Fox: Journalists used as human shields; CNN says not the case

Whether or not the Fox guy ever leaves his hotel has nothing to do with the fact that there are willing journalists apparently eager to let Libyan officials guide them around government facilities even while coalition forces are making air strikes.

And what do these journalists plan to discover on their "daring" escorted excursions?? That perhaps Ghaddafi and his cronies are somehow misunderstood??? That the rebel forces are the bad guys. That it's al Bush's fault? lol

 

Do you hear our government complaining? You realize that most of the world wants to oust this brutal dictator and that this was sparked by an uprising of the people.

So being there and being able to record the mood of the people, possible retaliation against rebel supporters, protests in Tripoli, etc., would go a lot further to settling this matter than bombs ever would.

 

The issue is not whether it's a good idea to go on a government-chaperoned outing to inspect bombed areas, it's about the Fox reporter being called out for reporting something that he wasn't even there to see for himself. The Fox people called up someone they knew in the British military and heard they were afraid of civilian casualties. Fox didn't know if the reporters were there for five minutes or hours on end. The reporter didn't know were they went, because, well, the reporter didn't go. Fox sent some body guard with a camera. What Fox needed to do was get the information from their British insiders, then ask someone who was on the trip to verify their suspicions or have reporters quoted in the story. But that wasn't the case, and that is what CNN was calling out.

So Fox didn't dismiss the government parade entirely, just didn't want their actual reporter going. Then they did some bad journalism, quoting people who also weren't there and ignoring those who were there.

 

It's just another example of Fox going far out of its way to trash competitors. MSNBC always pushes back, but CNN traditionally hasn't. This time, Robertson had enough, and he went off like Peter Billingsley on the neighborhood bully.