Not to be morose, but I'm happy that Walter Cronkite isn't around to see what's happened to television news in this country. And specifically, that the news legend doesn't have to witness the disgraceful performances this week from two leading television news executives who, when faced with painfully clear evidence that their anchors had crossed obvious lines of decency, refused to condemn those actions. Instead, they issued double-talk statements while rationalizing their team's deeply offensive, and even jaw-dropping, behavior.
The disturbing one-two this week by CNN's Jon Klein and Fox News' Bill Shine simply confirms that, at this moment in time at least, there appears to be no standards, no guidelines, of fairness or decency to which key cable news operators will adhere.
Klein's continued defense of Lou Dobbs' misguided adventure down the birther rabbit hole is like a train wreck that just won't end. It's now been several days since Klein decided to back Dobbs' “racist” birther crusade (that's what MSNBC's chief called it), and the damage being done to the network is now approaching the incalculable stage. The fact that both Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly have called Dobbs out for shoddy 'reporting' tells you all you need to know about the state of CNN today. Yet there was Klein appearing at the annual TV critics confab this week, continuing to pretend Dobbs hasn't been fueling the flames about Obama's birth place.
Meanwhile, at Fox News, Beck called Obama a “racist” on national TV. Sadly, this was a completely expected development from the radical right, which recently showed extraordinary comfort calling the most recent Supreme Court nominee a “racist.” The far-right media in this country is making it quite plain that they're going to toss that label around with ease from here on out. (It's only a matter of time before the First Lady gets his with the tag, and I wouldn't rule out nuts like Beck going after Obama's kids as well.) It's conservatives who are going to play the race card whenever possible in order to divide Americans and foster racial hatred.
Still, Fox News likes to consider itself a news organization, so SVP Bill Shine took the time to issue a statement about Beck's obvious and odious race-baiting. And in that statement Shine insisted, basically, that Beck can say whatever he wants and Fox News takes no responsibility.
None.
Like I said, I'm glad Walter Cronkite isn't around to see this.
UPDATED: And just to be clear about Klein's standard, if in the summer of 2002, Lou Dobbs had gone on CNN for several weeks and embraced the 9/11 Truther conspiracy theory, even though players on all sides of the political spectrum had debunked it, the head of CNN would have defended the anchor's choice to fuel that fire? The head of CNN would have stood by the anchor, issuing platitudes about how much he trusts his anchors to “to exercise their judgment”?
I don't buy it. I think there's an obvious double standard at CNN, among other places, for accepting irresponsible fear mongering when the target is a Democratic president.