News Blog

A frustration with watching news interviews on television is the sorry lack of tough follow-up questions. Mainstream anchors instead seem to rely more on giving equal time to both sides of a political issue.

It's easier, it's less risky, and they can almost count on what type of response they'll get.

So-and-so gets the last word, and then it's up to the viewer to decide if what's been said is accurate or absurd.

It's even worse on some of the cable news channels. MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell rarely bothers with follow-ups anymore. It seems it's more important for alternate views to be heard regardless of the content.

But CNN's Soledad O'Brien has become the queen of the follow-ups. O'Brien sunk her teeth into former New Hampshire governor and Mitt Romney supporter John Sununu recently. And judging from his reaction, he was none too pleased.

When she asked Sununu to explain how the Ryan Plan was different from Romney's budget plan, Sununu got personal in his attacks on O'Brien. And when he tried to assert that President Obama robbed more than $700 million out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare, she challenged him again on his facts.

A similar scenario unfolded when O'Brien interviewed former Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell. The former Senate candidate asserted that Obama's policies are Marxist. When O'Brien probed O'Donnell to explain Marxism, she dodged the question, for fairly obvious reasons.

O'Brien also recently came down on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, over Vice President Joe Biden's recent "chains" quote.

"Don't tell me that if it were Romney, people wouldn't be going crazy," she said, almost mockingly.

Go O'Brien.