Balance bails out entirely in the news
Channel Island
TV reporters and anchors get caught up in the heat of the moment.
IT DIDN'T take long for the credit market crisis to reveal both the good and bad sides of television news coverage during a major crisis.
Adept as usual with breaking developments, the news networks delivered essential, real-time coverage of Monday's pivotal House vote that defeated the Bush administration rescue proposal for Wall Street, which in turn precipitated the 778-point Dow plunge.
Ratings zoomed as the Dow dove. Between noon and 1 p.m. Monday, CNN, CNBC, Fox News and MSNBC had a combined audience of 6.3 million viewers, for an increase of 103% compared with normal viewing at that hour during the preceding month, according to Nielsen Media Research. CNBC alone averaged 565,000 viewers for the total day, a 139% spike over its average third-quarter ratings.
But when it came to on-air analysis and reflection, cool heads were few. In the wake of the House vote, CNN anchors at times came dangerously close to shedding any pretense of impartiality about the rescue package, the passage of which they obviously favored.
"Everyone seems to be saying with one voice, in unison, something has to be done," CNN anchor Rick Sanchez admonished after a parade of reporters and analysts struck ominous tones to discuss possible consequences of the bailout's failure.
Ali Velshi, CNN's senior business correspondent, said he sympathized with people who didn't like the idea of a bailout but admitted, "I have been sort of saying to people, 'You have to close your nose and swallow it.' "
At one point Tuesday morning, CNN ran a graphic that read, "The American Dream, R.I.P. 1789-2008."
On CNBC, anchor Maria Bartiromo wondered why President Bush hadn't just told House Republicans to "vote on this." And Jim Cramer, the ever-excitable host of CNBC's "Mad Money," dismissed Congress ("They know nothing!" he shouted) for failing to pass a "much-needed bailout that I believe we needed to stave off a second Great Depression."
Amid all the table-thumping, many at the networks did not probe very deeply into why the bailout measure had failed, which probably sowed even more confusion for viewers.
A SurveyUSA poll released Monday -- the day the House voted -- found that half of Americans said they didn't know enough about the bailout to express an opinion about it.
