiar, long-discounted rightwing smear Rove ever faxed, with people like John O'Neill and Bob Dole as quotable sources of impartial, insightful judgments on Kerry's character. (If you want to see a factual biographical documentary, watch MSNBC's "John Kerry: Bringing the War Home.")
Then the DNC Convention began, with "trusted" commentary from people like Brent Bozell, Zell Miller, and Ralph Reed! Aaron Brown interviewing Laura Ingraham about the Democrats' convention was sadly beyond belief.
Given your line-up of commentators for my party's convention, I'd like to offer some suggestions for similarly fair coverage of the August RNC convention in New York, following the model you established for the DNC convention. The list below suggests people to be interviewed for your biographical documentary of Bush, who can provide character analyses and personal opinions of him, just as John O'Neill, Bob Dole, and others expressed their personal opinions of John Kerry in "Born to Run." People from this list should also be contacted to provide their opinions immediately following every major RNC speech and event, as well as overall criticism of the convention (all unrebutted, of course), just as Bozell, Miller, Reed, and Ingraham did.
In no particular order:
Michael Moore Al Franken Janeane Garofalo Randi Rhodes Joe Conason Al Sharpton Bill Maher Mario Cuomo Ann Richards Whoopi Goldberg Paul Krugman Molly Ivins Cynthia McKinney David Brock Maxine Waters Howard Dean Nancy Pelosi
Only by having these people as unrebutted commentators for the RNC convention can CNN begin to earn any part of the slogan, "trusted news source." I'll let them know to expect your call.
Sincerely,
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