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April 30, 2008

CNN, MSNBC, FOX Did Not Do It

Our cable "news" organizations did not do it. But The Daily Show did. Is it journalism? It is useful information. From the Washington Post:

So here's Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition forces in Iraq four years ago, describing the situation in a TV interview in September 2003: "We're not in a quagmire," he's saying confidently. "The progress is unbelievable."

So what about that progress, general? Because here's Sanchez, now retired, talking about Iraq in a video clip from last October: "There has been a glaring, unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders. . . . There's no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight."

The before-and-after videos didn't air on CNN or MSNBC or ABC. Instead, the revealing sound bites ran back to back on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart." The satiric Comedy Central program regularly unearths telling footage ignored or overlooked by the real news guys.

You see, the fact this this guy said one thing then and other thing now may be news.

Also important to the context is why he might have said what he said when he said it. That requires an act of journalism to uncover.

Sanchez qualifies as an important source by almost any journalistic standard. And it is an entirely fair and important reportorial function to point out this discrepancy and ask why.

Now, The Daily Show does not ask why or place much of its fodder into greater or more complex context. It plays for a laugh (cheap at that), but the satire of it encourages the audience to ask why. This is not journalism. Satire can be, however, an important contribution to civic discussion as criticism of the news media and politics.

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Posted by acline at April 30, 2008 8:39 AM | | Spotlight