IP: Well, CBS got it /half/ right...

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2000 22:33:21 -0800 (PST)
> From: John Wharton <jwharton () netcom com>
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> Subject: Well, CBS got it /half/ right...
>
> Dave--
>
> Pardon the rant, but one of your recurring topics in the past relates to
> the inability of the news media to convey some of the more subtle
> nuances of high-tech stories.  Could be the problem is deeper than we
> realized -- that there's little effort to assure that even the simplest,
> most self-evident facts are correct.
>
> Case in point:  On CBS Network Radio hourly news broadcasts this
> morning the news anchor read a report on Thursday night's Republican
> presidential debate.  His report included a statement to the effect
> that 'of the three candidates, only radio commentator Alan Keyes was
> actually present.  Candidates Bush and McCain took part in the debate
> via separate remote satellite feeds.'
>
> (I didn't record the original broadcast, but the above 'quote' is as
> close to verbatim correct as I was able to jot down at the time.)
>
> Now in point of fact, Bush and Keyes were both, of course, present in
> the L.A. Times auditorium, while McCain joined the group via satellite
> from St. Louis.  That fact was painfully clear to anyone who watched
> even a few minutes of the live broadcast itself, or the several hours of
> CNN analysis and commentary after, or the evening local TV news: Bush
> and Keyes stood at podiums, paced around, jostled with each other and
> "played the audience", while McCain appeared -- Max Headroom-like -- as
> a talking head on a TV monitor propped where his podium would have been.
>
> (For that matter, anyone who saw the morning papers should have known
> this from photos accompanying the debate reportage.  See, e.g., p.16A of
> Friday's San Jose Mercury News.)
>
> And yet CBS Network Radio told the world Bush was not there.  (Later
> broadcasts corrected the story, acknowledging earlier false reports.)
>
> What does this mean?  Never mind how the story was misreported in the
> first place; to err is human.
>
> But the fact that this report made it all the way to the air suggests
> that through the entire CBS news production process -- the reporting,
> the writing, the editing, the fact checking, the reading of the story by
> the anchor -- the story never crossed the desk of anyone who had
> actually watched even a snippet of the story he was reporting on.
>
> Fascinating.  News broadcasts of record, prepared by amateurs, based
> (apparently) on hearsay.  What hope is there for accuracy in more
> technically complicated stories?!?
>
>     ><sigh><
>
>   --John Wharton
>
> PS: Incidentally, I'm writing this as commentary on the media, not in
> defense of "Dubya".  I personally agree with David Letterman, that
> George Bush looks like he could turn out to be a colossal boob.  And I
> highly recommend Molly Ivins' recent book ("Shrub") for insight on the
> man's utter lack of scruples or depth.