A Double Standard at CNN
by Harry Binswanger
(November 25, 2000)
Pardon me for taking this opportunity to vent my anger.
Bob Dole gave a press conference in Broward County today, and there were a lot of shouting Bush supporters gathered for the event. Three times, the CNN interviewer ("Susan" somebody) announced to us that the crowd had been sent in from out of state, and I think she said or strongly suggested that they were paid to demonstrate.
How many thousands of liberal, union, leftist, or communist demonstrators has TV shown us shouting and parading over the last 35 years? And NEVER, to my recollection, has any mainstream media journalist even hinted at it when demonstrators were sent from out of state or when they were paid -- even though this has to have been the case in half of these, to put it conservatively. Isn't it *standard practice* for union picketers to be people who don't work for the company, aren't in the union, and are paid to picket?
After all, what was the deliberate, nationally recruited effort of the left to disrupt the '68 Chicago convention about? A spontaneous protest of idealists?
Was the Million Man March recruited from DC residents?
And does CNN want to suggest that without some such extraordinary and, by implication, deceptive measures, without hiring people from other states, a presidential candidate who got exactly half the votes of Florida couldn't bring out the small group of people they showed?
They (carefully?) didn't show the crowd, but I thought it must have been about 100 people.
So the double standard is: when those on the right do something it is fishy and needs an expose. When the same thing is done on the left, it is just "the given."
-- The above was an email from Harry Binswanger's List, and is reprinted here by permission. The Harry Binswanger List (HBL) is an email list for Objectivists, moderated by Dr. Binswanger, for discussing philosophic and cultural issues. The HBL is $10 per month or $100 per year; a free one-month trial is available at: http://www.hblist.com/
Dr. Binswanger, a longtime associate of Ayn Rand, is a professor of philosophy at the Objectivist Academic Center of the Ayn Rand Institute.
Special Offer: Dr. Binswanger moderates Harry Binswanger's List (HBL)--an email list for Objectivists for discussing philosophic and cultural issues. The HBL is $14 per month or $145 per year; a free one-month trial is available at: www.hblist.com.
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