Prime Time On US Cable News

A reader lets me know what the TV is telling us:

How are the cable outlets covering this Iranian uprising during the East Coast dinner hour?

FOX News led off with the Iran story, actually played it pretty straight and gave a sound-byte version of the events of today. But all that seemed to be mere setup for a shame Brit Hume "commentary" immediately following the opening, in which he implied that the Obama Administration is disappointed by the uprising because they are hoping for Ahmadinejad to be elected and legitimized. According to Brit, Obama can't wait to start appeasing the tyrannical Iranian regime. He says he got this information from "several" administration sources. Quality journalism there.

CNN decided to lede with the health care debate, showing Obama addressing the AMA today and then speaking with several senators who all had sound byte rehearsed reactions. Of course there was no analysis.

This was followed by the Iran story, with several admonishments from Wolf Blitzer that an image about to be show was disturbing -- the image I've seen on several blogs of the man dead in the street while another man kneels over him with his arms raised. Very little context is provided, and Blitzer goes on to say that the demonstration of "thousands of people" started peacefully but turned violent as the day wore on. He then went to a quick bit with Amanpour, where she was able to provide some context in her two-minute piece, but after her apparently pre-recorded piece ended, CNN switched over to other stories. They seem to be treating this story with resentment, as though they HAVE to cover it because people complain if they don't, but they don't really  want to.