http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/03/02/1367985/-LA-Times-eviscerates-Meet-the-Press-over-climate-change-jokes?detail=email
Climate change denier Sen. James Inhofe, who also happens to chair the Committee on Environment and Public Works, got a lot of attention last week after he pulled a moronic stunt on the Senate floor by throwing a snowball to somehow disprove climate change.
While discussing the stunt on Meet the Press, Chuck Todd and guests had a good laugh (seen here around the 48 min mark of the show) about Inhofe's stunt. Watching a key member of the Senate, who has absolutely no understanding of climate science, make a mockery of the serious issue of climate change is oh-so-funny! Well, LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik took note and let loose on Chuck Todd:
"Meet the Press" likes to swank around as though it's our premier network public affairs program. Yet somehow its producers and host think it's all right to treat a manifestly ignorant statement about climate change as "a fun moment" involving a "fun little prop" -- and to pander to American anti-intellectualism by implying that the global warming debate is just too serious and boring to waste time on, like high school kids grousing about having to go to math class. One can almost hear the producers of "Meet the Press" going, "What, climate change again? Cue up the escaping llamas."
How low can the news departments of our major networks sink? We've already reported on the decline of journalistic standards at CBS' "60 Minutes," in the context of its flawed and credulous reporting on disability and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. And now "Meet the Press," by endorsing a display of pure ignorance about an urgent issue of public policy as a "fun" prank, cedes the last shred of its credibility.
It's true that there's room for levity in reporting on politics, but this effort was spectacularly tone-deaf. Ridiculing or minimizing climate change as a topic only wonks care about -- or conniving with our least-informed political leaders to do so -- is an abandonment of every principle "Meet the Press" should stand for.
there is no doubt that NBC/Comcast as well as other networks have all been leaning right even before the announcement that they were chucking the liberal host i wrote about it calling them Fox and friends illegitimate cousins i guess they think it will boost their ratings since Fox appears to be the leader at present, with the o'reilly scandal opens more minds that might go away and than will they have made to move to soon losing the more Progressive viewers.
as far as MTP it has been a travesty and indelibly soils the name and respect that it once had. i think this may backfire right wing ideology is losing altitude and high ratings are coming down with it. i feel cheated by them and no longer have faith i'm considering dropping my Newsvine column owned by NBC. i will still view my favorites on MSNBC as long as they are true to themselves, listening to part of Morning JOE this morning it was ever present the switch to republican opinion TV it made me sick, even some of the guest who you could count on not to smear the elephant dung were out their in the pile.
if this is a cloning of Fox it won't work unless they are willing ti fabricate and outright create their own stories without the theatrics and sensationalism sprinkled with repetitive lies "THE FOLKS" won't bite.
