jct74
06-25-2014, 02:18 PM
Why Sharyl Attkisson's CBS News experience sounds familiar to me
John Stossel
June 25, 2014
Reporter Sharyl Attkisson's story sounds familiar to me: A major network got tired of her reports criticizing government. She no longer works there. The CBS News correspondent reported on Fast and Furious, the shifting explanation for the Benghazi, Libya, attacks and the bungled rollout of the ObamaCare website. "But as time went on, it was harder to get stories on," she says.
"There are people who simply would rather just avoid the headache of going after powers that be because of the pushback that comes with it, which has become very organized and well-financed," she says on my TV show, "Stossel" this week.
I left ABC for similar reasons. When I began consumer reporting, I assumed advertisers would censor me, since sponsors who paid my bosses wouldn't want criticism. But never in 30 years was a story killed because of advertiser pressure. Not once.
I hear that's changed since, and big advertisers, such as car dealers, do persuade news directors to kill stories. "I do a lot of reporting on corporate interests and so on, so there's pressure from that end," says Attkisson, but "there's a competing pressure on the ideological end." Right.
Ideology affects more stories than "corporate interests." My ABC bosses leaned left. They liked stories about weird external threats from which government can swoop in to rescue you.
...
read more:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/06/25/why-sharyl-attkisson-cbs-news-experience-sounds-familiar-to-me/
John Stossel
June 25, 2014
Reporter Sharyl Attkisson's story sounds familiar to me: A major network got tired of her reports criticizing government. She no longer works there. The CBS News correspondent reported on Fast and Furious, the shifting explanation for the Benghazi, Libya, attacks and the bungled rollout of the ObamaCare website. "But as time went on, it was harder to get stories on," she says.
"There are people who simply would rather just avoid the headache of going after powers that be because of the pushback that comes with it, which has become very organized and well-financed," she says on my TV show, "Stossel" this week.
I left ABC for similar reasons. When I began consumer reporting, I assumed advertisers would censor me, since sponsors who paid my bosses wouldn't want criticism. But never in 30 years was a story killed because of advertiser pressure. Not once.
I hear that's changed since, and big advertisers, such as car dealers, do persuade news directors to kill stories. "I do a lot of reporting on corporate interests and so on, so there's pressure from that end," says Attkisson, but "there's a competing pressure on the ideological end." Right.
Ideology affects more stories than "corporate interests." My ABC bosses leaned left. They liked stories about weird external threats from which government can swoop in to rescue you.
...
read more:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/06/25/why-sharyl-attkisson-cbs-news-experience-sounds-familiar-to-me/