Fair and Balanced
posted by TheDon

Examples 87,563 and 87,564 of why "balanced" reporting is lazy and stupid.

On MSNBC, during a report on the House Intel bill, Kelly O'Donnell talked about what the House is trying to gain from the bill, and how the White House responded. In both cases, she simply quoted and paraphrased official sources. She concluded with this "analysis", "So this is one of those classic Washington struggles. Congress wants more access to information, wants to be briefed on some of the intelligence things that have been going on, and the White House is saying, 'Well we know you have some, some rights in this area. Don't restrict us.' So it's the kind of storyline we've been seeing between the President and Congress."

Here's a little unsolicited help from me. The line is "Congress is trying to re-ban torture, and conduct its Constitutionally mandated oversight, but this administration, once again, is resisting with all of its might, using methods legal and illegal, waging a dishonest PR battle, scaring the electorate, and destroying critical information in an attempt to run out the clock on every investigation." Or something like that.

This was followed by a story on Contempt of Senate charges pending for Rove and Bolton. Kelly started with, "Well if we wonder why there might not be friendly relations between the White House and Congress, this is one of those snapshots that tells you something about it", and then almost presented the facts, but never bothered to mention that both men ignored subpoenas from Congress. She ended with this, "But in terms of pure gestures, this is again a time when the Senate is trying to sort of tweak the White House." Yes, Kelly, it's not about this administration using "executive privilege" to cover up criminal activities, and a refusal to cooperate with constitutionally mandated oversight. It's about tweaking the White House. You idiot.