"An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted." - Arthur Miller

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Michael Moore vs Wolf Blitzer

Michael Moore appeared on CNN recently to promote his new documentary Sicko. CNN started the interview off by having a brief report from Dr. Sanjay Gupta that is supposed to be a "reality check" for the film. However, it seems that the film is less about proving his facts wrong and more about how some facts where not mentioned in the movie. Basically Moore commits the same act that the press does everyday, cherry picking information.

This report was viewed by Moore who went ballistic. He used that "reality check" to tear into CNN's failure to check for facts leading up to the Iraq War. A similar "reality check" was used for Fahrenheit 9/11 which later turned out to be mostly accurate in its predictions even though at the time the press agreed with Bush's "greeted as liberators" plan and did nothing to question it and any of his other decision.

The end result is a very interesting interview that shows the tactics that the press and Moore uses when it comes the sharing (or lack of) information and also an amusing insight on how flustered the media gets now when things go off script.

To get the whole story, watch the videos in order below:
Dr. Gupta Sicko Reality Check


Moore vs Blitzer Part I


Moore vs Blitzer Part II


Update: Turns out Gupta was notified of an error in his report a week before its first airing and his producers chose to ignore it. Its one of the main "facts" of the piece about the $25 vs $251 per capita spending by Cuba. Without that fact, it just becomes a report about information left out rather then a report about inaccuracies. Below is the attempt to spin it, probably not aware the emails would get out.

No comments:

Post a Comment