News Anchors In Egypt – Informing or Inflaming?

With protests increasing in Egypt and an all out revolt in progress, some of the big news outlets sent their own “big guns” in order to cover the story in person. Brian Williams and Lester Holt (NBC), Katie Couric (CBS), Anderson Cooper (CNN) all headed in to the heart of the matter in order to bring the story to viewers.

They were not greeted with open arms, instead they were greeted with hostility. Katie left the country soon after, the others quickly ran for cover in their hotels, covering the stories from balconies and building rooftops in safety.

The big questions are – what value is there in sending the network anchors into the heart of a massive protest? Does it make a difference if they cover the story from a rooftop in safety or from their anchor desk in safety? What kinds of big scoops to they get while being there that an already embedded reporter and camera crew can’t already get? Does their presence give those that are protesting only more attention and he sense of more power, therefore adding more fuel to the fire? Is it a coincidence that as the news anchors appeared, the protests took an even more angry turn for the worse, with so called opposition protesters coming in to stir up more trouble and venting the hostilities toward the media?

This should be a teachable moment for the networks. Keep your big salaried and probably costly to insure news anchors at home, and let the people who work the area normally cover the story. And make no mistake, stories like this are very important and must be covered. But the news anchors don’t need to be part of the story themselves. The story can still be covered thoroughly without sending high priced news anchors - who usually sit at a desk reading a teleprompter - to make the trip into the heart of trouble. The uprising in Egypt is about freedom, not about news ratings!



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McCain: Asking Simple Questions Now “Gotcha Journalism”

John McCain apparently has to now come along with Sarah Palin when she interviews with Katie Couric of CBS News. In this clip, McCain and Palin try to clarify, maybe even retract, a recent statement that Palin made about cross border attacks into Pakistan. Her original answer was in response to a question from a person who happened to be near a visit she made to a restaurant. (Palin said the voter was “hollerin’ out a question.”) What makes the matter a big deal is that it appears that there was egg on Palin’s face when she discovered her approach to Pakistan was more in line with Barack Obama’s than John McCain.

When I watched this clip, I was stuck by how condescending John McCain seems when he refers to the person who asked the question - who seemed to be the average American citizen at your average restaurant. Adding insult to injury, McCain seems to put down that it happened at a pizza place, as if you can’t expect real people to ask real tough questions if they happen to be in or near a pizza place. But McCain calls it “gotcha journalism.” Since when is asking a question, expecting an honest answer, and then the media reporting on it “gotcha journalism?” And when Couric asks Palin if she is sorry she made the statement, McCain answers for her. I guess she's not a big girl and can't stand up for herself. By the way, McCain also shows his vanity toward the end of the segment.

I guess women in the McCain campaign are supposed to be seen and not heard? By the way, asking a question and expecting an honest answer is not “gotcha” journalism. I have to give Katie Couric credit for going after the issue.



Take a look:

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The Palin and Couric Interview: The Interlude

This is part 2 of the story I relayed earlier today (The Palin and Couric Interview: The Emperor Has No Clothes! ). It’s another excerpt that was shown on CBS’s Early Show. I have to admit that I don’t understand Palin’s answer to Katie’s first question one bit. It seems like she can’t connect her thoughts well. Take a listen, you’ll see what I mean. She seems to be looking at notes and struggling to come up with something from her notes that sounds like an answer. Even Katie Couric says that “She’s not always responsive when she’s asked questions…It was a really interesting experience for me to interview her yesterday.” I bet it was interesting. Katie looked like she just could not believe what she was hearing.

(Note: the video may give you a message that it is unavailable, but then it should load and play after a brief commercial.)


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Even any Republican voter with half a brain has to see that Sarah Palin does not belong in a position where she will be one heartbeat away from the presidency.


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The Palin and Couric Interview: The Emperor Has No Clothes!

The interview with Sarah Palin conducted by CBS’s Katie Couric (video below) shows that there really isn’t much substance behind Sarah Palin. She seems to struggle with answers, and also seems unable to speak solidly about McCain’s record or his platform. Palin tries to stonewall Couric and talk her way out of direct answers. Here’s an example from the transcript:


COURIC: You've said, quote, "John McCain will reform the way Wall Street does business." Other than supporting stricter regulations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years ago, can you give us any more example of his leading the charge for more oversight?

PALIN: I think that the example that you just cited, with his warnings two years ago about Fannie and Freddie--that, that's paramount. That's more than a heck of a lot of other senators and representatives did for us.

COURIC: But he's been in Congress for 26 years. He's been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.

PALIN: He's also known as the maverick though. Taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he's been talking about--the need to reform government.

COURIC: I'm just going to ask you one more time, not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation?

PALIN: I'll try to find you some and I'll bring them to you.


It’s no wonder McCain wanted to suspend his campaign. It’s looking more and more like a diversionary tactic to get the Palin interview out of the news cycle quickly and off the minds of voters. Clearly, Sarah Palin needs a little more “programming.”




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McCain Campaign Gets Caught Playing Dirty Trick, CBS Gets McCain Ad Yanked

The McCain campaign got caught trying to put words in CBS anchor Katie Couric’s mouth by using her words incorrectly in an ad regarding Barack Obama's "lipstick on a pig" comment. Apparently, the statement that Couric was making had absolutely nothing to do with Obama's comment or the situation, despite the ad's attempt to infer it did. As a result, CBS had the ad pulled from YouTube, and probably the ad will not be aired on television any longer either, seeing that it completely misrepresented Katie Couric’s words.

The McCain campaign really botched trying to create phony outrage over the “lipstick on a pig” comment. It seems to have backfired.

Oh, and by the way, never mess with Katie Couric!


CBS Tells YouTube to Pull McCain Ad
Posted by Ira Teinowitz on 09.10.08 @ 04:10 PM

WASHINGTON (AdAge.com) -- A John McCain campaign web ad that used a clip of CBS News anchor Katie Couric to chastise Democratic candidate Barack Obama has been pulled by YouTube, because of CBS's copyright complaints.

Campaign officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the YouTube page that had contained the ad now has a message saying, "The video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by CBS Interactive."

The ad remains on the McCain campaign website.

A CBS News spokeswoman today declined to discuss whether the network had also asked the campaign to remove the ad.

"CBS News does not endorse any candidate in the presidential race. Any use of CBS personnel in political advertising that suggests the contrary is misleading," she said.


By the way, I couldn’t find the ad on the McCain web site anymore so it may be pulled there as well.

Here’s a YouTube video on the story which has some of the ad in it; catch it while that one is still up:


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