Weekend talk shows airing debunked campaign mud. Taped on Friday, facts wrong on Sunday.

LA Weekly Meet The Press FoxNews ^ | October 5, 2003 | Discussion Thread

[BJungNan]

Does anyone at the talking head shows notice how far behind the news cycle their shows are when it comes to fast moving events such as now taking place in the California recall election stories?

Meet the Press had an editor from the Los Angeles Times on the show and he was asked if he was fed the story about Arnold grouping by a Davis operative. He said absolutely not. Yet, stories out on Saturday say it is absolutely so that a source for the LA Times story is indeed a long time Davis associate, Jodie Evans.

In that story as everyone should now know, the LA Times went identitified Evans only as from a women's peace group and ignored completely her close Davis ties.

The LA Times editor would not have gotten away with such a characterization that the story was not at least in part fed to them by Davis.

Meet the Press also brought up the now debunked Arnold admires hitler story put out by the New York Times and retracted by the New York Times. Again it was beind the new cycle and effectively misreporting on a significant detail.

Not to pick on Meet The Press, it was the same on FoxNews talking head shows that were taped on Friday for broadcast over the weekend. I imagine it was that way on several other shows also.

Where is the responsibility for accuracy? Is the fact that a show is taped for later airing and excuse not to get it right? Should there have been a ticker at the bottom of the screen that noted the retraction in the New York Times hitler story?

A campaign playing the news cycle and shoveling mud certainly can count on whatever it slings still getting play throughout the weekend no matter if the story has been widely debunked or is seriously suspect.

Perhaps elections should not be held on a Tuesday. Perhaps they should be moved to Thursday or Friday. Or perhaps these weekend talking head shows ought to do a better job of making sure what they air is accurate at the time they air it.

[GeronL]

I was up early and caught some of 'Reliable Sources' on CNN where Democrat Howard Kurtz and some other liberals treated the Hitler comments as absolute truth, more than a day after they were discredited

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[Peach]

Yes and all the shows I watched on FNC and CNN were behind the times regarding the Arnold/Nazi matter.

That is the point of a smear, I guess. It doesn't give the candidate enough time to adequately rebut the charges.

But this weekend was the worst I've seen in terms of not being up to date.

[weegee]

BUMP

It's hard to "tell the truth" when you don't have the latest talking points.

[BJungNan]

It's hard to "tell the truth" when you don't have the latest talking points.

For sure I was not making any case for Tim Russert. They guy throws so many softballs to the liberal guests you want to change channels, reach in through the tube, grab Hannity and throw him back in the Meet the Press discussion.

[pgyanke]

I saw this question asked on another thread this morning... has anyone ever compiled a list of pre-election smears over the recent decades?

The most interesting pattern should emerge for even the most disengaged journalist to see... it never happens to the Democrat!

... or at least not a single instance that I can recall...