CNN host Alisyn Camerota has her journalistic neutrality crushed by the mindless stupidity of one her panelists. Specifically, one of Alisyn Camerota's panelists stunned her with the thoroughly debunked claim that millions of "illegals" voted in California, which you can see here or here ...
I guess one of the questions we (and especially journalists) need to start asking is, How much blind stupidity do we allow to fly unchallenged in the name of journalistic integrity or neutrality?
Seriously, life should not be a perpetual reality show for the intellectual midgets of our society simply because we want to gauge the temperature of a focus group, or the electorate. We shouldn't let things go unchallenged, and allow people to use our modern forums like medieval stages, just so we can get our jollies laughing or wincing at what the village idiot of the day says.
Let's be clear here. I'm not saying we need to keep these kind of comments out of the public square. Ignorance and blind stupidity should be exposed. What I'm saying is more hosts and interviewers need to do what Alisyn did and stand up for what's factual, while debunking what's not, in real time.
Sure, it will require a good deal of more work and preparation. But this is what journalistic integrity (and professionalism) is built on.
The point is, if the media allows ignorant commentary to go unchallenged - or fails to do what CNN's Alisyn Camerota does in the clip above - others who are equally ill-informed will watch and assume "it must be true" because the host ignored the uninformed reference.
It's real simple. We're better than this.
At least we're supposed to be.
- Mark
Addendum: Apologies for using the same opening headline as yesterday, but it does appear we have a running theme in the making. I'll probably be using it again.
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