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Oops

Element9, If I'm correct that you are replying to my post, I have no idea why the so-called mainstream media hasn't mentioned this O'Keefe guy. Maybe they don't have any solid proof to portray him as a serial liar. As I mentioned in a previous post, the fact that Mr. Schiller didn't take the donation is not the point of the story. Therefore, I can't (in this specific case) fault Brian Williams or NBC for not mentioning it.

However, stating that Ron Schiller has no input on NPR content is not exactly accurate. Since his views reflect the views of most of the producers, reporters, editors, talk show hosts, executives, underwriters and possibly even the cleaning staff, there may be a case here for guilt by association.

Just sayin'
 
jim 8230 said:
However, stating that Ron Schiller has no input on NPR content is not exactly accurate. Since his views reflect the views of most of the producers, reporters, editors, talk show hosts, executives, underwriters and possibly even the cleaning staff, there may be a case here for guilt by association.
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Absolutely positively not true.
 
Holy cow Big A...that reply took like 26 seconds!

There was a bit of tongue-in-cheek in my comment, but I guess you didn't get it.
 
jim 8230 said:
However, stating that Ron Schiller has no input on NPR content is not exactly accurate. Since his views reflect the views of most of the producers, reporters, editors, talk show hosts, executives, underwriters and possibly even the cleaning staff, there may be a case here for guilt by association.

Just sayin'
Click to expand...

So, just what part of that is supposed to be "tongue in cheek"? And how are we supposed to discern that in print? Looks a lot more like "foot in mouth" to me.
 
Now we see why mass market news media always reduce complex stories down to win-lose, right-wrong or good-bad. Everybody already has their mind made up anyway. Why waste precious time with details?
 
Call it "Oops Part 2"

Glenn Beck's site The Blaze apparently questions the editing of the video, and discovers the comments were taken out of context.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/does-raw-video-of-npr-expose-reveal-questionable-editing-tactics/

In it we learn that Ron Schiller is a Republican, and his quote about the Tea Party is actually quoting other Republicans.

Are we surprised that the video was edited in such a way to make the NPR folks look bad? No. Are we surprised it took a blog run by conservative Glenn Beck to actually do the investigative work uncovering it? Yes. Where are the real journalists and why did no one from the Washington Post or any other reputable place even question the editing of the video? Why was everyone so quick to assume the quotes in the video were as they appeared to be, and then extrapolated that they in fact represented the opinions of NPR News? Who is the joke really on here?
 
All Access and Radio-Info have links to the story on The Blaze.

Scott Baker, former anchor at Hearst-owned WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh, is on the byline. Scott personally leans conservative but I always perceived him as interested in the truth first, even when uncomplimentary to his worldview. At least that's how it seemed during his WTAE years.

I'm actually taken aback at how the video was edited...O'Keefe and Veritas should've realized their selective editing - and their naivete and/or hubris about getting caught - would be their downfall.

Glenn Beck has recently been pounding the mantra "The Truth Has No Agenda". At least in this case, principle tops politics.
 
chas108 said:
I'm actually taken aback at how the video was edited...O'Keefe and Veritas should've realized their selective editing - and their naivete and/or hubris about getting caught - would be their downfall.
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My view is they just wanted to make an impact and get headlines. They achieved that. Then the question was how long would it take before someone actually dug into the raw video. We now know the answer. The media was played like a cheap violin.
 
TheBigA said:
chas108 said:
I'm actually taken aback at how the video was edited...O'Keefe and Veritas should've realized their selective editing - and their naivete and/or hubris about getting caught - would be their downfall.
Click to expand...

My view is they just wanted to make an impact and get headlines. They achieved that. Then the question was how long would it take before someone actually dug into the raw video. We now know the answer. The media was played like a cheap violin.
Click to expand...

Good point A, but at what price? They made their point and got headlines but how can O'Keefe and Veritas be trusted afterwards?
 
chas108 said:
Good point A, but at what price? They made their point and got headlines but how can O'Keefe and Veritas be trusted afterwards?
Click to expand...

That's what happens with viral video You can't do the same thing again. But they will have their defenders and fans even if their technique was flawed.
 
TheBigA said:
chas108 said:
I'm actually taken aback at how the video was edited...O'Keefe and Veritas should've realized their selective editing - and their naivete and/or hubris about getting caught - would be their downfall.
Click to expand...

My view is they just wanted to make an impact and get headlines. They achieved that. Then the question was how long would it take before someone actually dug into the raw video. We now know the answer. The media was played like a cheap violin.
Click to expand...
Badly, at that, A. I'd suggest the media allowed itself to get played, just one of many incidents that are an indictment of the (national) media today. While I'm slingin' spit here, let me say that I've been guilty in the past of not researching and digging as much as I should have. There's always a rush to judgment. But this time, I searched the web for uncut video from day one. Didn't find it, of course, but I figured that what I heard, read and saw from O'Keefe was put together in the same manner that he put the ACORN tape together. Call it a production director's hunch. Now, we get more and from all places Glen Beck's site, which is a testament to Beck and his site's editor. The $64 thousand: Will NBC, CBS and ABC walk it back and pay as much attention to this as they did the initial story, which on ABC, was "second story from the top."
 
JimPastrick said:
Now, we get more and from all places Glen Beck's site, which is a testament to Beck and his site's editor.
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There's a part of me that thinks it was part of the plan. Turn the raw tapes over to a conservative, so they still control the story.

By the same token, you have a certain amount of guilt on the part of apologists who won't look at a story like this critically because it embarrasses them. So will the mainstream press acknowledge they we're played like violins? If they can advance the story in some way, perhaps. So to confront O'Keefe with this new information might be worth doing. But to just re-report a story from a blog without additional news might not be as interesting as the initial blast.
 
What are the odds that an NPR fundraiser will take a meeting without a recorder in his/her pocket?
 
JimPastrick said:
Will NBC, CBS and ABC walk it back and pay as much attention to this as they did the initial story, which on ABC, was "second story from the top."
Click to expand...

I just watched O'Reilly, who had Bernard Goldberg on talking about NPR, and they didn't even mention this latest news. They instead focused on NPR's liberal bias. They took a quote out of context from a host who said the majority of NPR's audience is progressive, and extrapolated from that that NPR is liberal. Believe what you want to believe.
 
TheBigA said:
So will the mainstream press acknowledge they we're played like violins?
Click to expand...

No, they rarely admit error.

There's a combination of things going on here. First, commercial and public broadcasters will rarely go out on any limb that exposes them to accusations of leaning "liberal". Secondly, with resources for digging into news stories getting scarcer and scarcer, the media take the easy way out and rely on quotes and opinion about what's happening, rather than finding out what's really happening. Thirdly, there a lot of sloppiness and laziness involved.

So into this gap leap opportunists like O'Keefe. Howard Kurtz on CNN's misnamed Reliable Sources gave O'Keefe an easy ride of an interview, then talked with panelists Terrence Smith and NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shephard, both of whom accepted the edited O'Keefe tapes at face value.

And I don't think it's accidental that whereas O'Keefe's spoof gained a lot of traction in the media and claimed a couple of NPR scalps, the phone call that Wisconsin's governor Walker took from a fake Koch brother scarcely made it into the mass media even though it revealed one undoubted truth about Walker, namely how readily he grabs the phone when one of his financial backers calls; not so when it's a legislator of the other party, or a constituent.

Speaking of Wisconsin and the media, did anyone notice reports all over the networks about Saturday's biggest-yet demonstration in Madison? Neither did I. Now, if that had been the tea party.....
 
listener-in said:
Speaking of Wisconsin and the media, did anyone notice reports all over the networks about Saturday's biggest-yet demonstration in Madison? Neither did I.
Click to expand...

Actually CNN broadcast live from the grounds of the Capitol building all afternoon.
 
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