CNN Edits McCain's al Qaeda Mistake

by CitizenSugar 23

It's the perfect storm. Just yesterday tons of you had opinions on McCain's al Qaeda/extremists flub, the day before we took a peek at the nature of spin in the news cycle, and now this marriage of the two: CNN ran edited footage of the event (edited for brevity probably, but!) with splicing, which made it appear as though John McCain immediately corrected himself. That was not the case. To make matters stickier, the heavily edited footage was used to back up Wolf Blitzer's report that McCain "quickly corrected" the statement.

This instance is one of many reports surfacing pointing attention toward less-than-critical media reporting of the event. Both Reuters and Special Report used language directly from the McCain campaign's statement saying that the candidate "misspoke." Their use of the campaign's wording gives objective authority to a political interpretation.

Does this heighten your skepticism about the "news?" Or is this an example of business as usual something you expect? Are you surprised how one 60-second clip can effectively rewrite history?