Elite news programs frame guest questioning to reinforce national outrage rather than insight

Evidence

There is nothing wrong with trying to grasp a situation rationally, as the show sets out to do, but the questions asked of guests make it evident that MacNeil and Lehrer tend to look for support of the prevailing national mood: outrage at the Iranians, ahistorical analyses of what makes the Iranians tick, attempts at making discussion fit either cold-war or crisis-management molds. … The irony is that Bani-Sadr for the first time did not insist on the ex-shah’s return; he proposed a formula that was to be enacted by the United Nations commission that went to Teheran several months later. At the time, reporters MacNeil and Lehrer were typical in ignoring the proposal. — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 249

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader Said project on Orientalism — the media-constructs-reality theme in Covering Islam itself and in Communication as Culture.