I guess the Obama watcher's had to take drastic actions and address this. LOL. Thanks CNN sure changes my perception.

I love that guy saying something to the affect of "Many people get their news off SNL"

I would safely have to say, DOUBLESTANDARD, comes to mind.
SNL keep um coming & others. I for one had a laugh...on the sketch and CNN "fact checking"

My girlfriend said, "He hardly sounds like Obama.."
After the Jack & Squat line, I stopped watching.

To me, this clip reinforces my theory that the cable news channels have too much time on their hands and resort to filler nonsense in place of news. Even if I could afford cable, I would not buy it at this point.

Kinda Funny.

To all those willing to listen. Obama will take your country left if he can.

I am writing from Canada - we have been socialists since the 1950's. The positive spin you may hear about Canada in the media is wrong and the day to day hypocrisies here are indescribable.

The legal system, the media and how we think all feed into the "centralized system". Our medical system is expensive (evidenced by our high taxes) and access to it is brutal unless you have a runny nose. The sad part is that most of us up here don't get it - instead we spend our time knocking the reason we exist - yes, we bash the USA and it makes me sick.

Don't let this Obama dictator turn the US left. Trudeau, one of our famous Canadian Prime Ministers (President) was also a Castro sympathizer and was the only Prime Minister that was disallowed into the US.

Wake up folks.

I don't know about everyone else, but I don't get my news from SNL satire. I just thought it was funny. I still got a laugh with the checklist. Nada pretty much is what we have gotten from a president who promised change.

I have watched a fair amount of Afghanistan with Anderson Copper etc. I am not sure if there has been progress, I think it is too soon to tell. Will the troops be sent home from Iraq. I'm not sure what the timeline is. I would not completely hold the president to the war policies since war is a very unpredictable thing and changes from day to day.

However, SNL is comedy, not journalism. We need this kind of relief from economy, war etc. No president can escape the satire. I think it is just another attempt to complain that TV is being negative toward the president. I don't see it that way. I will laugh at the satire and get my news from the journalists.

C'mon Man!

Oh good grief, CNN is just sinking farther and farther into ridiculosity. I don't mind that they didn't "fact-check" last season's satires on Sarah Palin but a little equal treatment here would be nice. Satire is satire, doesn't matter who's being roasted. Those folks need to get real jobs.

Yes - fact checking comedy. Why not?

In the tiny brains of too many viewers, the lines between actual news and entertainment have been so blurred that many either cannot or will not see the difference.

And how many times have the infotainment bobbleheads made particularly offensive comments and then asked innocently why people can't see the humor.

Obama is fair game, but asking for immediate results on his promises is sort of like asking the cops to make arrests within a half hour of the crime because Joe Friday did.

Wow. There must not be anything important going on in the world since CNN is resorting to "fact" checking a comedy skit. I have to agree with one thing on there though, it's comedy and doesn't have to be fair. I do; however, feel that it is fair that the SNL crew satirize Obama as much as they did Bush.

Liberals are the ultimate hypocrites! Only because a liberal Democrat is in office would they go to such lengths to seek the truth. I'll bet not ONCE, did they ever think to fact check when a Republican was president. Again... HYPOCRITES!

Link to the CNN article, please!!!! Can't seem to find it...

Click on the video at the top of the post. That is where the "fact checking" was done. Not in an article. The video is the report. Z

Tempest in a teapot.
Where was SNL before the election? For that matter where were any of the media (including Fox) when it came to reporting O's racist, socialist ties in a comprehensive, on-going manner?

I think it's absolutely ridiculous to fact check a comedy sketch. You're right, at no point did things ever get fact checked last fall, nor did they during the Bush Administration. Say what you will about either Bush or Obama but this is hardly fair or correct. CNN is continuing to diminish their name in news, to nothing more but an awful cable network!

SNL's sketch about Obama came across as 'making a case' that Obama has done nothing- a topic that has not been heavily discussed by the media.

It is understandable that CNN would explore the point.

With SNL vs. Bush and Palin, SNL was not 'making a case'. The sketch was based on existing conventional wisdom.

If CNN were trying to help Obama, which I think is the implication by your article, then CNN would have just ignored the sketch.

It's just comedy. Get a life. You all should be happy that Obama is in the White House. 8 years of the puppet Bush and his string pullers put us closer to world war than anyone since the cold war. We are on the right path and there is a lot to be undone and a lot to be fixed. There are a lot of confused people out there that ignorance is still part of their daily parcel. Let Obama do his thing. Like anyone, he will make a misstep or two. Washington is filled with too many obstacles between any two points for him not to, but lets be proud Americans and think positive. Even if you did not vote for him, he is ALL of our President for the next few years and this is our home . As they sing during the 7th inning at Yankee stadium and many other stadiums across the country - "God Bless America". Go Obama ! Go USA !

Who is going to fact check CNN?

It demonstrates that CNN doesn't believe that there is a world big enough to generate news more important than "fact-checking" a comedy sketch. I mean, no coverage of Romania's coalition government collapse? I could go on and on about world events not covered in-depth in the US media.

Why dooesn't CNN, MSNBC,CBS report on all of this miss doings by this administration (democrates) like they hounded the previous. People need to wake up and understand what Obama and his gang have planned for us.

At minimum, this deals a blow to media integrity. It further unravels the notion that the media are mere bystanders who take no side and instead simply offer unbiased news to the masses. There simply is a huge double standard.

I guess our current President is like Tom Brady, get too close and the refs will throw a flag...

Z, I think it's ridiculous for CNN to fact-check an SNL skit that I don't think really put it to Obama in the way the show put it to Bush/Palin/et al in the pre-Obama era (they were doing a policy takedown with Obama whereas they were all about attacking the character of Bush/Palin/etc.), but it seems that many people identify shows like SNL, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report as news sources, so isn't CNN just reflecting the reality that people are idiotic enough to think SNL and the others are actual news sources? And if that's the case, what does that say about us and our relationship with the media?

The liberal media didn't scrutinize ACORN or the Czars but they want to fact check SNL.

HAHAHAHA

CNN has really gone off the deep end. Watching their "fact-checking" piece was hysterical. They are actually serious when doing this story. SNL is the news now? This is just too funny. Yes, now there is proof the mainstream media is in the tank for Obama.

CNN is desperate to look as though it's part of the news world. The CNN website arries "entertainment" and trivial "news" almost exclusively.

SO COMMUNIST NETWORK NEWS (CNN) HAS DONE IT AGAIN !

They need to find someone who looks and sounds more like Obama... Dont get me wrong, I support the guy and what he's trying to do, but if your gonna poke fun at him, can you please do a better job? And what about the congressmen and senators? Why does SNL never bother to parody them? They seem like they'd be able to provide endless amounts of entertainment..

CNN has become a bigger joke than SNL.

'Nuf said.

SNL spot on! This is what made SNL and will in the future. The very sad part of it is that is all the truth behind it. Most people brag about his accomplishments, but really there are none at all. Many brag about how smart Obama is and of course no one can back it up with any true factual data to prove this. Basically an over paid sales person who is selling what most americans do not want. Put down the kool-aid.

Funny stuff, snl. Now i am sorry I voted for Obama, he turned out to be a big Zero, Wealth-care and warfare, not health-care. We knew most of this voting, but the Palin/McCain train of pain was too much to bear, but at least the dems would have maybe kept them in check... now Obomba gets a free hand. Ugh, hammer them SNL!

Talk about Double Standard, where was cnn when SNL ripped into BUSH, PALIN , and talk about mistatements that they mad many times, I sure do not remember cnn doing a fact check for them, I mean if anyone had doubts that cnn and msnbc are in the tank for obama what cnn did here just proves my point, and they dont care how it looks, but as I have said before look at their ratings, they are so low as msnbc is, people are sick of their networks kissing up to obama and only reporting positive news about him that they even have to spin that, thats why people now are going to FOX NEWS, and not just right wingers , there was a poll that independents were the majority watching FOX NEWS, I believe that, you just cant get the facts of what obama is doing on cnn and msnbc, only what obama wants us to know. WAKE UP CNN, YOUR RATINGS WILL NEVER GET BETTER IF YOU KEEP THIS UP, REPORT THE TRUTH!! MSNBC YOU ARE JUST AS BAD IN FACT WORSE. FOX NEWS IS JUST GETTING BETTER

I don't think that people who are VOTING AGE get their news from SNL... I think the over 18 crowd that watches SNL does so for entertainment purposes only... not to find out what the latest on the health care bill is or how progress in Afghanistan is going.

I think that SNL is an awsome funny show and FOX is a good tabloid news.

Fact checking is always good. Facts are good things. I like them. So no whining here about CNN fact-checking SNL on Obama.

Is there a complaint about CNN not fact-checking SNL on Palin? Seems like they did, but you may not like the result, as they verified a bit where Fey spoke, verbatim, the words that Palin did:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeMypXCUWMw

Of course, if you want to fact-check a skit, you need a skit that expresses facts in the first place, and the Palin skits weren't largely about making such assertions, as this one was.

In any case, the Obama campaign rhetoric was always that resources would need to be diverted from Iraq to Afghanistan, and that's what has been done. If you assert differently, you can, of course, provide such references here.

But the gist of the skit certainly "resonated", and it is not your standard Glenn Beckian fare, it's expressing a disappointment that left-wing supporters have with progress made so far on issues that they support. This is criticism from the left.

Harry, Please, spare me. If you want to argue that President Obama has made things better Afghanistan, go at it. That is a hopeless case to make. Wait until you see Frontline's "Obama's War" next week on PBS. Thanks. Z

"Obama will take your country left if he can."

YES. That is what we elected him to do. If we wanted to stay the course or go further right, we would have elected someone else.

Actually, CNN kind of dispointed me with this "fact checking". I like CNN because of the news and no opinion, but it seems like it is having trouble with this satire. That is kind of shocking to me. CNN I think will still be the best place to get the news.

Why is Afganistan escalating actually anyway. I think the timeline is to get out of Iraq, but now we will just have Afghanastan as a problem. More troops to Afghanistan is that really the answer to this anyway. Seems like it might just push the problem into other countries. That is just my opinion.

This is off the subject, but what is wrong with google and the UPC bar code, am I missing something?

RIP CNN and all the credibility you may have once had.
If FOX would have done this it would have been above the fold in every major paper in the land. But CNN does it and it is in a media column in a dying paper in Baltimore.

CNN is just pure crap, nothing more...

I agree with sherry T.I do not get the new from SNL.i Tought it was dame funny and right now With the Jon & Kate,two wars and the riaseing coat of day to day liveing we need a little humor in our lives.Why is dose everything has to be so negtive with the cable news chanles.It was for fun a laugh maybe they need to learn how to chill.

Of course CNN is showing their hypocrisy. But, why is anyone surprised? This happens all the time with the mainstream media.
I watch MSNBC and Fox, and the difference is scary. The networks are supposed to report the news, not slant it to their liking.
Unfortunately, we hear criticism about Fox, because they are perceived as being the network for the "Right".
Yes, this just proves the hypocrisy of the media.

It isn't dying til the fat lady sings....(or is that over)

Baltimore Sun will survive in the economic downturn that is happening in the whole country. They may have to think outside of the box...but our government is going broke and no one seems to bring that up?

Google has had Gosselin typed so much it has to be repaired.

Well well well..... why the double standards, no one checked the fact that SaraH palin never said that she can see russia from alaska and that was a Tina fey line. and the way everyone mocked bush as being and idiot for 8 years, i did not see CNN or Huffington post run and check facts. they say one thing about OBama and they ... in their pants and scamper around all over like the cockroaches to prove whether the skit was correct or not,,,,,, I enjoyed SNL eight years ago and i thoroughly enjoyed the one on OBAMA last week ,,,,,,

z, i read through most of the comments so forgive me if someone pointed this out, but just a few things.

cnn fact checking an snl skit is crazy, you are absolutely right.

now, i'd say the reason they didn't fact check the bush or palin skits were because there really weren't any facts to check. the palin skits were built around tina fey's (in my opinion dead on) impression of sarah palin as a folksie in-over-her-head politician. we all saw her interviews, we all saw her in the vice presidential debate, the character tina fey was playing was a cartoonish version of the woman who didn't answer what magazines and newspapers she reads, told a moderator of a debate she wasn't going to answer a question, and used phrases like, "you betcha". with bush, after 8 years his reputation was pretty solidified, and now there's really no question that he was in the bottom 5 presidents of all time.

i agree that it's crazy and shows that cnn has way, way too much time on their hands, but fact checking claims that nothing has been done is not the same as fact checking impressions. and lets face it, the palin skits moreso than the bush ones, weren't built around claims, they were built around spot on impressions.

Funny thing is, CNN's story was based on an item on the St. Petersburg Times' PolitiFact site.

And you're gonna hate what i said about the item:
http://blogs.tampabay.com/media/2009/10/huffington-post-gives-cnn-credit-for-st-petersburg-times-factchecking-story.html

Hi Eric, I do not hate it at all. I am happy to have it added to the discussion. I do not think that the fact checking is necessarily ridiculous. You know, I am always arguing for a greater commitment to verified facts as the basis for journalism. But I think CNN did a less than great job with applying the model to satire -- and I think in fairness that conservative critics are right when they point out that it was not done last year especially with Sarah Palin. I loved and raved about the SNL satires of Palin and Bush, but I was not religious about whether or not Palin ever even said some of the things she was ridiculed for saying -- or if the brilliant Tina Fey just made up stuff that sounded as if Palin might have said it. And the potential to affect the real-world political landscape with satire was much greater on the eve of such a monumental election.... Enough from me. You know, you are one of my two favorite media critics in the world, and that I consider you a friend, so I am only glad to hear from you. I hope you are well, my friend. Z

What I found interesting about the skit, was that Fred Armisen, the actor portraying Obama, has done Obama for over a year now.

I have seen his other attmepts and they were much better impersonations than the one he performed last week. I think this was on purpose, because for the first time he had to do a skit that wasn't Pro Obama, and he wanted you to be distracted by his poor impersonation rather than what he was saying. Go back a year ago, when they were doing McCain/Palin bashing, his impersonation was MUCH better. You're telling me that in the past year his impersonation has gotten worse, on the opening sketch no less? Please. I just find it fishy, is all.

I loved the sketch, and that SNL would finnaly do something "anti" Obama. But I can tell Armisen didn't love it, and it detracted from the severity of the truths he was saying.

Obama is an Empty Suit, and some people are finnaly realizing it, and it hurts.

But I am glad even NBC is taking it's jabs.

Maybe Obama will start complaining about how he is portrayed on "some" comedy sketch shows, HAH.

SNL's political-themed sketches, especially the impersonations, are stiff, humorless and predictable. Bring back A. Whitney Brown and "The Big Picture."

One would hope they had some actual NEWS to cover instead of spending their time covering for the White House.

This is the first time CNN has felt the need to fact-check a SNL skit on politics... so the others were fair and factual.

So "PALOMINO Pelosi" was real.

And now, I'll never sleep again. thanks for letting me think of that guys.

Poor poor Obama, whoever will come to his rescue and save him from the writers of SNL? Have no fear it's left wing news channel and their fact checking crew. Although CNN claims to be nonbiased the American public knows better. Obama's a big boy and if he's offended let him fight his own battles.

Had a feeling that many on the left would not be pleased with that skit, so I am not surprised with what CNN did. It is a shame that everyone--left and right--could not share a laugh. C'mon it was funny!

This suggests that Emmanuel and Axelrod are leaning heavily on the media to tow the party line. They've already bought off ABC with the administration's daily morning conference calls between Emmanuel, ABC's Stephanopelous, and James Carville.

This administration is said to lean heavily on folks -- we know that. Thanks. Z

I was surprised and delighted that SNL did this sketch. No matter what your political leaning, it was funny! I'm sure there will be some Obama supporters that find it offensive, but it is only fair that jokes come from both sides. It is just comedy and I found it refreshing!

and lefties whine about Fox being biased

They have been watching this bilge for forever so they believe that something isn't biased hard left then it is biased to the right.

It was really interesting post. I am really feeling sorry for Obama. Poor him..

It's a comedy show....dear lord CNN needs stop being a cheerleader.