While every other major broadcast news organization immediately switched to live coverage after President George W. Bush announced that bombing of Afghanistan had begun, Fox and CBS calmly kept their cameras focused on what’s really important and continued showing NFL football. At halftime, Dan Rather was kind enough to update us on the war, and then the game continued.
Meanwhile, “bravo” to News 8 Austin for providing some fair-minded war coverage. In a live interview from Sunday’s anti-war protest on the Capitol steps, Time Warner Cable’s local news channel conducted a live interview with peace activist Erin Rogers and actually gave her plenty of time to make her case. What a refreshing change from cable TV’s boorish talking heads — who bring lefties onto their shows and then continually interrupt them — and the legions of snide reporters who belittle protesters without ever asking why they are protesting.
In international news affairs, BBC reports that Secretary of State Colin Powell has asked the emir of Qatar to “rein in” the editorially independent al-Jazeera TV network, which provided the now-famous speech of Osama bin Laden and has allowed airtime for anti-American opinions. Perhaps Powell should take a refresher course in Freedom of Speech 101, one of the basics of democracy — supposedly something we want to promote.
And closer to home, the Texas City Sun fired city editor Tom Gutting shortly after he wrote a column criticizing President Bush. Gutting believes he was fired for his opinion; the Sun reportedly gave an administrative reason for the firing, but did print a front-page apology for having published the column, and ran an op-ed titled “Bush’s leadership has been superb.” Freedom of the press is fine, as long as you don’t say anything to upset the powerful.
This article appears in October 12 • 2001.