At this point, it’s become both redundant and tedious to point out all the ways in which CNN represents the ultimate source of spineless lapdog journalism — more afraid of offending their audience than they are in reporting ugly truths. After all, they practically invented the style.
But when they start misquoting public figures to make them look better for readers who might be fans of theirs, they’ve crossed that important line between timidity and servitude.
Remember when Sarah Palin told Katie Couric that she read “all” the newspapers? One of the most well-documented moments of the campaign? Well, CNN, and particularly Political Ticker producer Alexander Mooney conveniently forgets what she said. Instead they’re quoting her as saying “Um of them” rather than “all of them.”
In a new Political Ticker post where they farm Palin’s powderpuff interview complaining about the media with a conservative host, they don’t just misquote her, but also pull one of my favorite tricks. They say her now-infamous interview with Katie Couric “appeared to go poorly.” No, not that it went poorly, which the entire planet knows it did, but it merely “appeared” to go poorly — the implication being, the interview actually went quite well… but appearance and perception threw it all out of whack.
But hey, I guess printing that something “appeared” such a way is one step above printing that “some people said” it was that way, which used to be the industry’s standard dead-fish-code for not taking a stand. Check out this double whammy:
Palin also faulted the McCain campaign for agreeing to a series of sit-downs with Couric after the first one appeared to go so poorly.
During one of those follow-up interviews, Palin took heat for appearing to be unable to name the newspapers or magazines she reads: “Um of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years,” was the Alaska governor’s response.
No, it wasn’t.
What’s that? Maybe they didn’t misquote her? Maybe there is some sort of debate about whether she said “All of them” or “Um of them”? Well, aside from the fact that doing a google search for her name and that quote brings up only a single page — CNN’s ticker post with the misquote — there also happens to be this pesky viral video, which doesn’t lie to soften its impact for an audience:
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