Gibson: Reporters Who Ignore Anna Nicole Smith To Focus On Iraq War Are ‘Snobs’

[RedEarth]

As ThinkProgress has documented, the death of Anna Nicole Smith was a feeding frenzy for the national media. While many cable news shows have moved on to other stories, Fox News host John Gibson remains fixated on the late Playboy playmate. Every day since Smith’s death on Feb. 8, Gibson has devoted significant segments of his show “The Big Story” to Anna Nicole.

On his radio show on Friday, Gibson attempted to defend his coverage. He accused reporters — such as CNN’s Anderson Cooper — of “news-guy snobbery” and attacked them for covering the Iraq war. Mocking Cooper, he said, “Oh, ‘There’s a war on! There’s a war on!’ Maybe, just maybe, people are a little weary, Mr. Cooper, of your war coverage, and they’d like a little something else.”

Since Smith’s death on Feb. 8, 42 U.S. soldiers have died fighting in Iraq. Approximately 969 Iraqis have been killed. Americans aren’t weary of the media’s war coverage, they’re weary of the war itself.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/02/26/gibson-iraq-media/

[devilgrrl]

1. John Gibson the former hollywood reporter??????

What a imbecile.

[Warpy]

2. "There's a war on Christmas, we Christians are so persecuted"

John Gibson.

Yeah, that one.

[Ian David]

3. Maybe if the news showed all the dead Iraqi women who had big tits, then Gibson would cover it? n/t

[chelsea0011]

4. Figures. He is one of the pack who burst onto the sceen covering

the OJ trial non stop for months into years day in and day out(ann Coulter was part of that crowd). WTF does he know about news that matters?

[KharmaTrain]

5. Cheap, Manufactured Infotainment

Cable news channels love stories like this...they have the "sizzle" and they're cheap and easy to cover...and can chew up hours of empty airtime. All you need is an ENG (Electronic News Gathering) truck...or even a videophone will work these days...and voila, you have "breaking news". No story to chase down...in fact, the story will gladly come to you as every lawyer and PR hack can't get to the "stake out location" fast enough to spin the latest non-story.

ANS represents the ultimate media infotainment orgy. Miss Smith's only claim to fame was located between her legs and her freak show life...manipulated by and for the same infotainment industry created the modern electronic version of Kibuki theater...all of little substance, but entertaining and simple to follow. Greed, sex, death...you can find elements of every "deadly sin" here and the forbidden factor lures people to watch.

Faux can't cover Iraq for many reasons. Obviously they're politically and morally conflicted...but also they don't have the talent and real journalists to cover a serious news story. If anything a serious news story is rarely manipulated and thus goes against the network's alternate black and white universe...where they write the script and the world plays to their tune.

Faux appeals to a fraction of a fraction of the American public...their numbers and "ratings" far outweigh their real import. This fraction is highly arrogant and ignorant...and have a co-dependent realtionship with that network that travels further and further from reality every day.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

6. Sounds like something Spiro Agnew would have said

before he was disgraced and had to leave the Vice Presidency.

I seem to recall a statement by Agnew given at a dinner whereby he accused journalists covering the Vietnam War of being an "effete corps of impudent snobs".