WZZM 13 Presents One Side of the Wiretapping Story

Analysis:

This story from WZZM 13 is a very clear example of unbalanced reporting. Only two voices are presented in this piece, White House spokesperson Scott McClellan and republican US representative Peter Hoekstra. Considering that this story is about alleged wrong-doing by the White House, it would make sense from a journalist standpoint to feature voices not affiliated with the White House. Rather, this piece offers not critical viewpoints. Nor does WZZM challenge anything said by either McClellan or Hoekstra. While the footage of McClellan is from a national news source, the footage of Hoekstra is not, being from an interview conducted by a WZZM 13 reporter. It would have been very easy for WZZM to ask Hoekstra follow-up questions to his statements.

Both McClellan and Hoekstra make the claim that the exposure of this wiretapping program has weakened the security of the US. Neither provides any concrete evidence to back this claim up and WZZM 13 does not ask for any verification. McClellan and Hoekstra also both make the claim “that congress members were briefed about the secret program in the past.” According to an article from the New York Times, “no more than 14 members of Congress have been briefed orally of the program since it began, but that no aides and note-taking were allowed during the meetings” and that “lawmakers who attended the briefings have provided starkly different versions of what they were told at the sessions.” Rather than challenge the claims made by Hoekstra, WZZM frames the story entirely within the notion advanced by Hoekstra that the exposure of this wiretapping program has made Americans less safe, going so far as to ask the viewing public to call in on whether they thought “media exposure of the wiretapping program is a serious blow to US security.”

Story:

WZZM Newsreader – The Bush administration is defending the way it dealt with congress on its domestic wire tapping program. Three Democratic and two Republican senators want an immediate inquiry into President Bush’s authorization of the secret program. Press secretary Scott McClellan says lawmakers were briefed more than a dozen times since the program began in 2001. The white house also criticized the media exposure of the program which the New York Times made public last week.

Scott McClellan – The disclosure of this program has damaged our national security and put us at greater risk because the enemy wants to know what we are doing, and by talking about this program. It gives the enemy a sense of what we are doing to try to disrupt plots and prevent attacks.

Newsreader – Critics say congress never authorized intercepting domestic phone calls and emails without a court order. President Bush plans to re-authorize the program when it comes up for renewal. Now tonight we spoke with US representative Pete Hoekstra, and he confirmed that congress members were briefed about the secret program in the past. The Holland republican is chairman of the house intelligence committee. Congressman Hoekstra says the New York Times, breaking the wire tapping story, has significantly weakened our ability to protect ourselves.

Representative Hoekstra – The more important phone call is the one from an Al Qaeda operative, in Afghanistan or Pakistan calling in to the United States. That’s a phone call that we need to be listening to, that we need to understand. We know what the threats are from Al Qaeda. This was a very tightly monitored program. We’ve now lost that capability or exposed that capability to Al Qaeda.

Newsreader – Representative Hoekstra said we lost a great insight into a terrorist network which was used for years and he says the New York Times is to blame. Well do you think media exposure of the wiretapping program is a serious blow to US security? You can go to our website to vote now on our poll 13. Log on to WZZM 13.com to tell us what you think and we will have the results right after tonight’s sports.

Total Time: 2 minutes, five seconds