Has anyone been keeping up with this feud between Michael Moore and CNN? Moore has been on CNN a couple of times to promote his film Sicko and answer some of his critics, including CNN's own resident medical expert, Dr. Sanjay Gupta appearing on Wolf Blitzer's The Situation Room and Larry King Live. What has transpired since then and how you view it probably depends on which side of the fence you're on.
From Moore's perspective, CNN made several egregious errors in their reporting of the health care debate and its so-called fact checking of some of the claims made in Sicko, all adding up to the same game of a news corporation protecting its interests in keeping pharmaceutical companies and their ad revenue happy. His website lists each contentious point, and he even posted an open letter to CNN (and used the opportunity to criticize their role in possibly promoting the Iraq War). CNN, on the hand, claims they only made one error, which they publicly acknowledged, and have since posted their own point by point response to say there was nothing wrong with what they've said.
So CNN is picking Sicko apart and claiming Moore "fudged" some facts or at least cherry-picked some data, which I might agree with slightly. It seems there is so much data available out there, that you could argue any side of any case and seem credible. But the fact that CNN decided to even focus on "fact checking" rather than having an intelligent discussion about an issue both CNN and Moore agree on, that American health care has major problems, I can see how Michael Moore could be pretty irate right now. He doesn't help things along, though, with his impassioned stance that his one-payer solution is the only intelligent solution out there while calling any other proposal a sell-out to Big Pharma and the health insurance lobbyists.
Pretty sad that, again, a lot of bickering will probably get this problem swept under the rug for someone else to clean up years from now. I know the Presidential candidates have made health care a big part of their platforms, but somehow I think we'll all just be getting some fancy lip service over the matter in the coming months instead of viable solutions.
Amazingly, Fox News has managed to stay out of Michael Moore's crosshairs. I guess that would have been too obvious, though.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Somedays, I think the country should just split in two...
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6 comments:
All this substance from Swany - what happened to all the poop jokes? Where has all the toilet humor gone?
To answer your question, Pimpalimpadingdong, if this country split in two along ideological lines, each side would miss the contribution brought by the other.
Fox News is probably staying quiet on this issue because they don't want to look like they are supporting either CNN or Moore, and they are creative enough to come up with a third alternative. No, that can't be it; Fox News is the most creative news out there.
Moore does cherry pick. That's my biggest criticism of him. And for some reason, people think that if they yell, and scream, and accuse, that the target of their vitriol will actually listen to them. The abuser acts surprised when the abused is simply defensive. It's really stupid.
Michael Moore cherry picks his facts? To help support his personal view and argument? Wow, what is the world coming to? The President of the United States would never do that! All roughly five hundred and sixty three presidential candidates won’t be doing that in all the upcoming debates! The news networks, newspapers, magazines, news websites? Never! Who has ever heard of carefully choosing only the facts that will help support your argument? Michael Moore is the first human in the existence of all mankind to cherry pick his facts. The man must be subjugated! Oh my debate club meetings would have been so much more interesting if only any of us had just thought to weigh in on only the aspect and facts of the topic that most supported our side! All those tie’s where everyone agreed about both sides of the argument because it was all so carefully laid out and fairly represented would have never occurred! Oh, my world topples at the fact Michael Moore cherry picks his facts!
Please, people.
Okay then, let me add this caveat:
...worse than others.
It's like I've been saying, by being so blatant about it, he leaves his argument open to undo criticism. If he would acknowledge the opposite argument and then show why it doesn't hold water, it would give the critics nowhere to go. Instead, from what I've observed, he ignores them and let's the opposition bring them up, which helps to discredit him.
You can't leave that juicy a target when you have Anne Coulters and Rush Limbaughs about just waiting to shred your argument in their derisive, nana-nana boo-boo style.
As Firecracker George alluded to, you can cherry-pick, and then you can really cherry-pick. I'm not sure that Michael Moore was guilty of too much of the latter in Sicko, but I think he should be open to answering his critics when people have questions rather than attacking the media or people who don't quite agree with him as slaves to money and greed. He should expect that his initial television interviews will be trying to pick apart his film, but once he accomplishes defending his movie, he can move on. Half this country already has negative preconceived notions about anything Moore puts out, and if he doesn't answer the questions of that side of the population, Sicko simply becomes a successful movie, and nothing more.
CNN's fact check, doesn't seem to me an attack, per se, but just making sure that Moore isn't pulling the wool over our eyes. Based on what I've seen from CNN's reporting, the differences they found were rather small, and actually lend some credence to the information Moore put forth. Why he decided to start this mini-feud is bewildering to me, unless he felt like he couldn't really debate the substance of his film on air.
Michael Moore calling victory for himself today on his website pretty much exemplifies why his style of debate kind of bothers me. Reading the CNN response, they stood by their reporting, although Moore saw it as the news network "throwing in the towel" and goes into a lengthy letter that reads more like an amateur blogger trying to be funny than a professional trying to really fix a serious problem.
Anywho, Moore is scheduled to be back on CNN tomorrow, which makes me think all of this was just a publicity stunt.
Moore declared victory? Sounds like Bush declaring victory in Iraq three years ago. Man, winning just isn't what it used to be.
Here's a fact for all of you. And if you think its cherry picked then know that it was the whole freakin' tree.
It's nany-nany-boo-boo not nana-nana-boo-boo. Geesh!
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