Wednesday, March 23, 2011

If I Can't Trust FRONTLINE Who Can I Trust?

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.


Right now the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is scared because, along with their divisions PBS and NPR, they know they're being shown the door. The main reason it's happening is an end to government waste, but along with that is conservative's burning hatred for the liberalism they've been expected to subsidize.

I know this hatred well. For me it's mostly directed at their Louise Hay-produced NewAge programming during pledge drives, but, for instance, also for the way Garrison Keillor, for no apparent or damned good reason, would destroy the pure Americana of A Prairie Home Companion buy interjecting ugly partisan jabs at conservatives during the broadcast.

I just stopped listening.

Various figures associated with the CPB claim they're non-partisan, but, as a longtime listener/viewer I don't buy it. They can't help themselves. For instance, I remember the episode of FRONTLINE, above, bothered me greatly. It bothered me because I thought, at the time, it was unfair. I haven't re-watched it, but here are a few thoughts I can remember flashing through my mind, and one that occurs considering more recent developments:
If Vice-President Cheney was "restoring" presidential power to the what the framers intended, why are his efforts portrayed as "enhancing" - as though President Bush was getting something more than the framers intended?

If Cheney's lawyer, David Addington, had "experience in all of the matters", as well as "very well grounded views", why are he and Cheney's efforts treated as suspect in this episode? Why the ominous music for "very well grounded views"?

Why is restoring the executive called "extraordinary"?

Now that President Obama has signed on for military tribunals and the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, in hindsight, is the portrayal here fair to the Bush administration? And if not, then why not, if FRONTLINE is considered the gold standard of investigative programs in America?
Here's an episode on "alternative" medicine (unfortunately, I can't embed it in the post). Since I know there aren't two sides to this story, why - except for something like Louise Hay's money - does FRONTLINE present it as though there were?

1 comment:

  1. "Conservatism's burning hatred for liberalism" ha ha ha try the other way around buddy

    ReplyDelete

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