A frustration with watching news interviews on television is the sorry lack
of tough follow-up questions. Mainstream anchors instead seem to rely more on
giving equal time to both sides of a political issue.
It’s easier, it’s less risky, and they can almost count on what type of
response they’ll get.
So-and-so gets the last word, and then it’s up to the viewer to decide if
what’s been said is accurate or absurd.
It’s even worse on some of the cable news channels. MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell
rarely bothers with follow-ups anymore. It seems it’s more important for
alternate views to be heard regardless of the content.
But CNN’s Soledad O’Brien has become the queen of the follow-ups. O’Brien
sunk her teeth into former New Hampshire
governor and Mitt Romney supporter John Sununu recently. And judging from his reaction, he was none too
pleased.
When she asked Sununu to explain how the Ryan Plan was different from
Romney’s budget plan, Sununu got personal in his attacks on O’Brien. And when
he tried to assert that President Obama robbed more than $700 million out of
Medicare to pay for Obamacare, she challenged him again on his facts.
A similar scenario unfolded when O’Brien interviewed former Tea Party
candidate Christine O’Donnell. The former Senate candidate asserted that
Obama’s policies are Marxist. When O’Brien probed
O’Donnell to explain Marxism, she dodged the question, for fairly obvious
reasons.
O’Brien also recently came down on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, chair of the
Congressional Black Caucus, over Vice President Joe Biden’s recent “chains”
quote.
“Don’t tell me that if it were Romney, people wouldn’t be going crazy,” she
said, almost mockingly.
Go O’Brien.
This article appears in Aug 22-28, 2012.
