Last night (10/4/11) CNN host Erin Burnett noted that her fact check of the Occupy Wall Street protests had drawn some criticism. But she still doesn’t seem to get it. “Well, our story got noted documentarian Michael Moore, who watched the show last night,” she reported before playing a video response from Moore:
I just don’t understand that piece, you know, that new show. These companies, these banks, Goldman Sachs up here, they took billions and billions of dollars of citizens’ money, and they ask us to pay for their crime and we’re supposed to be OK because some of them have paid some of it back with interest. I mean, it just boggles the mind.
Burnett then replayed the exchange highlighted in FAIR’s Action Alert—where Burnett tells a protester that the TARP bailout funds were paid back (hence, there is apparently no reason to be protesting on Wall Street).
As we noted—as did Moore—this misses the point of the protests, and doesn’t even understand the criticism of the TARP bailouts in the first place. But Burnett still thinks she’s done some kind of service:
As I said last night, Dan was an earnest person and he wanted facts. And the best we can do all is have accurate information and then have serious conversations…. So, Michael Moore, come on, please, come OutFront.
Journalists like Burnett make choices about which guests to have on their show. If she were actually interested in hearing from an advocate for the Occupy Wall Street protests, or from an economic or policy expert who could talk about TARP bailouts or economic inequality, these people are not hard to find—they’ve been showing up on MSNBC, Keith Olbermann’s Current show and so on. One such critic—Harold Meyerson—wrote a column in the Washington Post that was particularly informative. Erin Burnett chose instead to have a former speechwriter for Rudolph Giuliani on to dismiss the protests, and then attempted to do so herself.
She can plead with Michael Moore to appear on her show, or she can actually address the criticism of her report. That’s the way to have an actual serious conversation.
Perhaps now might be a good time to encourage occupy wall street protesters to hold some kind of “march on wall street’s cnn” or “march on wall street’s media” in Manhattan and/or some kind of “occupy cnn” to end wall street censorship protest outside the tv studios (similar to the 1997 alternative media conference march. Video of public domain protest folk song from a few years ago at following link contains a reference to CNN’s role in promoting the undemocratic use of public funds to bail out Wall Street’s big banks in 2008 that might interest readers:
Why so surprise? Empty shell in a prety face, that the new CNN. It will be fine only is Erin wasn’t so disgrasful to the working class people. CNN prevails in developing stupidity it’s best….
Let’s not forget, Erin Burnett’s fiancé is a Citigroup exec.
She is not hearing me. My message I posted to an earlier blog message about the wiki for the protestors demands has been returned three times because the Erin.Burnett.OutFront@cnn.com mailbox is full. Who is the email postmaster for CNN and what is their twitter handle?
Erin Burnett assumes that the 99% will be cheered on by the abstraction of entries on a spreadsheet, and that we can, as she obviously does, pay no attention to the reality of declining future prospects faced by the majority in this economy.
Why do you waste your valuable time on people like Erin Burnett? It is obvious she is an agent of CNN and her remarks are purposeful. CNN will lose any legitimacy it may have with its viewers once advocates stop reacting to their nonsense. I also wrote and included an excellent commentary from a Toronto Globe & Mail columnist this week and she did not respond. There are other ways of skinning the cat.
CNN has made a grave error hiring a Wall Street shill like Burnett. She’s belongs on Fox. She’s not smart, she’s not informed and she’s certainly not a journalist!
No matter how much lipstick Erin Burnett applies to various well know pigs, it does not make them
kissable.
No matter how much lipstick Erin Burnett applies to various well know pigs, it does not make them
kissable.
You indicate that I have submitted this before, this is the first and only time.
I found her a bloody bore and turned her off. Enough said. ks
Erin Burnett had a very “seriously” ridiculous report on OWS the first night she was on air, 10/03, and then the following day. An A very bad, emptyheaded and arogant start of someone who already act like a diva, starting every announcement or sentence with “I” or “my”. Big, big mistake on CNN’s part, who advertized her weeks ahear as “former Wall Street banker”. They should correct it by taking her mike away. I agree – she belongs on Fox News.
Dear CNN,
A pretty face doesn’t cut it…
George
I find it, predictable, somewhat amusing and, of course, irritating that most news media is being deliberately obtuse about “the Message.” If it is not a 2 second sound bite, distilling the message into something meaningless and banal, they don’t know what to do with it. CNN is a Wall Street shill, so it’s not surprise she is. My last year in NYC I worked at CNNfn and that is what made me decide to leave the city. Being forced to watch the reporters fawn over corporate raiders that were making millions or billions buying up and shutting down factories, putting whole towns out of work. I would go into corners and cry because I wanted so badly to fly across the interview desk and strangle these slimy creeps and the interviewer! I couldn’t legally do that so I quit instead. Now I get to join an Occupy and at least yell and march against people like this! And maybe, just maybe, help prod our government shills by scaring them, too!
Bonnie…What kind of work do you do now?Sounds like you went from wall street to community activism.
As far as Erin…She is a smart cookie.Knows this high finance game from the inside out.Advisor to Trump as i recall.She will not be easily sold on liberal simple minded class warfare clap trapOf course anyone that does not buy into this idea of corporatism eating the poor ,and the middle class, with wall street acting as the home of it’s high church -ends up on FAIR’s enemy list.So be it.You are in a full court press to sell this to America.I would call it Obama’s last chance gambit.We on the right will keep offering the truth.We must take control and make this the most business friendly country in the world.We must re create wealth.Profit can no longer be a dirty word.Wall street…. just another business sector.Class war fare will wane when the left is no longer causing it…feeding it….and exploiting it.The left always needs a scapegoat for failures that take place under their watch.
Michael e — nice talking point rant. You fail to respond to the errors in Erin’s reporting — just like Erin. How’s Erin’s hine smell?
Sorry Plutodog but Im not answering to every point that FAIR frames with a certain bent.If there were errors- so be it.What errors are you most angry with?Erin cant frame this any better than any other news service.I have been to the New york demonstrations.It is a zoo.Everybody yelling something different.The framework is WE ARE PISSED OFF AND YOU DONT NEED TO KNOW WHY>>>>CAUSE WE SURE DONT.Im sure monday morning quarterbacking ,and history revisited, will someday put this in a nice neat package.But for now…….not so much.Maybe next week a clearer message will take form.
And what is it with you guys in the left?How does a hine smell?Tea bagging?……Dude really you are fixated in some strange ways.
Saw the east side march today(march to millionaires homes).I swear to God the media outnumbered the protestors.The media wants this to be bigger than the tea party.What a disaster.The left is flailing away.Obama could not even fill two hundred seats the other day in that home.Down down down ya go.Where it will stop- no one knows.
Today had a really interesting development.Signs popping up like daisy’s that say “jews run wall street”.Two thoughts on this.Number one….Imagine anti semitic signs at a tea party rally.Even one.It would be on every channel.Well there are dozens of these signs on wall street now and in much smaller crowds.And two….I have often perceived a strongly anti semitic strain running through the left.Especially directed at Israel.It is definitely the majority on these blogs.What gives with this?Strangely most jews voted left again last year.Though i thing the worm is beginning to turn.
@michael e: You’re arguing to nobody but yourself.
And you’re losing.
You need to move your show, (if you want to call it that), to Fox News (AKA Fixed News)â┚¬Ã‚¦ Don’t Corrupt CNN with your Lies and Twisted Rhetoric regarding the â┚¬Ã…“Occupy Wall Street” movement!!!
You are a nothing but a Vicious Malicious Biotch!!!!!!!
We love Erin Burnett Outfront. Check out some Erin Burnett pictures: http://www.legcross.com/search/label/Erin%20Burnett
OK. You don’t like Erin Burnett or the cast of dozens of similarly pointless, suck-up artists who dance in front of the news cameras for the sake of their notion of journalism. Neither do I.
That’s why I watch The Real News. (Subtle ain’t I, very subtle…)