So I assume you’ve all heard that several former American hostages are claiming that the president-elect of Iran was one of their captors in 1979. Well my wife, who is a forensic artist, got a call today from a booking agent at Fox News, who invited her to appear as a talking head on one of their live shows, using her expertise to prove or disprove the claims.
Isn’t that a riot? After considering it for an hour or two, she politely declined their offer. We looked at the then/now photos and decided that the only claim she could honestly make is, “There is nothing in these photos that would confirm without a doubt that these are not photos of the same man.” But we figured that the nuances of any sentence that employed a double-negative construction would be lost in the white noise of cable news. Isn’t it amazing, though, that a news producer would think a Google search and a pre-interview phone call would be enough to establish someone as a credible source?
Reminds me of a clip I saw on the Daily Show a week or two ago. During their coverage of the Michael Jackson trial (I think), the host of a show on Fox News discovered that some story was about to break but he had no details. He then turned to the other members of his panel and said, “Well, we don’t know what’s happening exactly, but it must be big. Speculate away!” As Jon Stewart says, cable news has now officially become a bunch of guys with a camera, talking.
I don’t know what I’m more proud of: that Jo was asked or that she declined the offer.