By Erich Vieth on January 15th, 2009
When a plumber tries to do journalism
I don’t really want to give “Joe the Plumber” any more publicity, but it’s rather amazing to me that a group of conservatives would actually send “Joe” anywhere to report on anything. Especially since so many claims he has made about himself have already been proven to be lies. With that as the context, here is CNN reporter Rick Sanchez giving “Joe” a piece of his mind:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BE0rc2aZpc&eurl=[/youtube]
I’m pretty sure we’re all laughing derisively, with a little of the horror of a train wreck, at Joe the War Correspondent; but I’m a little disturbed that you would share this video. Mostly because Rick Sanchez doesn’t actually say anything. He tells us he grew up in Cuba, but he doesn’t actually draw the conclusion that ousting journalists leads to totalitarianism - the audience has to infer it, and the allusion is weak enough I wouldn’t be surprised if plenty of people unused to inference didn’t. He cites some statistics of journalists killed then doesn’t even try to demonstrate that their deaths weren’t in vain. What a waste of an opportunity to really get something across about why journalism is necessary and indeed integral to democracy.
(Sorry for the late comment.)