fearlessness. As CNN has done with liberals in the past.
Brian Stelter, CNN's objective analyst had her on his show. Prior to showing the interview he sets it up by having us look skeptically at Attkisson.
'Up first this morning, serious accusations of journalistic wrongdoing. It involved one of the country's most respected news organization, CBS News. They come from Sharyl Attkisson, an investigative reporter who resigned from CBS last month after more than 20 years there'.
Since her resignation, he's appeared on FOX News twice. And that has stirred up speculation that she may be hired there in the future, and that comes amid allegations that unanimously sourced news stories that say Attkisson left CBS because she sensed liberal bias. In other words, because supposedly, liberal executive and producers at CBS did not like the stories she did, stories critical of the Obama administration on polarizing topics, like the president's health care overhaul, and the killing of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya.
'Now, when I sat down to talk with Attkisson this week, it turns out she had a story to tell that she had not told before, of a new organization that she claimed will cave corporate interests and let political bias dictate what stories got to air. I also asked her some important questions that FOX News had not asked her, about claims of a lack of accuracy and journalistic rigor in her own work.'
He could have mentioned that she had won several awards and even worked at CBS as a substitute anchor. Or the set-up could have been to mention that she freely criticized the Bush Administration for 8 years, but says when she wanted to do critical stories of Obama, they wouldn't allow them to run. Instead he introduces her as the controrversy instead of simply a righteous whistle-blower and that she might just be a conservative nut. Pointing out that FOX News never challenged her regarding questions about her own reporting was simply Brian telling his audience that she is getting favorable treatment from conservatives and getting his audience to view her suspiciously. After reading the transcript you can clearly see that these accuracy questions did not, at the very least display any horrible reporting. There would be no reason to bring these issues up even if there was something lacking in her reporting as a story about vaccinations being linked to autism from several years ago has nothing to do with Benghazi, or other reports critical of the administration. As for his comment about her never before told claim about the 'new organization', that she claims shuts down her stories, I can't figure out what he is referring to. It might be the whole media matters
discussion they got into. It might be the corporate interest she was talking about when he asked her to provide an example of a story being squashed. Nevertheless, he was trying to make her appear to be a conspiracy cook.
He then brings up criticisms of her as having a conservative bias. She denies, rightly pointing out that she had been extremely critical of the Bush Administratioin in the past and says they are trying to controversialize the issue. Essentially trying to attack the messenger.
It is Brian Stelter himself who brings up 'media matters' a liberal group that has criticized her for being innaccurate, and asks her if she thinks someone is paying them to trash her. She says it could be happening and that they get a lot of money to do what they do which is advocate against republicans and try to shape media coverage in a pro democrat way. When Brian Stelter asks
her this he sounds as if he thinks she is some sort of conspiracy nut.
Today, he has David Brock on, representing media matters, who denies that they go after people for money. Again the whole segment made her look like a conspiracy kook. Meanwhile he does a very friendly interview making it seem as though media matters is simply performing some sort of public service in pointing out conservative bias even while they admit they contact the media to try to influence what the coverage will be, not just critique media coverage which is what conservative watchdog groups engage in.
May 18, 2014
Still to this day, CNN is pretty much blacking out the Benghazi story. When the email that came out from admin. official Ben Rhodes asking everyone to blame the attacks on the video and say it wasn't a terrorist attack when they talk to the media it received lots of attention at the Jay Carney press conference but CNN refused to give it even a second of coverage until the next day. Most of the rest of the media conducted a black out as well. While correspondents Jonathan Carl from ABC and Major Garret from CBS asked tough questions, the news organizations they work for have refused to air their questions
at the facts surrounding her accusations can only lead any reasonably objective observer to realize she is being honest and should be praised for her