WFT (Rant)

[Colleen Thomas]

Watching CNN. They cut from Wolf Blitzer back to New York. Some ass named Cafferty is on. The son of a bitch takes a pot shot at the president.

People are watching footage hoping to find out about loved ones. People are seeing their whole fucking world wiped out and this piece of shit can't contain himself and has to make some fucking political commentary?

I don't think I have ever been so innervated. I hate the media. And I hate CNN. And if I could get my hands on that bastard I'd be on my way to jail and he would be fucking dead.

Pardon the rant, but God as my witness, that was just wrong.

 

[Alex756]

NO kidding!

Its like how much of the freaking country is waiting for a phone call that someone is OK and the major news outlets are acting all wonky. The only thing that made me think anything good about news was Shepard Smith stopping everyone talking about property damange to grill them about if people in that area were getting food and water and if the red cross had gotten there yet.

The only political potshot I've agreed with is where is the worldwide concern for the 100's of thousands of people who have be devestated and the 100s at a minimum that are dead? Keep the news to the people there. Let the people in their safe dry studios just keep thanking the people walking through the rubble.

-Alex

 

[CharleyH]

Watching CNN. They cut from Wolf Blitzer back to New York. Some ass named Cafferty is on. The son of a bitch takes a pot shot at the president.

People are watching footage hoping to find out about loved ones. People are seeing their whole fucking world wiped out and this piece of shit can't contain himself and has to make some fucking political commentary?

I don't think I have ever been so innervated. I hate the media. And I hate CNN. And if I could get my hands on that bastard I'd be on my way to jail and he would be fucking dead.

Pardon the rant, but God as my witness, that was just wrong.

Missed it Colly. I imagine it is about the hurricane. What is your problem with the coverage?

Should not journalists get to the 'real problems'? It is, afterall, their job, however sadistic, to get to the current news.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Missed it Colly. I imagine it is about the hurricane. What is your problem with the coverage?

Should not journalists get to the 'real problems'? It is, afterall, their job, however sadistic, to get to the current news.

Journalists should not be editorializing. They definetly have no buissiness making political hay while people are dying, hurting, and in fear of the lives of their loved ones. In this case, there was no reason for it, they weren't even discussing federal aide or federal agencies involved. He even admitted it was irelevant to the coverage after he said it.

CNN devotes plenty of coverage time to politics.

I'm here, in Mississippi Charley. I've got freinds who are desperatly trying to find family members in a state where 80% of the people are without power, phone and cell phone aren't working and even satellite phones are having problems.

It was heartless. It was classless. it was crass and uncalled for. He simply had to shoot off his mouth abou this politics while he had a big audience and I didn't appreciate it one fucking bit.

 

[CharleyH]

Journalists should not be editorializing. They definetly have no buissiness making political hay while people are dying, hurting, and in fear of the lives of their loved ones. In this case, there was no reason for it, they weren't even discussing federal aide or federal agencies involved. He even admitted it was irelevant to the coverage after he said it.

CNN devotes plenty of coverage time to politics.

I'm here, in Mississippi Charley. I've got freinds who are desperatly trying to find family members in a state where 80% of the people are without power, phone and cell phone aren't working and even satellite phones are having problems.

It was heartless. It was classless. it was crass and uncalled for. He simply had to shoot off his mouth abou this politics while he had a big audience and I didn't appreciate it one fucking bit.

Journalism is a sadistic business all around, Colly. Should you expect anything less?

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Journalism is a sadistic business all around, Colly. Should you expect anything less?

Decorum maybe?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Journalism is a sadistic business all around, Colly. Should you expect anything less?

How bout journalism?

Commenting on unrelated extraneous crap violates most of the rules of journalism. Doing so in such a partisan way violates any notion of journalistic integrity.

 

[CharleyH]

How bout journalism?

Commenting on unrelated extraneous crap violates most of the rules of journalism. Doing so in such a partisan way violates any notion of journalistic integrity.

Who said journalists had integrity? Is a journalist in the middle of a hurricane or a war doing i because it's condusive to their health? Or are they there ... reporting? To get themselves ahead ... on the basis of what? (questions do they ask?). Journalists are sadistic. What does this mean for 'we' who watch the news?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Who said journalists had integrity? Is a journalist in the middle of a hurricane or a war doing i because it's condusive to their health? Or are they there ... reporting? To get themselves ahead ... on the basis of what? (questions do they ask?). Journalists are sadistic. What does this mean for 'we' who watch the news?

It seems to me they don't any longer. thre are no Edward R. Murrows, no Walter Cronkites or Ernie Piles.

I am, however, within my rights to take umbrage at this. It's the equivilent of a reporter doing a piece on an earth quake in Chile suddenly pontificating on the state or the West German economy. It has fuck all to do with the story. And he has no buissness doing that.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

It's because it's all infotainment now.

There is no news in American news anymore. It's just hacks and talking heads doing fuck-all for ratings and a slavish devotion to whoever is pulling all the strings.

So, you get jackasses like this who don't know fuck-all about real journalists and field journalists who would never in a thousand years think of replicating what the old war photographers or Woodward or Bernstein did. And the whole thing goes down the toilet to partisan hackery, "news", and "hurting America" (as Jon Stewart put it).

 

[CharleyH]

It seems to me they don't any longer. thre are no Edward R. Murrows, no Walter Cronkites or Ernie Piles.

I am, however, within my rights to take umbrage at this. It's the equivilent of a reporter doing a piece on an earth quake in Chile suddenly pontificating on the state or the West German economy. It has fuck all to do with the story. And he has no buissness doing that.

That's the spirit!

Luc: News is the same ... paparazzi or quote and unquote JOURNALISTS

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

Colleen,

I was not watching, but from your comments, I believe the person to whom you are objecting must be Jack Cafferty, CNN’s newly-designated Howard Beale, popping up like a badly-wound Coo Coo Clock to put the "Question of the Hour" to viewers in “The Cafferty File,” each and every hour of the CNN’s new marathon Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.

Cafferty’s most insightful question to date has been: “ Wolf, my No. 1 question this hour is what is that annoying music they're playing under me?"


Sorry if you don’t like criticism of our friend George, but Cafferty’s designation for “The Cafferty Report” is not to report (a function he would be hard pressed to fulfill from his New York Bureau posting) but to provide commentary and insight on the Situation Room.

Feel free to object to Cafferty’s comments, journalists should become accustomed to being the skunk at the tea party, but in fairness I would like to point out that (in addition to several other honours) Jack Cafferty has won the Edward R. Murrow Award for journalism.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Colleen,

I was not watching, but from your comments, I believe the person to whom you are objecting must be Jack Cafferty, CNN’s newly-designated Howard Beale, popping up like a badly-wound Coo Coo Clock to put the "Question of the Hour" to viewers in “The Cafferty File,” each and every hour of the CNN’s new marathon Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.

Cafferty’s most insightful question to date has been: “ Wolf, my No. 1 question this hour is what is that annoying music they're playing under me?"


Sorry if you don’t like criticism of our friend George, but Cafferty’s designation for “The Cafferty Report” is not to report (a function he would be hard pressed to fulfill from his New York Bureau posting) but to provide commentary and insight on the Situation Room.

Feel free to object to Cafferty’s comments, journalists should become accustomed to being the skunk at the tea party, but in fairness I would like to point out that (in addition to several other honours) Jack Cafferty has won the Edward R. Murrow Award for journalism.

Thanks Burley. I only caught his last name, but he did make a plug for the Caferty file.

Oh, and he's a piece of shit.

As a final note, I don't object to ripping GW. I object strenuously to doing it while the footage is of people waving a hanky out a hole they hacked in the roof of their house as the water rises and Wolf just finished speaking to an anguished Govenor of Louisianna.

 

[CharleyH]

Thanks Burley. I only caught his last name, but he did make a plug for the Caferty file.

Oh, and he's a piece of shit.

As a final note, I don't object to ripping GW. I object strenuously to doing it while the footage is of people waving a hanky out a hole they hacked in the roof of their house as the water rises and Wolf just finished speaking to an anguished Govenor of Louisianna.

My question is: if they had five days to evacuate?

 

[Alex756]

My question is: if they had five days to evacuate?

Alot of people there didn't have the means to evacuate. When it was just a cat 1 crossing florida there was no reason. They didn't have 5 days to evacute. The people huddeled in the super dome aren't their by choice. They had no where else to go.

If you don't have a car, or don't have the money to leave, what can you do? All you can do is pray someone rescues you and that some idiot in a dry safe studio somewhere doesn't trivialize the very real human suffering.

I guess its easier to rationalize that 'they' deserved it. No one deserved that, I don't care what their race, economic status, or political affiliation is.

-Alex

 

[Colleen Thomas]

My question is: if they had five days to evacuate?

Airlines canceled flights. Rental car places ran out of cars. Even having money was no guarentee of a way out Charley. And if you are poor? Have no car as one in six families in New O don't? Have no where to go? Every hotel in both La. & Miss. are full. If your family actually lived in the path of the storm where it was even more dangerous?

For some leaving wasn't an option they enjoyed. It was ride it out at home and pray or make your way to the superdome and hope. In either case, the options weren't pretty.

It's a human tragedy. One where people are not only loseing all they have and all they know. Some are loseing thier lives.

I've seen a reporter crying as she interviewed a man who lost his wife. I've seen them dropping the mic and helping people in danger. And those I respect.

Making inane political comments during footage of it, coverage of it? I find it revolting, crass, compassionless and just plain old mean.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

I don’t doubt that what aired was enraging, but I wonder if you have considered all the factors?

Since Cafferty was making his report from the New York Bureau, and Wolf Blitzer is in The Situation Room at the CNN Atlanta nexus, I rather doubt whether Jack Cafferty had any control over what visual was being added to his report. (He obviously has no control over the music.)

I can see no advantage for him to have done what you claim you saw him do. I have no doubt that it happened, but I rather tend to doubt that anything untoward was intended by it. I imagine that it was either accidental, or a thoughtless combination by the production crew.

A broadcasting control room is a remarkable medium for embarrassing juxtapositions of content, don't you know.

To date, however, nothing beats NBC’s faux pas when they cut away from an insightful explanation of exactly what transpired during Democratic Presidential Nominee George McGovern’s electroshock therapy, to run a GE commercial advising viewers to “Live Better Electrically!”

I know. I saw a tape of it.

Oh! And Jack Cafferty can still be a piece of shit. It is allowed.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I don’t doubt that what aired was enraging, but I wonder if you have considered all the factors?

Since Cafferty was making his report from the New York Bureau, and Wolf Blitzer is in The Situation Room at the CNN Atlanta nexus, I rather doubt whether Jack Cafferty had any control over what visual was being added to his report. (He obviously has no control over the music.)

I can see no advantage for him to have done what you claim you saw him do. I have no doubt that it happened, but I rather tend to doubt that anything untoward was intended by it. I imagine that it was either accidental, or a thoughtless combination by the production crew.

A broadcasting control room is a remarkable medium for embarrassing juxtapositions of content, don't you know.

To date, however, nothing beats NBC’s faux pas when they cut away from an insightful explanation of exactly what transpired during Democratic Presidential Nominee George McGovern’s electroshock therapy, to run a GE commercial advising viewers to “Live Better Electrically!”

I know. I saw a tape of it.

Oh! And Jack Cafferty can still be a piece of shit. It is allowed.

It is allowed. And the fact that it is might explain why so many people don't listen to the news anymore. Or why the fabriactions of Fox aren't so outrageous to fox viewers. They just prefer the spin they get from fox to the spin they get from, say, CNN.

Were it not allowed, people might still have some trust in what they see on TV.

 

[Guest]

Colly -

I saw that report with the reporter crying.

She kept wiping away tears as the man talked and sobbed. Finally it seemed someone prompted her ear mike and she asked his wife's name so they could broadcast the information, hoping someone may have located her after she was swept away from the rest of her family.

And he just kept hugging his two small boys as he cried.

When they returned to Headline News they couldn't even speak for a moment.

It's a horrible feeling to watch helplessly from afar. Our church is collecting money to send but I don't know what else we can do.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Colly -

I saw that report with the reporter crying.

She kept wiping away tears as the man talked and sobbed. Finally it seemed someone prompted her ear mike and she asked his wife's name so they could broadcast the information, hoping someone may have located her after she was swept away from the rest of her family.

And he just kept hugging his two small boys as he cried.

When they returned to Headline News they couldn't even speak for a moment.

It's a horrible feeling to watch helplessly from afar. Our church is collecting money to send but I don't know what else we can do.

I've never seen a reporter cry. It may speak badly for her as a reporter, an inability to keep her professional distance, but I think it spoke volumes for her as a person. For me, it showed she cared. As did Wolf's long pause the first time they cut from it. Even Larry King seemed touched.

I guess that was part of what so terribly angered me about Cafferty. Surrounded by people who were upset, or at least had the humanity to seem upset. He took the opportuintiy of a large audience watching him to take a pot shot at GW.

No Compassion. No Concern. No remorse. No empathy. Just a chance to make his political view more important than the news. Such huberis is shocking. If you were sitting in a room full of folks worried about relatives and homes, it was downright vicious to us. Our tragedy taking second fiddle to his political angst.

I'd still try to kill him if I could get my hands on him.

Edited to add: By Even Larry King I wasn't taking a shot at him. I was thinking of someone who has been around long enough to have seen it all before.

 

[English Lady]

*hugs* Colly, I completely understand your anger. That's just not on. Write to the station and complain,all of you who are disgusted do so. If they know it's not what people want to see then they will not broadcast it -you are lining their pockets by watching their channel. Express your distaste and let them know how much you appreiciated the lady who showed real emotion. Praise her as much as you condemn the other.


If you don't try, nothing will be done,if you do try something may be done. It's worth a try right?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

*hugs* Colly, I completely understand your anger. That's just not on. Write to the station and complain,all of you who are disgusted do so. If they know it's not what people want to see then they will not broadcast it -you are lining their pockets by watching their channel. Express your distaste and let them know how much you appreiciated the lady who showed real emotion. Praise her as much as you condemn the other.


If you don't try, nothing will be done,if you do try something may be done. It's worth a try right?

LOL.

I did. I told them I wouldn't be watching their station any longer...

they added me to their e.mail list

Something tells me no one even looked at the content of the letter.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

One of the worst features of 24/7 news broadcasts, is that in their need to get fresh data to report, they often resort to some terrible, counterproductive news-gathering techniques.

I still don’t know exactly what Colly was objecting to on The Cafferty Report, but I imagine it could have been was him reading one of the answers to his “Question of the Hour.”

Any Man-In-The-Street interview is fraught with difficulties, dependant upon the intelligence and pugnacity of that particular man and that particular street.

Asking a question to be answered online, some of which will be read on-air, is, in my opinion, a particularly bad idea.

I rather imagine that what Colly objected to was Jack Cafferty reading someone’s answer to his "Question of the Hour," yesterday. I know that I certainly found several answers to today’s third “Question of the Hour” objectionable.

Should the international community help out the battered Gulf Coast?

The universal response was “Yes,” but except for the one reaponse (from outside the US) they were stated in the most belligerent, accusatory terms, as though the international community had already begun trying to weasell out of offering assistance. (Perhaps part of the fault is Cafferty’s delivery — he does belligerent accusation rather well.)

What people who are glued to CNN of Fox probably don’t realize is that outside the US some international aid has already been considered.

Earlier this week, one of the national newscasts reported on a possible Canadian response team preparing to be sent to New Orleans, but ended that they were preparing to stand down, because the last word was the NO had “dodged the bullet” when Hurricane Katrina turned to pass east of New Orleans. Also, it was explained that these groups had to wait until they were invited to take part.

(Earlier today I read a notice that “self-despatching” aid-givers could become a problem by getting in the way, because safe access was at a premium.)

I am certain that similar considerations colour plans taking place in other countries as well. Except for the pre-hurricane National Guard alert, not even the US Federal Government appeared to be all that much involved.

Nonetheless, these loud-mouthed, know-nothing, brainless, jackasses get their vented spleen read on the air as though it actually were significant comment!

CNN’s new “Situation Room” has been a recent joke amongst much of the news blogger community, with The Cafferty Report being a prime source of fun. As I mentioned earlier, Jack Cafferty has won several awards for journalism, but I doubt that his new assignment will garner him any.



PS: Colly,

You might get better results if you don’t address your comments to a generic CNN Addy. It appears that you wrote to their subscription robot.

You will probably find what you want on their Contact Page.

Or try to slip it through the “ Question of the Day” Addy. (Presumably someone in New York reads those comments — perhaps even Jack Cafferty.

 

[Lisa Denton]

Here in my city in texas the homeless sheters were immediately filled up with refugees from LA. They opened one for 250 more refugees, filled up within 2 hours, they opened 1 more and are getting churches to leave mattresses on the pews and all kinds of stuff. Some of these people don't even have a toothbrush or change of clothes with them.

He was a pig to state his political crap in the middle of that no matter what his political crap views are.

News should be reported by reporters, not anal-eyezed.

The only news I like is when they do the old "saturday night live" re-runs news and jane curtin rips her shirt open for journalistic interpretation, its a classic.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

One of the worst features of 24/7 news broadcasts, is that in their need to get fresh data to report, they often resort to some terrible, counterproductive news-gathering techniques.

I still don’t know exactly what Colly was objecting to on The Cafferty Report, but I imagine it could have been was him reading one of the answers to his “Question of the Hour.”

Any Man-In-The-Street interview is fraught with difficulties, dependant upon the intelligence and pugnacity of that particular man and that particular street.

Asking a question to be answered online, some of which will be read on-air, is, in my opinion, a particularly bad idea.

I rather imagine that what Colly objected to was Jack Cafferty reading someone’s answer to his "Question of the Hour," yesterday. I know that I certainly found several answers to today’s third “Question of the Hour” objectionable.

Should the international community help out the battered Gulf Coast?

The universal response was “Yes,” but except for the one reaponse (from outside the US) they were stated in the most belligerent, accusatory terms, as though the international community had already begun trying to weasell out of offering assistance. (Perhaps part of the fault is Cafferty’s delivery — he does belligerent accusation rather well.)

What people who are glued to CNN of Fox probably don’t realize is that outside the US some international aid has already been considered.

Earlier this week, one of the national newscasts reported on a possible Canadian response team preparing to be sent to New Orleans, but ended that they were preparing to stand down, because the last word was the NO had “dodged the bullet” when Hurricane Katrina turned to pass east of New Orleans. Also, it was explained that these groups had to wait until they were invited to take part.

(Earlier today I read a notice that “self-despatching” aid-givers could become a problem by getting in the way, because safe access was at a premium.)

I am certain that similar considerations colour plans taking place in other countries as well. Except for the pre-hurricane National Guard alert, not even the US Federal Government appeared to be all that much involved.

Nonetheless, these loud-mouthed, know-nothing, brainless, jackasses get their vented spleen read on the air as though it actually were significant comment!

CNN’s new “Situation Room” has been a recent joke amongst much of the news blogger community, with The Cafferty Report being a prime source of fun. As I mentioned earlier, Jack Cafferty has won several awards for journalism, but I doubt that his new assignment will garner him any.



PS: Colly,

You might get better results if you don’t address your comments to a generic CNN Addy. It appears that you wrote to their subscription robot.

You will probably find what you want on their Contact Page.

Or try to slip it through the “ Question of the Day” Addy. (Presumably someone in New York reads those comments — perhaps even Jack Cafferty.

It wasn't a response Burley.

Basically, Wolf cut from that interview with the reporter crying to something else. I guess it was nearing commercial break, because they cut away from that footage with a back to New York. And cafferty came on.

They cut from his face to the roof of a house, with a hole about the size of a dinner plate and someone's arm sticking out with a white hankey.

Cafferty cut in on voice with

"Where is the president?"

Wolf came back with we just reported he was in San Diego I believe.

Cafferty demanded to know what he was was doing there besides making a speech in support of the war in Iraq.

Wolf replied he had cut his vacation short and was returning to Washington.

Cafferty: "Well I should think so, condsidering his approval ratings. But that isn't the question right now"

With wolf concuring and them cutting back to footage of Caferty as he plugged the caferty file.

Basically, his comments were his own, had nothing to do with the situation, by his own admission and were an affront to everyone siting in the living room. It wasn't provoked by conversation on the situation room, it wasn't prompted by anything reported, it was just him prosteletysing about GW and not germaine to the situation in any way, by his own admission after he got done.