There's no expert like a CNN-certified "expert," helping them serve up the illusion of reality

Oh, that CNN! They always know the bestest experts,
willing to go way out on a limb. (This is from 2002.)

by Ken

Noah passed this screen shot along as a possible illustration for Sunday's final installment of his three-part year-end retrospective, "2008: A YEAR ON STERIODS" (Part 1 appeared earlier today), in which he has some, shall we say, unkind things to say about CNN. Without giving too much away, I can say that the phrase "the illusion of news" figures prominently.

(This is, by the way, an honest-to-gosh undoctored screen shot from 2002, as verified by Media Research Center, which noted that apparently somebody at CNN was watching their own show, and after two minutes the graphic was changed to "Al Qaeda Leader Out Of Sight For Months.")

Okay, we all make little goofs. The thing about this one is that for many of us it sounds like only the slightest exaggeration of CNN-ishness, which always has "another side" to air, especially if anyone on its air has the temerity to utter anything that's the tiniest bit removed from the ingrained orthodox worldview.

Note that this rule emphatically doesn't apply to right-of-center viewpoints, and it doesn't seem to matter how far to the right they may roam -- even if it's into the next gallaxy over. As Noah notes in his cable-news rant, any commentator whose viewpoints are known to deviate in the slightest from the agreed-upon center has to be "balanced" with at least one certified right-wing crackpot. The exact ratio is a subject of some controversy -- two-to-one is the minimum, with something on the order of four-to-one being far from uncommon.

Yesterday I offered a quick visceral response to David Sirota's report of his first-hand discovery that at Fox News a nutty revisionist version of the history of the New Deal, whereby the New Deal is said to have prolonged the Great Depression, turning the facts on their head, is regarded as agreed historical fact. Of course these are people who wouldn't know the difference between a fact and a loony revisionist theory if their sorry lives depended on it. The sadder fact is, their viewers don't seem to have any idea that they don't know the difference.

Commenting on my rant yesterday, our friend Balakirev offered a helpful walk-through of the rest of the process:

And of course, the media will take the viewpoint of trying to look balanced by letting the liars have equal airing with those who point out the facts.

The rightwing cynics will continue to spew as much garbage as they can to invigorate the troops and cause the left to lose focus. Like I've noted before, progressives need their own stalking horses, such as the Fairness Doctrine. Keep the nut-bound right engaged, so they can't strategize so much.

"The illusion of news" indeed, Noah. We might go so far as to say "the illusion of reality."


NEXT UP: Just how dumb are Fox Noise viewers?

In the land of the "fair and balanced," Karl Rove analysis of the Obama report.

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