Red News/Blue News: Eric Holder resigns
"So, civil rights champion or controversial political activist? Which one is it? Comparing blue news and red news coverage of this, it was like they were talking about two totally different people..."
About "Reliable Sources"
Now more than ever, the press is a part of every story it covers. And CNN's "Reliable Sources" is one of television's only regular programs to examine how journalists do their jobs and how the media affect the stories they cover.
Subscribe on iTunes | Instagram
Tune in every Sunday at 11am Eastern time!
About the host
Brian Stelter is the host of "Reliable Sources" and the senior media correspondent for CNN Worldwide. Before he joined CNN in November 2013, Stelter was a media reporter for The New York Times. He is the author of the New York Times best-seller "Top of the Morning."
Here's his biography. You can read his stories on this blog and at CNNMoney.com/Media/.
@cnnreliable on Twitter
I think Mr Eric should be one of it because just now is tired and resign.
Well, he lowered the prison population but increased the death rate of cops.
If you don't; arrest 'em you can't convict 'em.
Federal incarceration rates increased in 2008 and 2009, but have been declining since then at a modest rate. Assaults on officers and officer mortality rates have been declining for years (well before Barak Obama became president) and, despite a small increase in 2010 and 2011, have continued downward, with 2013 likely to be the safest in history for law enforcement personnel since such records have been kept.
The red news/blue news segment of your show perpetuates the illusion of even-handedness ("here's the liberal MSNBC perspective and here's the conservative FoxNews perspective") without providing any enlightenment. When presenting your clips of MSNBC hosts discussing Holder's legacy, note that Rachel Maddow cited specific accomplishments while, in the FoxNews clip, the unidentified host of "The Five" referred to Attorney Gen. Holder by a host of movie villain names (Odd Job? Really?) without saying how A.G. Holder deserved them. Heather Childers simply stated that Holder was not "our" attorney general without providing anything to back that up. Let's go back to Maddow's chart: Don't all of us benefit from FBI reforms? Doesn't his position on DOMA support a basic civil right for people of all races? Reason requires that conclusions be backed up by supporting claims; else, we are relying on name calling and baseless assertions. That's what distinguishes arguments from mere assertions.
Now I have my own problems with Holder's record, especially his poorly argued 'too big to jail' policy with regard to so many of those who were responsible for the crash of 2008 and his tepid stand on HSBC, the bank which laundered billions of dollars of drug money and only paid a fine.
I found MSNBC's retrospective too laudatory and FoxNews' ad hominem bloviations a despicable display of foot-stomping masquerading as righteousness, but I can produce arguments to support my position. Holder's record is mixed but, on balance, more positive than not, a position that belies your faux 'balance'.
As a news media watchdog, I would find it better suited to your mission to focus on chronic and pervasive problems such as false equivalences like the ones you regularly exhibit on a weekly basis in your red news/blue news segments, black and white thinking that engenders false dilemmas like the one you opened your first segment with ("Should we just trust the government or not believe anything they say?"), or the failure of so many reporters to provide orienting history or minimal context in presenting difficult or complex stories.