Fake But Accurate on CNN.
Here is the video of Jill Zimon on CNN. You may not have heard of Jill but she is a very nice person who looks dazzling on TV. She is also a committed Democrat, feminist, and activist within the party.
Jill Miller Zimon
Exposes CNN’s Liberal Bias.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the studio. CNN cast Jill as the “moderate” in a discussion featuring a conservative, liberal, and “moderate.” The little secret remained hidden that Jill is a proud liberal which makes for fake TV and another phony debate at CNN revealing their liberal bias.
To the liberal media, two against one qualifies as a balanced perspective. Add the Democrat announcer into the picture, and they are presenting three Democrats and one Republican for public consumption.
Shame on CNN for intentionally misleading the public once again. Why Jill would participate in such a sham will remain a mystery. Knowing Jill, we assume that the fake portrayal is not her fault and that she has vehemently protested the error.
Among other things, Zimon uses her role as the assumed “independent” to promote the discredited New York Times story on John McCain. Jill glowingly discusses Obama, Clinton, Ralph Nader, and talks a little too much about Dennis Kucinich. She does it all in her usually articulate manner, but the real question is why is she in the wrong frame?
You can read more from Jill at WritesLikeSheTalks.com.
Update: Received email indicating that CNN knew about Jill before putting her on as the “moderate.” As as upstanding blogger, Jill revealed herself to the producers which means that nobody can give CNN the benefit of the doubt about faking out the public.
Hey there -
Yup – I bent over backwards to tell them that I lean left but I don’t
write a ton of partisan stuff. They read my blog – and on and on –
we talked a lot about it. But I also blog regularly at The Moderate
Voice and I was on the show representing TMV – where, again, I don’t
write partisan stuff – that’s not my deal and you know it – why –
McCain – you know very well that you have me on RightPundits because
of my oh-so moderate and thoughtful approach!Now don’t you be
disingenuous my good man.Jill
email reprinted by permission.
The reason this is so bad is that the public will listen to the “moderate” voice more than the partisans. They also associate moderate with independent. As a result, Jill got more airtime than either of the party hacks and her sham identification means she was given the benefit of the doubt as a non-partisan.
And she used that time as the good Democrat to attack John McCain who in reality has great appeal to real moderates and independents. This is why Jill’s participation in this sham is intellectually disappointing, but I recognize that CNN is the real problem here. Nobody should be shocked to find liberal bias at CNN anymore.
February 26th, 2008 at 4:13 am
wow – I take a few days off to attend classes and work for a living a Jill and McCain get into a spat!
Jill – you looked Mahvelous – as you always do. I have no problem with CNN bringing Jill into the fray. At least I know there is a thinking Dem out there who recognizes that even though we probably disagree with almost everything politically, that we all have aright to our opinions – and gasp – she actually THINKS about her positions!
McCain – she was on there as representing her moderate blog, but that shows you how far the Dems have gone from center – an unabashed Democrat that isn’t trying to gouge out the eyes of conservatives is considered a moderate.
Keep up the good work, Jill! Now all we need to do is strighten out CNN!
February 26th, 2008 at 5:05 am
McCain in #22 – leftist and left of center are two completely different things – did you take off your thinking cap when you wrote that, my dear? Castro is a leftist, I am left of center.
You are on a warpath with CNN – that’s your battle. I understand better your MO. I’ve only asked to be left out of it because it isn’t about me and I believe you know that too.
But I am glad everyone thinks I looked good! And I didn’t even look like I’m probably 20 years older than the two other talking heads.
FWIW – I never watch Fox, rarely watch MSNBC, only less rarely watch CNN – my favorite is C-SPAN, always. And Bravo. But mostly, I simply don’t watch television. We only own one in my house of five.
February 26th, 2008 at 7:58 am
MBT, I agree. But remember that what is normally done when there is any hint of the audience getting mislead, is that the talking head will briefly explain her bias to the audience before presenting a view. That keeps everything above board. Jill will know to do that next time because of how they presented her, but wouldn’t it be simpler just to take the Dem spot on a panel like that?
February 26th, 2008 at 8:59 am
Until now I had never heard of Jill Zimon. And from what I have seen and heard I don’t believe I have missed anything worthwhile.
February 26th, 2008 at 10:13 am
blog-hole reader yadayada stuff said:
Hahaha! Thanks, Mr/Mz hole, I needed that! Good to have a chuckle in the first part of the day! Don’t need a particular author to tell me to pay no attention to the bias behind the curtain when my own eyes and ears tell me that there certainly is liberal bias in the media as a whole. Perhaps any lying involved is one lying to oneself. Mark Twain was right when he said “Denial aint just a river in Egypt”.
Jill – you figure you’re quite a bit older than the two people that were with you on CNN? Huh. I might have thought some, but not a lot. You don’t look it.
). If that’s what you do I’ll have to check out your blog.
It is kind of interesting to get opposing views without the ridiculous frothing rancor (you don’t have to agree with me – you have the right to be wrong if you want to
February 26th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
McCain – she was asked to be in the Moderate slot. She got her foot in the door and she got her point across. If you were asked to be on CNN or Fox as a moderate, wouldn’t you take the chance? Then you can espouse your views and eventually, you may get that conservative spot that you really like and go for it. BUt you hae to get your foot in the door.
Personally, I am really rpoud of Jill – I don’t agree with her politics, most of the time, although we do agree in some areas, but she has a reason for why she believes as she does, and I respect that. So there! :p
February 26th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Jill,
CSPAN??????!!!!!
How much coffee do you drink in a day?
February 26th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
MBT, if I was asked to represent the “undecided” middle spot on FoxNews, I would start by saying “thank you Brit, but in the interest of disclosure to your audience my blog and views are that of a conservative blog” (or “leans right” in Orwellian-speak). Then I would launch into my views. You see talking heads do that all the time when there is any chance of misleading an audience.
Throughout this I have given Jill the benefit of the doubt that she did not realize she would cast in the role of middling independent (assumed by the audience) but that this was CNN’s fault. Now I see we are page 1 for a search of her name which is kind of creepy but so be it.
I posted this expecting that Jill would also get a hilarious hoot out of being labeled a “moderate” between Democrat and Republican by CNN and quickly share a laugh, but for some reason that did not happen. Lo and behold I am slowly learning there is more to this charade than seemed obvious at first. Of course anyone would accept a TV role, but I wouldn’t do it by intentionally faking out the audience. Neither would you.
February 27th, 2008 at 4:01 am
MDeFl – I agree – CSPAN is as boring as is gets… of course, you don’t get Senate speeches interrupted by talking heads either…
McCain – remember, “foot in the door.” I probably would have siad something, but she was representing the moderate blog, which of, course, I would have moderated my comments to reflect as well. However, if you “don’t behave” you won’t get invited back. Which is whyc I probably wouldn’t ever want to go on CNN – it would probably be an ambush … on the other hand, taking on 3 liberals might be fun….
February 28th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
IM1RU2:
I think you are saying that you would give me the benefit of the doubt and at least judge what I have to say based on watching and listening. I think that’s how it should be. I think McCain has overreached here in order to further the concern he has about CNN. But again, this is his blog and overreaching happens all the time.
I know how it went down, I know I was being, as William F. Buckley, RIP, has said he was taught by his father, intellectually honest. I don’t know what more I can do when I am responding to questions in a dialogue as was going on on the CNN show.
As for the age difference, er, um, yeah – I’m a baby boomer no less. I’m certain those gentlemen are a minimum of 10-15 years younger. MAYBE 20 – I just don’t know.
February 28th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Thanks, MBT. I appreciate it. Very much. And the feelings are mutual.
February 28th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
MDefl – I know – CSpan – I’m lame, what can I tell you. But it’s only when I’m on the treadmill trying to stay young looking. Otherwise, I’m listening to…don’t have a heart attack – NPR!
February 28th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
McCain, you wrote:
“I posted this expecting that Jill would also get a hilarious hoot out of being labeled a “moderateâ€? between Democrat and Republican by CNN and quickly share a laugh, but for some reason that did not happen. Lo and behold I am slowly learning there is more to this charade than seemed obvious at first. Of course anyone would accept a TV role, but I wouldn’t do it by intentionally faking out the audience. Neither would you.”
no no no no no – it is not like that. never was – I’ve told you that.
This wasn’t about getting on TV. I informed CNN of everything I write and where they could look specifically because it is their decision as to whether or not I would be appropriate for the show. I would NEVER try to get on TV and anyone who knows me knows that. Actually most people who know me would laugh if I said that I was finessing my credentials or my ideas in order to get on TV. That’s completely inconsistent with who I am and what I do.
Rather, I did what I always do – I give people the information and the places to get information so that they can make a decision. And that’s what happened – they called other people who know my work and those people consider me a moderate.
There are people out there who think I’m a hawk because I receive mail from AIPAC. There are people who think I’m a radical because I worked for Bruce Morrison (a CT rep from the 80s and early 90s who worked in the Clinton adminstration).
Face it – some people, such as myself, don’t implode from the burden of holding views that do not fall into the same pigeon hole every single solitary time.
And I am and have always been totally cool with that.
I will add that, as this thread demonstrates, it subjects one to a lot of questions – you should see some of the threads on my blog in which I’m being bludgeoned with words to “come out” as a Hillary supporter – when I’m not one to begin with. The several in the Ohio male political blogosphere are 100% sure that because I say I’m undecided, and that they are lambasting Hillary supporters, and I am a woman, then I must be for Hillary – otherwise, they are sure, I’d declare my undenying support for Obama.
Now really – and I know MBT is probably laughing, nodding her head and smiling – that is so not me.
I don’t “just go along,” I don’t “just join,” and I don’t finesse.
The only one who is performing a charade is you. You’re trying to stick it to CNN. Go for it. But don’t use me as some willing or duped foil who was just trying to get on TV. That’s ridiculous and pretty low blow to boot.
February 28th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
I didn’t say that. Again,
1) Either, you were miscast in the role because CNN is liberally bias. This was my thesis. A second theoretical explanation for putting you in the wrong frame is they are sloppy and lazy screeners, but you were clear with them so that isn’t it.
2) Or, you wanted to get on TV and therefore stretched your credentials of impartiality. MBT broached this topic as she talked about getting your “foot in the door” which is something that I responded to in #33. Knowing you, that isn’t how I feel and your email makes this point very clear.
I suppose that the more you seemed to repudiate #1, the more #2 seems possible to some of us. But I am with you all the way on #1.
So, let’s agree: You explained to CNN your liberal credentials and regardless of that they stuck you in the role as an impartial “moderate” between Republican and Democrat. This is a good example of CNN liberal bias.
My only criticism of you in this respect is that you didn’t announce your bias on air. But I even gave you the benefit of the doubt that you didn’t know how you would be subtitled on the screen.
February 28th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Hey you know? I bet you could beat Barack Obama if you keep up this unifying stuff!
Agreed BUT (lol you knew that was coming!):
1. I do not have “liberal” credentials. I have credentials. I have a LOT of credentials that put me all over the map – I graduated from a Catholic university, I spent a year in Israel doing volunteer work, I worked for the Reagan justice department for two-three years, and I interned for a liberal congressman.
You call the credentials liberal but the fact is, I’m a bundle of credentials from all along the spectrum, McCain – like I wrote before – I cannot be pigeonholed and that’s part of being “in the middle.”
CNN made the call – I didn’t tell them what it should be.
2. They didn’t “stick me” with “impartial moderate.” They put the words “in the middle” on the screen and when it was my picture, they put “The Moderate Voice” on the screen – that is the name of a BLOG – not that I am the moderate voice (you do know that right? that it’s a blog and that’s the blog’s title? like under Goldfarb and Chang was their blog’s title?).
3. No one announces their bias on tv the way you seem to suggest it’s done. Not on Fox, not on MSNBC, not on any other station. But even if they did, I don’t HAVE a bias. That’s why I am in the middle. I am there to give my analysis and that’s what I did. The listener is smart enough to figure it out, if I have a bias, and if they watch and say, I can’t figure out who she’d vote for, then that again is why…tada – I am in the middle.
Let me end with these fine words someone emailed me after reading this thread:
“What a crock of s**t. You were very moderate, and I would hardly say you spoke glowingly of anyone, much less Nader. At least they got it right that you’re a very nice person who looks dazzling on TV.”
Full disclosure: that person is an Obama supporter who voted for Michael Bloomberg.
February 28th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
But you are not in the middle. You are a liberal blogger. It is of course “CNN’s decision” but that alone doesn’t give one moral highground to deceive an audience. You see, that is the problem with this. You do have a bias. A liberal bias, which is why you are undecided between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but not undecided between Barack Obama and John McCain. Every human has a bias and brings that reality to the table.
And in this case, again, the audience will listen to you more because you are allowing CNN to misrepresent yourself as the middle, which the audience reads as independent between Democrat and Republican no matter what semantical games you now want to play with the words. So when you launch into your subtle accolades for Obama and not so subtle criticism of McCain, the audience thinks “gee, looks like moderates dislike John McCain and like Obama.” That is phony. You know it, I know it, and CNN knows it. The audience does NOT know your bias, and that is the problem with misrepresenting yourself.
February 28th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
McCain – you have stated your perspective. I don’t share it – I think there are many others who don’t share, just as I imagine there are plenty of people who do share it.
You call my bias liberal. Others call my bias moderate. Others still call my bias neo-conservative – I kid you not.
I will continue to write what I write and say what I say and if you are unhappy, you know how to express yourself, as I do too.
Thank God for America.
February 28th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
You don’t share the perspective that a self-described “left leaning” blogger should not be described as in the “middle” on a televised debate? Jill, wonderful you, I love you so don’t be such a phony.
February 28th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
You have the answer in your comment, McCain:
“self-described” says it all. How I see myself has NO BEARING on how anyone else sees me.
You have no idea what it means to look at something with fresh eyes, to be color-blind or any other kind of blind. Why do you cling so strongly to labels? Why do you want to resist believing that people can honestly and legitimately represent and possess and have an allegiance to multiple point of views? Why do you not accept that even along a continuum, everything is relative?
You can call me a phony all you want, McCain – it doesn’t make me one except to you for labeling that way. I trust other people to watch that clip, read what I write, ask me questions and decide for themselves.
If anything – you are working your butt off trying to paint me a certain way and squish me into some confined box of political ideology that makes it easier for you to make what you believe are arguments.
Go for it. But I won’t have any of it.
February 28th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
Oh – and thanks for calling me wonderful.
February 28th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
… because your bias has a bearing on your views, and your views were represented in your remarks. You cut down John McCain and praised Obama, just as one would expect from a lefty blogger. You did not present the views of a “moderate” middle in between leans no way person. Now of course you did it very sweetly without malice, which is why I like you, just like William F. Buckley would have done it from the right. but nobody would call him middle just because he sounded reasonable.
So Jill, time to cut it out. Even if your CNN comments did not give away your bias, which they did, what CNN did is still wrong because they knew you might present a biased view. They had knowledge in advance that you are a liberally-bias blogger and still pretended you were in the middle. And you are pretending now too. Bad girl.
February 28th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
McCain – I don’t take kindly to being called “girl” let alone “bad girl” – I’m not a pet or a possession. Which is why I had to butt in on Michael Goldfarb’s absolutely disgusting line about how it makes McCain cool to suggest he’s getting it on with a younger lobbyist.
I don’t do pretend. It’s sad that you can’t get out of your box to see that not everyone lives in one and only one box.
I learned a few months ago from an Evangelical Christian in Ohio who writes a conservative blog that conservatives look at things as black and white, that they don’t see shades of anything. There is no such thing as a fence – that everyone must commit to something. He taught me that trying to get him to see the myriad variations of how people can see the same instance was as futile as his trying to get me to come down from a fence that gives me a view into multiple facets of the same scene.
You prove his point about the black and white.
February 28th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Many in the Ohio blogosphere, including myself, once jeered Jill for being “a bit wingnutty”. Given that and your criticism of her I’d say that puts here squarely in the moderate category no?
February 28th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Jill, your shallow caricature of the entire body of conservative thought is simply more evidence of your liberal bias. That is expected from a liberal. On the flip-side, what has anyone taught you about liberals that you would care to share?
And it is true that not everyone lives in a box. Okay, but you live in a liberal box. Why are you pretending otherwise? This thread has now become about YOU since you are inexplicably defending CNN and nobody knows why. Amazing.
February 29th, 2008 at 4:44 am
McCain – that wasn’t my caricature. That was the Ohio conservative blogger’s explanation to me as to why he will and conservatives will never see nuances – there were other parties on the phone call – I’d be happy to have you email him to confirm his conservative world view of conservatives as he explained it to me.
Personally? I can’t believe that people only see things in black and white – even if it’s true, I don’t like accepting it – which is why I’m still here conversing with you because even though you are a poster blogger for this black and whiteness of the way things work, I’m still here showing you how that’s not the case.
You can define me for yourself anyway you choose. But, as W.C. Fields said, “It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.”