While crystal eyes and Jed Lewison have bemoaned the lack of coverage in the MSM of the Stewart/Cramer interview on last night's Daily Show, Katie Couric seems to be ready to make her second big hit (after the magnificent interviews she had with Sarah Palin during the election). Tonight on the CBS Evening News, she ran a three-minute report by Jeff Greenfield on the Daily Show's smack-down. Katie devoted about 1/7th of the available time for the entire broadcast to this story. Follow me below the fold.
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The CBS News website has the entire video which aired at 6:30 p.m. EDT today. Not only did Jeff Greenfield put together a good report on the Daily Show interview, but he even included Robert Gibbs' comments from today's White House briefing:
The president and I talked earlier in the day yesterday about watching it," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. "I enjoyed it thoroughly."
So what was "it"? A major speech? A policy analysis? A legislative breakthrough on the House or Senate floor?
No, reports, CBS News senior political correspondent Jeff Greenfield, it was Thursday night's "Daily Show," where host Jon Stewart's skewered CNBC's financial commentator and "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer.
Greenfield gets the essence of Stewart's concern:
The core of Stewart's anger is his view that in its coverage - and in its lack of skepticism - the press was painting one picture to the public, while knowing full well that the reality was very different.
He closed the report with heart of the problem:
But the real question is this: How do we get the hard questions asked before things go wrong? That is the very serious question the late-night comedian was raising.
Let's hope this move by Katie is only the beginning of an effort to bring the "reporting" of the MSM back to a higher standard of asking the hard questions when they need to be asked.