Since that seems to be pretty much all that's going on today.
This is a transcript of a CNN program called "Reliable Sources," which aired August 6th at 10 AM Eastern.
The best part of the program, for me, was this segment:
KURTZ: Richard Engel in Lebanon, let's talk a little bit about your efforts to cover Hezbollah. Have you had instances in which Hezbollah guerillas have tried to interfere with your reporting?
ENGEL: Yes and no; and the reason I'm giving you that answer is that until now Hezbollah has been very difficult to cover. We've come into town several times and only found Hezbollah fighters. They don't want to be on film. They will talk to us off camera, but when the cameras come out they suddenly go quiet.
They've not tried to stop us filming other events while we're in the field, but they have, on several occasions, threatened reporters here in Tyre, south Lebanon. From the location where we're standing right now, we've been able to see, today and on other days, outgoing Katyusha rockets. And on more than one occasion people from Hezbollah have come and said, "Do not film the locations of these rockets when they're being launched."
At one time, when we were talking and having a conversation with this Hezbollah representative, he said, "Look, we're serious, we will kill you if you film these outgoing rockets." So it is a threat, but when we've been out in the field, we've not had situations where they told us to stop filming.
KURTZ: You, like other correspondents, a couple of weeks ago got a guided tour of one of the bomb-damaged areas of Lebanon by Hezbollah people. My question is when something like that happens, do you feel used at all? And how much responsibility do you have to tell the viewers that we're operating under very tight restrictions here, folks. We can't just go into any building and investigate for ourselves their claims that these are purely civilian areas?
ENGEL: I think it is clear that we have a lot of freedom, certainly much more than we do in Baghdad. We can go to the front line villages. In that report you aired a clip from, earlier today, we organized a convoy, reporters did, and slipped behind the Israeli front line. And we were hearing the artillery being fired from Israel into Lebanon, going over our heads.
So we have a great deal of mobility, but it is difficult to report on Hezbollah. There are certain restrictions that they put on us, particularly about filming the outgoing Katyusha rockets. And there's obviously the dangers; it would not be wise to try and join up with the Hezbollah unit, or watch them launch rockets, or to just rush into any of these frontline villages. So we have to be careful.
We hear reports all of the time about families trapped in a house that collapsed on them in a village, where the fighting is underway, in this area where Israel and Lebanon are fighting over a buffer zone. But just to go into the middle of the night and try and verify that would be very difficult.
So I don't think that the restraints or our inability because of the danger, or anything at this stage, that would require us to put serious qualifications on our reporting, but we have been able to move around quite a bit, but there obviously are dangers and risks like any frontline environment.
So, best quotes?
"Look, we're serious, we will kill you if you film these outgoing rockets."
" I think it is clear that we have a lot of freedom, certainly much more than we do in Baghdad."
Clearly. You have near-infinite freedom to report anything that makes Hezbollah look good. But the sight of them firing rockets at Israeli civilians, noooooo, can't show that, because then it might remind people that YOU'RE WALKING AROUND WITH COWARDLY, MURDERING BARBARIAN PSYCHOPATHS.
We of course cannot have that.
Good to see that CNN is a bastion of journalistic integrity, truth, and honesty.
And then they wonder why people - far more than watch CNN, by the way - watch FOX News Channel.
Easy; it's to get a break from the utterly predictable claptrap the lefties in charge of practically all other media outlets present. FOX is blatantly right-winger, and that's exactly their appeal. Most people, like I do, look at both sets of lies and figure that the truth is likely somewhere in the middle.
This is sort of the same reason that the Nintendo Wii is going to be the big winner in the next generation of home gaming consoles. If there's a ton of first-line consoles, and only one that you buy as a second system, ultimately a lot more people will own Wiis than will own either PS3 or XBOX360.
Since FOX is the ONLY defiantly right-wing news source, everyone that wants to hear a different perspective goes to them - which means that they get more viewers than all the others combined.
It's too bad that there's not a news station any more. All we have now is politically biased "infotainment," and that's a recipe for disaster.
YOU JOURNOS ARE SUPPOSED TO REPORT THE FUCKING FACTS. EDITORIALIZING BELONGS IN EDITORIALS, NOT NEWS BROADCASTS.
You stupid assholes are traitors to America for supporting the enemy, and ought to be sent to live with them permanently.
