CNN Reporter Suspended

Elise Labott, the CNN reporter this post is titled for, got a two week suspension from her job the other day because of a tweet. In it she said, “House passes bill that could limit Syrian refugees. Statue of Liberty bows head in anguish.” It’s a stupid comment imo, one I disagree with, but I don’t get why she got suspended. It’s not like that kind of bias is unusual in the media these days, especially in the bigger networks, so why exactly is she being singled out? I don’t get it…

Most reporters these days aren’t really reporters, they’re commentators.

And that holds true for FOX every bit as much as CNN, the only difference being which direction the bias goes (e.g. FOX = right wing bias CNN = left wing bias). The bias is there one way or the other though, and by extension so is the commentary – you know, the part that they call “straight reporting” but actually isn’t. So I guess I’m just sort of wondering… why does that merit a suspension when it’s a regular practice for most major news outlets, including their own?

I’m not saying the bias is a good thing, in fact it’s kind of sick how much it bleeds into so many news reports out there, but fair is fair for fuck’s sake. If she gets suspended, there are a quite few other reporters CNN should be penalizing too.

Oh-oh-oh and get this, a reporter of the Washington Post (of all fucking places) was one of the first to question her tweet and whether it met CNN’s editorial guidelines. Surely I can’t be the only one who thinks that’s funny, since the Washington Post has been making headlines of it’s own for the past few hours with their assertion about the Statue of Liberty. They claim she was originally meant to be a Muslim, at least last I checked, although when I first came across this particular news item I could’ve sworn they said she was a Muslim. *shrugs*

Whichever version they actually claimed though…

It was outlandish. To offer a bit of lazy insight into that just so we’re clear on why no one from the Washington Post should be criticizing anyone about how they report the news, Wikipedia says:

“The statue is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata (a tablet evoking the law) upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.” See? A robed female representation of a Roman fucking Goddess, not an Egyptian Muslim. It’s not like I have anything against Muslims either, aside from the nutjobs (which, btw, every walk of life has its share of), but yeah.

Hardly the product of an ethical or competent source of news, so I can’t imagine where they get off acting like they’re better in any way. And before anyone can even think of criticizing my track record as a journalist, get a clue. Commentating isn’t something I do under the guise of ‘unbiased reporting’, it’s something I do as is. My writing is commentary, so while I probably surpass the standards most modern journalists hold themselves to I am not, in fact, beholden to them.

Journalists are though, and what’s more than the expectation for truthfulness, they’re supposed to be impartial and unbiased. And I guess what the essence of what I think about shit like this reporters suspension or the Washington Posts news items, is that it’s sad how many journalists aren’t reporting the facts, let alone reporting them without bias. Even sadder is that when they do actually get in trouble, the first one to bring attention to it is another (even worse) reporter.