The Coast Guard ran a training exercise today. It was routine in every way except that President Obama was involved in a 9/11 memorial in the same general area as the exercise. Oh, and nobody told CNN that it was a training exercise.
Based on what they had heard on scanners that overheard the Coast Guard communications, CNN began reporting that the Coast Guard was pursuing a boat on the Potomac and that shots had been fired. Needless to say, the reporting caused a bit of a stir.
Commenting on the incident, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs chided CNN:
“My only caution would be that before we report things like this, checking would be good,” Gibbs said.
Sage advice from Mr. Gibbs, to be certain. I wonder when Mr. Gibbs would have liked CNN to have begun “checking” before “reporting?”
Should CNN have done some “checking” before they “reported” that John McCain’s endorsement by John Haggee was the equivalent of Barack Obama sitting in Jeremiah Wright’s church and listening to his sermons for 20 years?
Should CNN have done some “checking” before they “reported” this puff piece on the self proclaimed communist, Van Jones?
Or, perhaps, just maybe, CNN should have done some “checking” before they “reported” that following President Obama’s most recent infomercial for health reform, 67% liked Obamacare based on significantly oversampling democrats?
It’s not very often I agree with Robert Gibbs. In fact, I’m not sure I ever have before. On this issue, I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Gibbs. I would like to see CNN doing some real checking and some real reporting. I suspect though, that if they did that, Mr. Gibbs would not be happy at having lost a compliant media lapdog. That leaves a quandary for Mr. Gibbs; which way do you want it?
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