I’d say I was stunned to see a local TV news reporter — any TV news reporter, frankly — asking the President directly about his targeted assassinations of U.S. citizens, except that the reporter was Cincinnati Fox 19’s Ben Swann.
Swann’s reporting was key last February, in covering the Maine GOP’s attempt to steal the state’s caucuses for Mitt Romney, while largely everyone else in the corporate mainstream media had dutifully moved on to whatever the “next state” was at the time.
As Glenn Greenwald tweeted, here we find a “local anchor doing real journalism”. Imagine that. Someone get this guy a network gig, please!
Here’s his questions to President Obama last night on the U.S. drone strikes which targeted U.S. citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and his teenage son in Yemen, both without any form of due process…
Love this guy! This is like Colbert at the Correspondents’ Dinner. It’s almost impossible to believe you’re seeing it. ACTUAL JOURNALISM!!!!!!! ON TV!!!!!!!!The Newsroom is not just some Sorkin fantasy. Just incredible. Love this guy!!!
Yes, David, rather remarkable that a Fox affiliate can produce solid, hard-hitting investigative journalism — at least when the President is a Democrat.
Do not confuse local Fox affiliates with Fox “News” Channel. Many are actually quite aggressive in their coverage. Don’t know if it’s to counter FNC, which many of the reporters at the local affils are embarrassed by, but the point is, the local Fox affiliates are not run by FNC, and are independent from them. Some of the best local TV news reporting I’ve seen over the years has been from Fox affiliate stations.
The report was very well done and kept to the point. The problem I have is that the reporter believes he has some sort of exposed secret…not so, as he does state. I have issues with a kill list. I lso understand the nature of the New Enemy of terrorism…an army without a country. It has redefined agression.
FittinGuy said:
I know. And our aggression is insane.
Wow! That was rad.
If this guy were to get a promotion it’d be important to keep him firmly on the news/journalism side of the equation instead of the punditocracy. Network news would be too chickenshit to hire someone like him but CNN could do wonders for their cred (at least domestically) by making him and the reborn Soledad the new centerpieces of a strategy of setting journalistic standards instead of stooping to them.
“get him a network gig”
Why, so he can be bought and do the corporate media’s bidding???? We need less media consolidation and more local independents.