Wednesday, October 1, 2008

FOXNEWS rightly focusing on Ifill story; CNN and MSNBC avoiding the obvious; shame on them

FOXNEWS is reporting the Gewn Ifill shocker of a story while CNN and MSNBC have chosen to ignore it.

That's hard to accept for me as a journalist. But my profession has chosen to desert any standard of credibility.

FOX has interviewed Sen. John McCain on the issue, and he says he believes Ifill will be professional in the debate. That's the right answer, but he knows the real score here. FOX also interviewed a former GOP congressman who said that Ifill should recuse herself from the debate. He's right.

If she doesn't, the Presidential Debate Commission should replace her. The appearance of a conflict of interest is the standard set for politicians. The same rule should be used for members of the media covering the politicians.

The title of Ifill's book is the "Age of Obama". As the former congressperson rightly noted, her book won't sell if Obama does not win the presidency and is not inaugurated on its release date of Jan. 20.

The politico said: "Has anyone read a book about the 'Age of Mondale' or the 'Age of Kerry'?"

Very true. So Ifill has a deep financial interest in Obama winning. To help ensure that, she needs to make Gov. Sarah Palin look bad tomorrow. Personally, I don't think she has needed any help the past several weeks in looking bad. She has been failing badly.

Ifill did not need to put herself in this position. She's like Wall Street. How much money and fame do you really need? Why does the country have to suffer for your excess?

While reporting on the VP debate, CNNHeadline News first showed polls that put Sen. Barack Obama further ahead of McCain in key states. And the coverage included an interview. About 30 seconds were later used for the Ifill story -- with no interviews.

Today is a sad, reprehensible day for my profession. And the bias it is showing will only turn more Americans to different sources for full coverage of issues and news.

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