No Questions Allowed….
Once again—it seems the media just can’t get it right… This time–it’s about all those pesky questions reporters keep asking.
Its becoming obvious—reporters aren’t needed or wanted to ask questions.
Those making the news can just ask the questions themselves.
Saves a lot of trouble, time and effort, doesn’t it?
First we had our friends over at FEMA conducting the fake news conference during the California wildfires.
This link here tells of how agency employees were “encouraged, and in some cases instructed, to pose as reporters and ask questions.”
The story also includes a photo of the FEMA staffers sitting in the briefing posing as reporters.
But of course, the boss answering the questions didn’t know his staffers weren’t reporters (nudge, nudge, wink, wink.)
Sounds a lot like Hillary Clinton’s Campaign.. Accused of planting fake questions ahead of time so that the candidate would give just the right answer…
In this link, the student who asked the planted question claims she wasn’t the only one who was approached.
And there are reports that Hillary’s campaign was caught planting questions at another event in Iowa.
Of course, the media itself is to blame in large part for a lot of this.
We have slowly abdicated our responsibility when it comes to putting people’s feet to the fire.
We’re content to be “friends” with people we cover.
We don’t want to rock the boat–OR get anyone upset—especially the powerful.
If we do get ‘em mad—they won’t invite us to all the cool parties they throw..
Then, when someone like Tim Russert actually does his job and asks a few pointed questions—the newsmakers get all upset and cry they’re being picked on.
We’ve got another presidential debate coming up–and you can read here about reports that have surfaced claiming moderator Wolf Blitzer has already been told not to act like Tim Russert when it comes to dealing with Hillary..
We’ll have to see who asks what kinds of questions—and to whom they ask ‘em…
In the meantime, I’m going to practice my own tough questioning…
I should ask the next newsmaker I interview “if they could be a tree—what kind of tree would they want to be”……
Hey—it worked for Barbara Walters….
TALK BACK
As long as we’re talking politics—this fits right in…
Several posts back, we ran a couple of items about Hillary Clinton referring to herself as a “president” when she was in the White House. I said I thought it might be fun if we kept track of how many times in the campaign she did that.
Well, reader Brian S. has found another example.
He writes:
Check out paragraph six of this news story. Not saying she was the president, but close.
To help keep track of these Hillaryisms, we’re going to post a sidebar link which we’ll update every time a reader spots a “I was the president” gaffe from Mrs. Clinton.
…And just so you won’t think we’re picking on Hillary Clinton, let’s look for other funny, or bizarre things the other candidates are doing. If you can verify ‘em—we’ll post ‘em!
—Steve
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the tree question did NOT work for Barbara, though she could more easily get by with such a silly question
and I have to say ~ cheers to Tim Russert for doing his job, and jeers to all who are bowing out in fear of a little controversy. puh-lease… why did you go into that line of media if you’re going to placate everyone with a little power. just what the world needs ~ more leaders who can’t answer a question even regarding which baseball team they’d cheer for and more yes-men to play up to that.
great post Steve~