CNN show selectively picks and chooses quotes

Ken Shepherd of the Business & Media Institute writes Wednesday that a recent segment on CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight” show seletively uses quotes from a source that makes them appear to be in favor of raising taxes when they are not.

Shepherd wrote, “Anchor Lou Dobbs sounded the alarm about federal highways ‘now being sold to the highest bidder’ as he introduced a story by Lisa Sylvester.

“Sylvester began by suggesting that ‘Wall Street is paving the road to highway privatization’ and that far from being sound policy, ‘states are eyeing privatization as a quick fix.’

“Sylvester, who earned her master’s degree from the distinguished Medill School of Journalism, then aired a clip of the Reason Foundation’s Robert Poole. The sound bite featured the transportation policy expert observing that while ‘people are frustrated’ with congested roads and that ‘nobody really wants to raise gas taxes.’

“Those sound bite selections left viewers with the impression that Poole favors more taxes and government spending on highways, which is far from true.

“Yet when asked by the Business & Media Institute (BMI) about his reaction to Sylvester’s presentation, Poole assured BMI that he ‘addressed all their concerns in the material we taped.’

“’I was afraid they would selectively use what I said,’ Poole lamented in an e-mail, adding he’d ‘debated whether even to be interviewed’ given the show’s previous biased presentation on transportation.”

Read more here.