'Face the Nation' Host Schieffer Didn't Ask Holder About Black Panther Case Because He 'Just Didn't Know About It'

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had just about enough of this nonsense:

Transcript from Newsbusters:

KURTZ: Let’s start with the obvious question. Why did you not ask Eric Holder in that interview about this former Justice official’s allegation that a case against the New Black Panther Party was dropped because of racial politics?

SCHIEFFER: Well, it’s certainly a question that is a legitimate question to ask. And basically what happened was this all really became a story when the whistleblower came out and testified that he’d had to leave the Justice Department and so on. And, frankly, had I known about that, I would have asked the question.

I was on vacation that week. This happened — apparently, it got very little publicity. And, you know, I just didn’t know about it.

I mean, you know, God knows everything, but I’m not quite that good. Every once in a while, something will slip by me. And in this case, it just slipped by me. If I’d have known it, I would have asked about it.

This is, of course, Howard Kurtz interviewing Bob Scheiffer on Reliable Sources.

Bob Schieffer marginalized the DOJ/New Black Panther controversy first by not asking the Attorney General about it, and then again with his phony “it got very little publicity” line. Of course “it got very little publicity,” Mr. Scheiffer; you’re the guy in charge of publicity! When a mainstream media authority whines that something wasn’t covered in the MSM, it’s the definition of a circular argument.

First let’s give Schieffer the benefit of the doubt and assume he wasn’t actually aware of the New Black Panther case Holder’s DOJ just dropped and would have asked about it if he had been. Vacation or no vacation, how could the CBS Face the Nation anchor go on television unaware of this particular story? The Senior Fellows over at Media Matters point out that Fox News, for examples, has run roughly 95 segments on the scandal since it broke. Granted not all of them were before Schieffer’s interview with Holder, but it’s shockingly irresponsible of the CBS News team to let Schieffer go on-air with the Attorney General when he hadn’t been briefed on the most buzz-worthy DOJ topic of the day.

Or maybe that’s too far fetched and Schieffer was telling a little fib when he said he “just didn’t know about it.” After all, it’s some coincidence Schieffer has to resort to the “I’m not God” defense on a news item where the right just so happens to look good and left just so happens to look like race-baiters. If this is the case, he’s committed a newsman’s cardinal sin: dishonesty.

We can conclude, using only Schieffer’s own words, that he was either negligent in his duties as CBS News’ Chief Washington Correspondent and anchor, or he flat-out lied to the American public. We’re in the best of hands.

The Schieffer example provides a pitch-perfect illustration of how the left-biased mainstream media and the Obama administration have marginalized the new media as best they can. Here’s the strategy in a nutshell: Obama and the MSM willfully ignore a story prevailing in the alternative media; the story builds up enough traction to break through into the old media; Obama/MSM authority with glasses down nose chuckle and play the “God knows everything, but I’m not quite that good” card; Obama/MSM authority go back to willfully ignoring important new media stories. Here are a couple blasts from the not-too-distant past to illustrate:

First, then-World News Tonight anchor Charlie Gibson admitting he was unaware of the ACORN scandal days after the first videos were released at BigGovernment.com leading to massive coverage on cable news, talk radio, and in the rest of the blogosphere:

[audio: https://media.breitbart.com/media/cdn/biggovernment/files/2009/09/charlie-gibson-transcribe.mp3|titles=Charlie Gibson ACORN]

Over two weeks after the ACORN sandal hit, New York Times ombudsman Clark Hoyt penned what must have been a painful column admitting the Times had erred when it didn’t immediately deem the findings in the ACORN video exposé fit to print. One of many highlights:

Jill Abramson, the managing editor for news, agreed with me that the paper was “slow off the mark,” and blamed “insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio.” She and Bill Keller, the executive editor, said last week that they would now assign an editor to monitor opinion media and brief them frequently on bubbling controversies.

And finally, here’s Obama playing dumb after being asked about the ACORN scandal over a week after it had broken:

[youtube 4R4uRczyYOI nolink]

Lest you forget, this Stephanopoulos interview took place just about a week after ACORN was de-linked from the Census. Surely Obama hadn’t missed that news flash.

In summation, the aforementioned “nonsense” of which “I’ve had just about enough” is more than run-of-the-mill MSM bias. I’ve had just about enough of the mainstream media weaponizing the suppression of stories and then playing it cool when they get caught. The prevalence of this Ignore the New Media Now, Apologize Later tactic illustrates precisely why it’s not enough to try to fix the old media; it needs to be defeated.