Dobbs’ Producers Are Doing Their Job

> Update: 2:22pm: An e-mailer responds: “Of course anchors and producers maintain editorial control of their shows. The problems happens when these people’s agendas make their shows ‘unfair and unbalanced.'”

On Friday, a CNN staffer complained that Lou Dobbs and his producers tell correspondents what they can and cannot put in their scripts for his nightly program. In an e-mail to TVNewser, a former Dobbs staffer responds:

“Of course Lou Dobbs and his producers tell correspondents what they can and cannot put into their scripts: that is what producers are paid to do. I suspect Brian Williams and his producers tell correspondents what they should put in their scripts. And this may come as a surprise to some, but you can bet the producers of the CBS Evening News, Anderson Cooper 360 and Paula Zahn Now decide what goes in their shows too. And they may even communicate certain preferences to the reporters. If Lou’s producers and any other news producers didn’t give correspondents guidance on stories they wouldn’t be earning their paychecks. If Lou doesn’t want to do stories on the human tragedy of dehydration in the Sonoran desert, that is his prerogative. If someone wants to make the charge that the Dobbs show is factually inaccurate let them say so out front. But to insinuate that there is something inherently evil about exercising editorial control is childish or at worst, intellectually dishonest.”