Anderson Cooper is certainly capable of doing good journalism, but in many cases he simply can’t overcome the clichéd convention of what passes for news reporting on television. Here’s the scenario that nearly every news show on TV uses — get two talking heads that are supposedly on different sides of an issue and let them duke it out like Rock Em’ Sock Em’ Robots.
A recent example of this was Cooper’s embarrassing but typical-for-TV piece about the recent passage of billions to settle more claims inthe Pigford v. Glickman settlement. Pigford is about black farmers who were discriminated against by the USDA in the 1980s and 1990s. There was a consent decree on the case years ago and over a billion dollars in claims were paid, most for a straight settlement of $50,000 that required a lower standard of proof than the average civil case. Many black farmers claimed that $50,000 was chump change while some, mainly on the right, claimed that many of the claims were fraudulent.
Just this week, Congress passed another billion or so to pay for even more claims so Anderson Cooper did the He Said / He Said thing and brought on longtime black farm activist Dr. John Boyd to represent black farmers and Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King to argue against Pigfordbased on the fraud charges. Ding! Let’s get ready to rummmmmble!
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