Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) thinks the media made a big mistake by devoting equal time to every "absurd notion" during the debt ceiling debate.
August 5, 2011

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) thinks the media made a big mistake by devoting equal time to every "absurd notion" during the debt ceiling debate.

"And I have to tell you, I say this to you politely," Kerry told MSNBC's Joe Scarborough Friday. "The media in America has a bigger responsibility than it’s exercising today. The media has got to begin to not give equal time or equal balance to an absolutely absurd notion just because somebody asserts it or simply because somebody says something which everybody knows is not factual."

"It doesn’t deserve the same credit as a legitimate idea about what you do. And the problem is everything is put into this tit-for-tat equal battle and America is losing any sense of what’s real, of who’s accountable, of who is not accountable, of who’s real, who isn’t, who’s serious, who isn’t?"

Fox News' Greta Van Susteren offered only a partial quote from the Massachusetts senator Friday, as she expressed her outrage and suggested he was targeting the Tea Party.

"This is really nuts," she wrote. "Let me get this straight… he doesn’t think it is right to give 'equal time and or balance' to a position he does not agree with ?? or to book guests with opinions other than his own?? Really?? You got to be kidding! So, according to him, we are to only air HIS thoughts and his positions?"

"I think he is attempting to intimidate the media from airing others’ ideas. That is wrong."

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