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Thursday, February 2, 2017

What Makes The News?

I happened to hear CBS radio news in my car about a half hour ago.  CBS reported on the senate committee considering the nomination of Scott Pruitt to be the Administrator of the EPA.  Yesterday, the Democrats on the committee refused to show up for the meeting and vote.  As a result, the session was put off until today.  According to the CBS report, the Democrats boycotted again today.  After reporting on the boycott, CBS also played a sound bite from the ranking Democrat on the committee stating why, in his opinion, the boycott was necessary.

Here's the problem:  by the time the radio news was broadcast, the senate committee had approved the Pruitt nomination.  The committee chair simply asked for unanimous consent to waive the rules and proceed, and there was no objection.  Pruitt was approved unanimously.  That had happened about three hours earlier.  Strangely (or perhaps not so strangely) CBS reported only on the Democrats' boycott but said nothing about how the move was totally futile.  A listener would have only heard about the Democrats' valiant struggle, but missed the point that the whole thing was useless political theater.

I realize that CBS supports the Democrats.  I'm used to hearing slanted news.  Even so, I find it appalling that CBS would just leave out the main facts in order to make the Democrats look like something other than the fools they really are. 

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