On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Laura Coates Live,” CNN Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter stated that while CBS should have been transparent about the “60 Minutes” interview with then-presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris, “even transparency’s not always the answer, because transparency can also be used against news outlets to create the idea of a problem, when there actually isn’t one. Look what’s happening right now with this government spending database.”
Host Laura Coates asked, “Is transparency, though, the lesson here? Obviously, no one endeavors to — nor should — distort a statement to benefit anyone, it should be simply the [relaying] of information, even if it is edited down for the length of it. Is the new game in town essentially going to be that transparency, having that raw footage, has this changed, fundamentally, how outlets might deal?”
Stelter answered, “Well, I think, number one, CBS, yes, should have been transparent from the get-go. But even transparency’s not always the answer, because transparency can also be used against news outlets to create the idea of a problem, when there actually isn’t one. Look what’s happening right now with this government spending database. People are cherry-picking data, misinterpreting what’s out there in the public domain, pretending that there are scandals, when there are not.”
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