Email sent to Keith Olbermann (re: Zuckerman)

[troublemaker]

Keith, Keith, Keith...

I love you but your chat with Mort Zuckerman was the dumbest five minutes on TV today (excepting FOX)

Fahrenheit 9/11 is not responsible journalism. Gee, you think? You know what else wasn't responsible journalism? ROCKY III. That's why they show these things in movie theaters. The deal is people pay money to watch things they want to see. That's how pay-per-view works too. (and if Michael Moore mixes it up with Mister T on pay-per-view will either of us be all that surprised?)

What does any of that have to do with whether Stolen Honor is peddled as news broadcast over publicly owned airwaves by TV stations licensed to serve the public good as defined in a pluralistic democracy?

Nobody would much object to Stolen Honor being released in theaters. Okay, it would make GIGLI look like TITANIC, so theater operators might object, but you get my point. On the other hand, if CBS decided to air Fahrenheit 9/11 as news I'd be pissed off in stereo.

If you're going to play the "mistakes were made on both sides" game at the expense of truth (or even using words to mean what they mean) then the list of responsible anchors on TV will have returned to zero, where it was before your other-wise excellent show started.

Thanks for your attention,

XXXX XXXXXXXX

[ibegurpard]

1. good points

I'm, quite frankly, surprised he would need to have them pointed out to him.

[troublemaker]

5. Me too. Everybody's 'fair and balanced'

[grasswire]

2. It was interesting, though...

...to see Zuckerman stunned and angered by the statement of Sinclair's Hyman comparing those who criticize their piece to "holocaust deniers" --- Zuckerman lit up with fire before our eyes.

Actually, at the end of his remarks, Zuckerman was more fair than he usually is. I thought it was a good segment, but I hated Keith's comparison of F-911 on pay tv to Sinclair's forcing their propaganda on local affiliates in prime time.

[sandnsea]

4. He clearly gets it

Thinks media consolidation is horrible and dangerous. Obviously because it can lead to one person controlling the information that goes out in an election. But can't quite seem to make the connection that it's actuall happening with this "documentary". :crazy:

[Generator]

3. Good for you

I saw the piece and it irritated me to no end.

A) Pay-per view does NOT equal the public airwaves

B) The content of Michael Moore's film is actually relevant to the issues voters have to vote on. The debate over whether John Kerry lost us the Vietnam War is just absurd. Also, as even my local paper pointed out, the Moore piece is bias, but it has yet to actually be debunked. A fifth grader can debunk this little slimefest that Sinclair is doing.


And just to sum up, I despise US News and World Report. Their coverage was so rah-rah for Bush that I ended up throwing the last issues they sent away. I have never been so disgusted in subscribing to a a "news" magazine in my life. (This was the beginning of the year)

[cheshire]

6. I'm sure Kieth will do the right thing.