Our political Quote of the Day comes from former President Jimmy Carter, who comments on ideological, partisan news shows and CNN:
Speaking on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” Sunday, the former Democratic president took aim at the cable news channel climate, often a target for President Obama as well who says he tries to avoid the cable chatter.
“The talk shows with Glenn Beck and others on Fox News, I think, have deliberately distorted the news. And it’s become highly competitive,” Carter said. “And my Republican friends say that MSNBC might be just as biased on the other side in supporting the Democratic Party, the liberal element.”
The ex-president said opinions about the two channels was “part of give and take” in politics in the United States. Carter also believes CNN has suffered from trying to remain nonpartisan in comparison to Fox and MSNBC.
“And I think CNN, more than others, has kind of tried to play the middle to their detriment as far as viewership is concerned and profits are concerned,” Carter said.
There is a lot of truth to what Carter says.
At this point in history, the center is either being depleted in numbers or under attack. Read THIS which also deals partially with this issue. As many writers on TMV have noted over the years, if you’re in the center or the middle you are perceived as the enemy by some on the right and left who will lump you into the enemy camp…since some find it hard to believe that there are those who might not automatically totally agree with one side, or agree with a side because someone on TV cherry picks, or cheer when a talk show host turns off the mike of a guest not in agree with him, or is an expert in snark demonizing only one political party (there are some Americans who believe both parties smell).
CNN’s roots are more in 20th century broadcast journalism than in talk radio — which makes its task more difficult than Fox News (which Roger Aisles used grafting the radio talk show model onto cable news) or MSNBC (which is evolving into the anti-Fox, also far more rooted more in talk radio than in NBC’s lofty 20th century broadcast new traditions — with the exception of the superb Andrea Mitchell’s show.).
Usually I don’t agree with Carter (I consider him one of the worst Presidents of my lifetime and when I was overseas in India and Spain when he was president diplomats did not have nice things to say about their boss in the White House).
But on this he is correct: there are news values and broadcast schtick values.
On the other hand, Fox News’ attitudes come right from the company’s top.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.