CNN Reports Man Arrested for Making Threats Against Obama; Edits Out Fact That Very Same Man Threatend to Put a Bullet in the Head of George W. Bush

The AP's story, which CNN edited/redacted, actually notes the threats made against both men.

Now, CNN just took this story from AP and re-wrote it. Why? Why do the extra work to write a less informative story?

Confederate Yankee guesses at the likely reason: To portray Obama as a victim, and a hero, and presidential (presidents are, alas, associated with assassinations), etc., while being very cautious to not allow the hated George W. Bush share in Obama's spotlight.

It's pretty breathtaking, when you think about it. For no particularly good reason, a CNN editor chose not to simply post AP's story as written (which would have taken three minutes), but to spend a half-hour or more re-writing the story to take important news out of it.

Call it the Cable Narrative Network. The news is sometimes messy and contradictory; not so the polished, hand-crafted Narrative, which is always clean, clear, and admirably uncomplicated about What You Are Supposed To Think About All This.

Alternately... Maybe this CNN editor is so blinded by Obamania that she considers Obama newsworthy, but the sitting president of the United States to be so marginal a figure as to not even be worth mentioning. (Again, I stress: She actually had to do more work than was necessary to omit Bush from the article; so she actually judged that not only was Bush not worth the energy to mention, but was worth the energy to affirmatively delete from the story.)

Obama: New Hotness

Bush: Old and Busted

Whatever the reason this CNN Democratic Communications Director in Training chose to actually invest the time and effort to subtract Bush out of the story, it doesn't reflect well on her, nor CNN's culture.

posted by Ace at 05:21 PM

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