Still No MSM Accountability for Sherrod case

Shirley Sherrod has gotten apologies from the Obama administration, the NAACP and even Bill O’ Riley.  The Sunday morning talk shows predictably lamented the situation. and pointed fingers at the racist propagandist Andrew Breitbart.

But the networks that ran the footage all day – until CNN finally decided to do some fact-checking – have yet to formally apologize to Sherrod or to their own viewers for presenting a completely bogus, doctored video as news.

A reporter who came back to the TV station or newspaper newsroom  with a story and said ‘ I can’t tell you where I got this or who edited it,”  wouldn’t last long.

But an Internet blogger with a known political agenda, who has been caught using doctored video in the past? No problem – it goes straight to the airwaves or page one.

The old adage “if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is,” has been replaced by “who cares if its true? this is great stuff!”

The media’s inability to own up to its role in the debacle means they will just keep blaming others instead of doing what only they can do, which is to  subject  an unsourced video  or story to same scrutiny that they would give to one produced by their own staff, and to fight everyday to uphold journalistic standards during a time of declining staff and revenue and professionalism.

To this day, virtually none of the networks or major newspapers who breathlessly pushed the “ACORN pimp” story have run a correction, or posted the uncut video which has been available for months on the California attorney general’s website.  Since ACORN is dead and buried, the media decided to bury its mistakes along with it, and hope no one notices.  They continue to whistle past the graveyard and live with the illusion that their credibility has not suffered a significant blow.

This unwillingness of the MSM to hold itself accountable means they will be duped again in the not too distant future by Breitbart or someone else  with another “too good to be true”  story or video that just happens to line up neatly with the most racist and irrational assumptions a certain segment of the population holds.

Ironically, this segment of the population hates the MSM as much as they hate  Mexican immigrants, the NAACP, or a black president, and no amount of pandering will ever change that. This being an election year means its a guarantee we’ll see another Sherrod type case in the media before the year is out. The MSM will get fooled again.