Friday, June 25, 2010

Yet Another Propagandist at FOX "News"

Since I don't often watch the American version of Pravda, I had no idea who Neil Cavuto is. So I went to the propagandist's own web page and lifted this (slightly modified) copy: it turns out that, over at FOX "News," Neil Cavuto "is Senior Vice President of Business News, while continuing to serve as anchor and managing editor" and where, additionally, "he is responsible for anchoring the daily, one-hour daytime financial program, Your World With Neil Cavuto, (4-5 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday)." Cavuto, I also learned, has been named "the best interviewer in broadcast business news" by The Journalist and Financial Reporter."

If this guy is an award-winning business journalist I really chose the wrong line of work. I watched this interview he did today with Ron Blackwell who is chief economist at the AFL-CIO. The topic was whether government programs had done anything to offset job losses in our current economic disaster. Blackwell was trying to explain that he thought the answer to that question is 'yes.' After blustering, interrupting, and (in the process) demonstrating that he is incapable of grasping basic economic concepts or mathematics, Cavuto asks Blackwell the following question: "Where did you get your degree? A baking school? Where are you cooking up these numbers?" Blackwell replied - while still on the air - in exactly the way one should in the face of an ignorant blow-hard, telling Cavuto: "You're a joker. You're an asshole." Just so.