Blog 2 Two Sides of the Story (well kind of)

I chose to watch videos about the upcoming Koran burning on September eleventh. First I watched Hardball with Chris Matthews and it was easy to see how he felt about the event. Not only that but he interviewed one of the Pastors in Florida, Wayne Sapp and you could tell that he was not making the questions easy for him. Chris Matthews inquired as to what he thought was going to happen to the American soldiers; he also had him watch a clip from a General in Afghanistan who basically paralleled him to extremists. Chris Matthews also stated that there are one billion Islamic people in the world so why would he want them to react. The most interesting part of the whole video for me was when Reverend Welton Gaddy from the Interfaith Alliance came on and he said that, “this is not about American Patriotism, not about Christianity, not about religion. It is about hatred and divisiveness and a person who while saying Muslims want to control the world, he wants to control the world”. One thing that was a bit different was that he had a clip from Hilary Clinton who stated that she is hoping that the burning of the Korans will not be covered as an act of Patriotism. There was no mention of Obama or a segment of one of Obama’s interviews or speeches. After watching this I definitely felt confirmed in my belief that it will be a huge mistake to burn the Korans. I can see how someone who wasn’t sure however would be swayed due to the lack of balance in interview questions between the Pastor who was not given much chance to look knowledgeable and the Reverend of the Interfaith Alliance who was given much time to speak.




As for Glenn Beck he did not have any segment of a show devoted to this yet so instead I watched a video clip on Foxnews.com. It was brief but it did have a quick interview with Obama in which he said that the act the Pastor’s are taking is a, “recruitment bonanza for the Al-Qaeda” and they are acting “completely contrary to our values as Americans”. This video was short but the footage they got was impressive and directly from the source. Personally I liked Chris Matthews coverage better, I felt as though it gave both sides of the story even though it was obvious that he was giving the Pastor a hard time.