Politico’s Michael Calderone writes in depth about the recent boom in coverage of the “birthers” movement and asks if networks—specifically MSNBC—are giving the movement unwarranted legitimacy just by spending so much airtime disproving it:
On the same day that Dobbs was shushing Crowley, MSNBC was covering the “birther” issue on “Hardball,” “Countdown,” “The Ed Show” and “The Rachel Maddow Show.” All four shows had touched on the issue the day before, too, along with dayside hosts David Shuster and Tamron Hall, who devoted about six minutes—an eternity in TV news—to an interview with birther movement leader Dr. Orly Taitz, beamed in by satellite from Tel Aviv.
Not surprisingly, Shuster and Hall smacked down Taitz’s arguments, along with the bogus Kenyan birth certificate making the rounds online. But by giving the birthers such a platform—even to knock them off of it—is MSNBC giving them more legitimacy than they deserve?
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Calderone notes that Fox News has provided the birthers relatively minimal coverage, but points out that:
[Lou Dobbs] has discussed the birther question frequently on his radio show, which CNN does not control. He has covered the question much less often on his CNN show, reporting on it five times since mid-July.During the same time period, the birther issue has come up on 29 individual MSNBC shows between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. alone.