Lulu Belle
Moonbat
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2012/03/scientology_nightline_exclusive.php
Nightline's Scientology "Exclusive": What was Exclusive About It, Exactly?
I had a strange and powerful case of déjà vu last night while watching Nightline's interview with Debbie Cook as she talked about being held in "the Hole" at Scientology's international base in California, where executives who fall out of favor with church leader David Miscavige are sent to rot in an office-prison for weeks, months, even years at a time.
Well, OK, it wasn't really déjà vu I was experiencing. Which fancy French term do you use when you're seeing a news organization claim it has an "EXCLUSIVE" on an interview that quite a few of us other journalists have already heard numerous times before?
I don't know. Anyone out there good with French? Anyone know how to say "cringeworthy mainstream media epic fail"?
OK, I don't want to sound too harsh. I want to make it very clear that it is thrilling to see Debbie Cook taken seriously by a national news platform with such a large audience. Her story reached millions yesterday as it appeared on both Good Morning America and Nightline.
But for those of us who have been covering Debbie Cook as a breaking story since the first few minutes of 2012, it was maddening to see the way Nightline reported her story yesterday from what could only be characterized as abject fear.
ABC appeared so terrified of Scientology's litigious reputation, it not only allowed the church to hurl unsworn smears of her character in large quantities, but more egregiously, it failed to give any indication that Cook is only the latest of several former executives to come forward and describe the same exact allegations of abuse inside the church.
Cook came off last night the same way she did in a Bexar County, Texas courtroom on February 9: credible, factual, and unflappable. But ABC seemed to go out of its way to make her sound like a lone voice crying out about abuses without any kind of previous corroboration.
ABC had no excuse for presenting Cook's allegations without any kind of larger perspective or history: It's been nearly three years since Tom Tobin and Joe Childs exposed the horrors of "the Hole" in their explosive series, "The Truth Rundown" at the St. Petersburg Times (now Tampa Bay Times).
Janet Reitman also wrote about "the Hole" in her book Inside Scientology, published last summer. And Marc Headley wrote about the horrors of the Int Base in his escape narrative Blown for Good, which came out in 2009.
But even if we give Nightline the benefit of the doubt and assume that, as a typical view-from-nowhere national television program that can't deign to admit that it actually gets its story ideas from newspapers, magazines, and -- heaven forbid -- blogs, we still can't let Nightline off the hook on this one.
(read the rest at VV)
Nightline's Scientology "Exclusive": What was Exclusive About It, Exactly?
I had a strange and powerful case of déjà vu last night while watching Nightline's interview with Debbie Cook as she talked about being held in "the Hole" at Scientology's international base in California, where executives who fall out of favor with church leader David Miscavige are sent to rot in an office-prison for weeks, months, even years at a time.
Well, OK, it wasn't really déjà vu I was experiencing. Which fancy French term do you use when you're seeing a news organization claim it has an "EXCLUSIVE" on an interview that quite a few of us other journalists have already heard numerous times before?
I don't know. Anyone out there good with French? Anyone know how to say "cringeworthy mainstream media epic fail"?
OK, I don't want to sound too harsh. I want to make it very clear that it is thrilling to see Debbie Cook taken seriously by a national news platform with such a large audience. Her story reached millions yesterday as it appeared on both Good Morning America and Nightline.
But for those of us who have been covering Debbie Cook as a breaking story since the first few minutes of 2012, it was maddening to see the way Nightline reported her story yesterday from what could only be characterized as abject fear.
ABC appeared so terrified of Scientology's litigious reputation, it not only allowed the church to hurl unsworn smears of her character in large quantities, but more egregiously, it failed to give any indication that Cook is only the latest of several former executives to come forward and describe the same exact allegations of abuse inside the church.
Cook came off last night the same way she did in a Bexar County, Texas courtroom on February 9: credible, factual, and unflappable. But ABC seemed to go out of its way to make her sound like a lone voice crying out about abuses without any kind of previous corroboration.
ABC had no excuse for presenting Cook's allegations without any kind of larger perspective or history: It's been nearly three years since Tom Tobin and Joe Childs exposed the horrors of "the Hole" in their explosive series, "The Truth Rundown" at the St. Petersburg Times (now Tampa Bay Times).
Janet Reitman also wrote about "the Hole" in her book Inside Scientology, published last summer. And Marc Headley wrote about the horrors of the Int Base in his escape narrative Blown for Good, which came out in 2009.
But even if we give Nightline the benefit of the doubt and assume that, as a typical view-from-nowhere national television program that can't deign to admit that it actually gets its story ideas from newspapers, magazines, and -- heaven forbid -- blogs, we still can't let Nightline off the hook on this one.
(read the rest at VV)