Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:44 pm
CNN’s Susan Roesgen is still taking heat for her behavior at the Chicago Tea Party last week. At the Politics Online Conference, former CNN reporter and bureau chief Eileen O’Connor said that Roesgen needs to apologize because she crossed the line by being rude to the people that she was interviewing.
Here is the video :
O’Connor made an interesting comparison between the way that CNN has handled this, and the way CNBC handled Cramer and The Daily Show. O’Connor said that Roesgen and CNN need to apologize because she was rude to the people she was interviewing. She said that the media companies all adopt the same behavior when they cross the line, they duck and cover. O’Connor pointed out that Jim Cramer first tried to mock Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, but eventually he got around to saying that he screwed up.
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CNN has taken the opposite course. They have been trying to get the video pulled off of the Internet, and Roesgen has been unavailable because she is on vacation. Before anyone reads anything too partisan into this, O’Connor also expressed the opinion that Rick Santelli’s rant of the exchange floor that aired on CNBC was also unprofessional. O’Connor is an old school journalist, who makes some great points, but old school journalism doesn’t sell. The news business is now about profit. Fox News makes a huge profit by throwing journalism out the window, as does MSNBC. Cable news is now about personalities, not journalism.
I am not a journalist, nor have I ever been in the situation that Roesgen was in, but I think everyone can agree that she was unprofessional, especially in the way she ended her segment. I disagree with those who try to inject partisan politics into the discussion, because I don’t believe that this was about politics. Roesgen was trying to sensationalize and sell a story. This was about generating headlines and ratings. As far as an apology is concerned, there aren’t enough people in the tea party movement to put any pressure on CNN, so there probably won’t be an apology coming.
For the sake of her own career, Susan Roesgen should apologize. It appears that CNN has decided to let this story blow over. CNN used to be the gold standard of cable news networks, but now they are just another channel trying to make a buck. If anyone wants to watch a real newscast, watch The News Hour on PBS. It is one of the few newscasts left in America where journalism is still practiced. BBC World News America is also good. Those are the few exceptions to what has become the newscast norm.
(h/t: tvnewser)
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
