Thursday, August 30, 2012

NPR's Ryan Rebuttal

I heard a news story done differently than I'm used to. Mara Liasson was reporting on Paul Ryan's speech at the GOP convention. As she played the highlights of his speech, she then offered a rebuttal of each point or reminded the audience of another view of the subject. I didn't think that her responses were unfair or inaccurate, it was just something I don't remember a reporter doing in that way before. I was partly appreciative and partly irritated. I didn't like it that she felt a need to rebut each point, even was she wasn't disagreeing with a fact but only adding to the framing.

I suppose time will tell if she covers the speech from Romney, Biden, and Obama in the same way or if this was treatment reserved only for a few.

Update: Apparently I wasn't the only one that noticed, and apparently NPR wasn't the only one to do it.

Update: When I read this Fox News opinion writer's summary of the four main errors in the Ryan speech, I thought that 3 of the 4 were really differences in opinion or spin rather than factual errors. The fourth one seemed to be a more tricky one. Ryan claimed that an auto plant closed and you were sort of left with the impression that it had happened under Obama's watch, even if his language technically left it open either way. But now it appears that the fact checkers were factually inaccurate and that Ryan was more informed about the events in his home town than they were. Ryan is vindicated.

Update: I just listened yo Liasson's report on Romney's speech and she played it pretty straight.