Reply #9: Glad ABC showed some of this

[southlandshari]

I only caught about 45 minutes of the motorcade part of the parade around 2:15 - 3:00 pm CDT today. I certainly realize that all of our big broadcast and cable news media have been co-opted by corporate interests, so I don't expect much honest reporting anymore. But I was still shocked at the absolutely shameless pandering drivel that was passing as "commentary" by some of the "big names" on CNN. There was no audio of the motorcade, and several of CNN's main anchors just gushed on and on about how wonderful the whole thing was. Wolf Blitzer kept saying things like, "we shouldn't make too much of the protesters, they are probably just a tiny, tiny fraction of those here today." It was revolting.

Switched to C-SPAN and the contrast was remarkable. No commentary, just video AND audio of the parade, and it was very clear very quickly that there were indeed plenty of protesters on hand despite obviously incredible efforts to keep them hidden and marginalize.

At times the whole thing seemed like something you would see in the former Soviet Union or even North Korea. It just had a forced and theatrical feel that made my skin crawl. The guy on the PA doing play-by-play on which block the motorcade was on at any given time was absolutely surreal. Creepy.