Near the end of Wednesday's Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC, host Dylan Ratigan led his 'Busted' segment by claiming that The Drudge Report did "not let facts get in the way of a good headline" on Tuesday, by featuring one which read: "CIA: Iran Moving Closer to Nuclear Weapon." Ratigan remarked: "That'll get the ratings up."
Despite the fact that most of the world has long operated under the assumption that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, including the Obama administration, Ratigan singled out Matt Drudge's website for scorn, arguing: "Sounds pretty scary, right? Until you find out what the CIA report actually said. The agency's intelligence actually shows that Iran is quote, 'keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons,' but that they quote 'do not know' whether Tehran will ultimately head down that road." The headline on screen read: "Misinformed; Wordplay On Iran's Nuke Plans."
Ratigan eventually revealed where he received his liberal taking points: "the truth, why would you let that get in the way of ratings? As our friend Glenn Greenwald from Salon.com points out on his blog, false reporting on Iran could be ultimately be far more dangerous than the perceived threat itself. Let's try to stick to the facts."
Actually, Ratigan sanitized the last line of Greenwald's blog [1], which proclaims: "As the invasion of Iraq demonstrated, the kind of fear-mongering, reckless, and outright false 'reporting' we're seeing already - and have been seeing for awhile - over Iran's nuclear program poses a far greater danger to the U.S. than anything Iran could do."
Here is a full transcript of Ratigan's rant:
4:50PM
DYLAN RATIGAN: A little 'Busted' for you. Up first, do not let facts get in the way of a good headline. It's better for the ratings, as we discussed with both Lynn Sweet and Chrystia Freeland. Yesterday, the Drudge Report happy to oblige, among other news outlets, claiming that a CIA report insists that Iran, and I will quote, 'is moving closer to a nuclear weapon.' That'll get the ratings up. Sounds pretty scary, right? Until you find out what the CIA report actually said. The agency's intelligence actually shows that Iran is quote, 'keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons,' but that they quote 'do not know' whether Tehran will ultimately head down that road. Is it me or is that different? Maybe not as good for ratings. And the truth, why would you let that get in the way of ratings? As our friend Glenn Greenwald from Salon.com points out on his blog, false reporting on Iran could be ultimately be far more dangerous than the perceived threat itself. Let's try to stick to the facts.
-Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here. [2]