The ABC Debacle

Like President Obama doesn’t have enough stuff being the president now he has an actual television broadcasting network at his disposal…ABC.

The soon to be program from the White House on the healthcare issue is a direction so foreign to what we have seen in the past that it is frightening.

Why? Because Americans have seen the major news networks as an impartial observer to national and world events and they have needed that so that they can obtain facts and come to acceptable decisions on important manners. The news has always needed to have an arms-length attitude about any newsworthy subject in order to serve who they serve…the viewing public but ABC has crossed a line, in my opinion.

While it was uncomfortable to see Charlie Gibson almost wet his pants on TV the night that Barak Obama was elected president; it is even more uncomfortable to have the obvious cronyism displayed on national TV. Where is the arms-length distance for ABC to honestly assess the president’s healthcare initiative so it can be presented in a fair and “impartial” manner to the American public?

I, for one will not be watching it for several reasons:

• No allowance has been made by ABC to allow any dissenting voices or questions to be heard during this time.
• No ads espousing a different opinion will be allowed during the broadcast.
• Handpicked people will be allowed to attend the broadcast and all questions will be screened beforehand. (The president will have the answers on his teleprompter, I am sure).
  

I am boycotting ABC national news not only on the night of this broadcast but in the future. I will continue to watch the local ABC affiliate but as for Charlie Gibson and ABC; they have crossed a line with me that I cannot allow myself to step back over in the future. Too bad, because I really liked him and thought he did as good a job as anyone in trying to “report” the news and not make it.