Rick Sanchez: CNN Jitbag

Rick Sanchez of CNN is a perfect exemplar of CNN's values and news judgment: that is to say, he's a lying jitbag. Sanchez wanted to ambush an airshow pilot about the death of a colleague in a crash, so he had his producers call down the whole ICAS list, practically, with a silver-tongued lie about what the show would be about. 

"They were told that the interview would focus on what those pilots do to train and prepare for their aerobatic performances." John Cudahy of ICAS writes. "The producers making the phone calls asked good, specific questions that would have supported this line of questioning during the interview. Nonetheless, most of the pilots sensed that things were not as they seemed and declined the invitation to participate."

Unfortunately, Michael Wiskus's BS meter wasn't finely tuned enough and he took a representative of CNN at his word -- always a mistake. When Wiskus went on camera, Sanchez showed his real agenda: showing one clip after another of airshow crashes, in order to try to get a rise out of Wiskus. To make sure he had maximum impact, Sanchez set it up so that Wiskus couldn't even see the footage Sanchez was sending out over the air. 

Despite that, Wiskus held his own with Sanchez, and faced the CNN lightweight's agenda head-on, managing to mention -- to Sanchez's evident dismay -- that it has been decades since a spectator or bystander has been lost at a North American Airshow. Transcript here. 

Sanchez is not unusual for CNN. Not only was it (and he) complicit in the whole saga of Hurricane Katrina reporting misconduct, but the network has been caught with fabricated reports over and over again (former correspondent Peter Arnett built a career on them). In addition, CNN big Eason Jordan admitted that CNN made a deal with Saddam Hussein, under which they broadcast his propaganda and spiked stories that reflected negatively on his regime, in return for favorable treatment for their office in Baghdad. 

You wonder what other deals they're making that they haven't admitted. Jordan's admission was forced:  in light of the invasion of Iraq, the CNN executive feared that the net's complicity in Saddam's crimes would be exposed by Saddam's captured archives. PR 101: if the news is going to be bad, get out in front with your own spin.

Sanchez seems to have a jones for airshow crashes, there are literally dozens of hits for his name and "airchow crash" on CNN's transcript site. You'd think all this exposure, including to real professionals like Wiskus, would educate him some, but he shows no signs of that happening. Here is an April transcript with a similar stew of exaggeration, speculation, and outright lies. But it goes beyond his dishonest reporting: Sanchez also has a long personal history that inducates he's a truly execrable character. 

What kind of man is Rick Sanchez? AT CNN, Sanchez's specialty has been sensationalistic reporting, with noscant attention to factual accuracy. He was one of the wolfpack who reported all kinds of false nonsense from Hurricane Katrina (well, technically, from a safe, dry, hotel some distance from Hurricane Katrina). He also got himself lost as a stunt to see if the Coast Guard would rescue him (sadly, they did). Only a jitbag would do that. (What happens if someone actually needs rescue when the USCG is chasing a stunt-pulling, facelifted narcissist? Well, if you're Rick Sanchez or CNN, you don't care. Jitbag, huh?).

Sanchez came to CNN from MSNBC, which picked him up from Fox News 7 in Miami, where he "was busted after a Miami Dolphins game years ago when he was drunk leaving the stadium and hit and killed a pedestrian," according to this post at right-wing political site FreeRepublic.  A similar claim is in the comments to this blog post. Another comment says the kid was left paralyzed, and Sanchez skipped on the bill. (There are some other examples of Sanchez's character given there -- none flattering). This post gives the date of Sanchez's dui (to which he admitted with a no-contest plea) as December 10, 1990.  Sanchez apparently used his close relationship with local pols to achieve impunity in his drunk-driving pedestrian-accident case -- kind of like Eason Jordan with Saddam. 

In Miami, he wanted to avoid testifying at another trial, so he fled to Cuba for months on end, a guest of Castro's regime. It may have been his coziness with El Maximo Líder that brought him to the attention of his fellow travelers at Ted Turner's propaganda outlet. 

Also in Miami, the Miami New Times alternative weekly gave him its "Least Credible News Personality" so many times running that it finally gave up and named it the Rick Sanchez Award, giving it to the next least credible from then on. (That story's recounted in this post about another ghoulish Sanchez stunt). 

What a jitbag. But then, he is on CNN. What can you expect? Like attracts like, and jit attracts jit.