ABC Action News anchor Brendan McLaughlin takes on Orlando anchor's Biden interview

It's rare to see local TV news anchors criticize other media on air. It's even rarer to see them offer pointed political analysis two days before a hotly contested election.

But ABC Action News anchor Brendan McLaughlin managed both on Sunday's edition of his political show, Flashpoint, offering a pointed analysis of Orlando WFTV-Channel 9 anchor Barbara West's interviews with Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden and GOP presidential nominee John McCain. (H/T to the Florida News Center for e-mailing this around.)

Playing West's questions in the Biden interview, which made national headlines for the anchor's aggressive use of GOP talking points to assemble questions, McLaughlin concluded the problem was her tone and the fact that she gave McCain two chances to attack Barack Obama in her questions that she did not give Biden.

As the controversy over West's questioning of Biden blossomed, I always felt her problem was that she accepted too much of the Republicans' distortion of history and facts in her questions. No one who actually knows what socialism is and what Marxism is would seriously ask whether the Democrats favor bringing such systems to U.S. government. By assuming that such ideas may be valid -- instead of asking whether voters might believe this stuff, regardless of its accuracy -- West gave too much credence to some pretty crackpot theories.

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Click here to check out McLaughlin's commentary for yourself and marvel at a local anchor who uses video and sharp observation to nail an important point.

Comments

[Robert]

Barbara West should have known better. Although she has been with WFTV for over 20 years, before that she worked for ABC News as an assistant to Peter Jennings when he was working in London as one of the "Three Headed Monster" anchors on "World News Tonight".

[RagsTTIger]

Brendan, a reassignment to doing Tractor Traffic reports from a busy farm road in Polk, or anything else, having been in the anchor chair, is indeed a demotion. In the business world any demotion means you'll be hitting the door, when your contract expires, if not sooner.

[FLNewsCenter.com]

Thanks for the shout out Eric! Kudos to Brendan as well.

[drinklime]

oh patrick you didnt get the memo? we dont say "liberal media" anymore now its the "MSM"

scary stuff

[Patrick McLaughlin]

when Barbara West decided to use radical conservative ideals for the basis of her questions, she opened her self up to being discussed and criticized by political themed shows. And lawyers call each other out all the time, it's what keeps them honest.
Its like anyone in the media who doesn't openly subscribe the the radical right is automatically part of the republican invented liberal media conspiracy.
Keep listening to talk radio it will really give you a nice balanced viewpoint....

[David]

One mediabot calling out another mediabot? What's next? One used car salesman calling out another? One lawyer calling out another?

Eric, your blog is off the hook! Hilarious!!

[drinklime]

yes beltwaybandit, its all a big conspiracy...

i can see it now, brendan and ACORN sitting in their bunker, planning out their assault on Flashpoint, that big bad mouthpiece of the evil MSM

WATCH OUT, BEHIND YOU!!!

what's funny is Brendn knows exactly who the news director is over at Ch. 9 in Orlando because Bob Jordan was the news director who hired him at WFTS.

[beltwaybandit]

Biden took a basic strategy right out of the Republican play book...when you don't like the questions being asked, attack the media asking the question. Plenty of your followers will play along plus a few people who share your disdain of the media in general.

Biden has not been in the U.S. Senate forever for no reason...

Brendan McLaughlin? The same guy I've seen anchoring on ABC in Tampa? HE's calling out another anchor on journalistic grounds?

What exactly are his chops to do that? He got a business degree and then worked in Austin, Texas and Seattle after interning in San Francisco. That qualifies him to call out another anchor publicly?

Good grief...local news stopped practicing journalism years ag in favor of revenue generation via ratings.

This sounds more like a publicity stunt designed to generate viewership.

It's not like ABC in Tampa would be new to ratings stunts with their local news.

[Brendan]

Rags, I didn't propose Ms. West be "canned". I merely suggested a temporary reassignment.

[Newzaroo]

McLaughlin is a flaming liberal. Now we're fair and balanced.

[drinklime]

RagsTTIger, i dont think you know the difference between "hard" questions and "non-sensical" questions

[RagsTTIger]

Interesting that both stations are ABC affiliates. I found that Mr. McLaughlin's comments were relatively fair, but his final comment wasn't. If he wants to be a News Director, go get the job and shoulder the responsibility. To can a long time loyal employee, 20 yrs, on the basis of her Biden interview would be a big time over reaction. Watching Biden's toothy smile is an automatic indicator that he is steamed thus, a knee jerk reaction and attack is to be expected. What really scares me is Biden's ability to makes totally unsupportable comments without a second thought. Ms West had every right to ask penetrating questions. The major networks have been pitching softballs to Democrats for two years plus. What probably irritated Biden the most was that a "local" anchor stopped him cold. She served up to Biden a brush back pitch and his knees buckled. He's been playing in the big leagues for over 30 years. If he can't take it, then he should have hit the showers, as a struck out looser.