Cable News Watchdog

Iraq votes: riveting cable news coverage

The coverage is gripping. FNC is showing live footage of an empty polling place decorated with lovely flower arrangements and repeated footage of two empty plastic ballot boxes. In a split screen window, an analyst is saying, and I'm not making this up, "This video you're showing is truly historical."

MSNBC is showing the same looped footage of a woman in a yellow coat voting, and looped footage of a man in a white shirt examining a ballot box as if it's broken. Scarborough is "anchoring" for some reason, further blurring the line between pundit and reporter. A correspondent in Iraq just said, "People are turning out to vote," while the split screen live footage is the same totally empty polling place which is being shown on FNC.

And CNN has been showing a vacant polling place with three men in black standing out front shooing some sheep.