ABC News admits media leans left

[igloo]

Only a complete fool would not be able to recognize that.......one just needs to witness the hilarious outrage against FOX to understand the true landscape

ABC News admits

media leans left

Website column notes press corps' 'biases and predilections'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted: February 11, 2004

1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

Though many analysts have insisted there is no left-leaning bias in the mainstream media, an ABC News website column admitted the Washington and political press corps almost universally share liberal political positions.

Responding to feedback from an item in Monday's column, "The Note" said yesterday, "Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections."

The column continued:

They include, but are not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the default, while more conservative positions are "conservative positions."

They include a belief that government is a mechanism to solve the nation's problems; that more taxes on corporations and the wealthy are good ways to cut the deficit and raise money for social spending and don't have a negative effect on economic growth; and that emotional examples of suffering (provided by unions or consumer groups) are good ways to illustrate economic statistic stories.

More systematically, the press believes that fluid narratives in coverage are better than static storylines; that new things are more interesting than old things; that close races are preferable to loose ones; and that incumbents are destined for dethroning, somehow.

The press, by and large, does not accept President Bush's justifications for the Iraq war – in any of its WMD, imminent threat, or evil-doer formulations. It does not understand how educated, sensible people could possibly be wary of multilateral institutions or friendly, sophisticated European allies.

It does not accept the proposition that the Bush tax cuts helped the economy by stimulating summer spending.

It remains fixated on the unemployment rate.

It believes President Bush is "walking a fine line" with regards to the gay marriage issue, choosing between "tolerance" and his "right-wing base."

It still has a hard time understanding how, despite the drumbeat of conservative grass-top complaints about overspending and deficits, President Bush's base remains extremely and loyally devoted to him – and it looks for every opportunity to find cracks in that base.

Of course, the swirling Joe Wilson and National Guard stories play right to the press's scandal bias – not to mention the bias towards process stories (grand juries produce ENDLESS process!).

The worldview of the dominant media can be seen in every frame of video and every print word choice that is currently being produced about the presidential race.

That means the President's communications advisers have a choice:

Try to change the storyline and the press' attitude, or try to win this election without changing them.

So we ask again: What's it going to be, Ken, Karen, Mary, Terry, Nicole, and Dan?

That's quite a headline in the Los Angeles Times: "Bush Supports Shift of Jobs Overseas."

And the Washington Post story filled with quotes from Republican-leaning business people who have politically soured on the President is quite striking.

As is the Wall Street Journal piece despoiling the Medicare reform law before it event takes effect.

On the strength of all the negative coverage of the President and all his own positive coverage, Sen. Kerry heads into today's twin primaries on a roll.

[bigpoppanils]

Originally posted by igloo

As is the Wall Street Journal piece despoiling the Medicare reform law before it event takes effect.

i'm sorry, but using the WSJ with an article about "left leaning bias" is hilarious.

if you were paying attention, WSJ only ripped the medicare proposal because it was too liberal for their tastes.

[igloo]

Originally posted by bigpoppanils

i'm sorry, but using the WSJ with an article about "left leaning bias" is hilarious.

if you were paying attention, WSJ only ripped the medicare proposal because it was too liberal for their tastes.

agreed

[igloo]

I posted this on its own thread, but I should have posted it here:

Bob Arnot: NBC's Iraq coverage biased

Dr. Bob Arnot’s Parting Shot

by Joe Hagan

Bob Arnot, the medical doctor turned foreign correspondent for MSNBC and NBC News—the onetime chief medical correspondent "Dr. Bob" on NBC News, who has been filing prickly, Geraldo-like dispatches from Iraq—has been conspicuously absent from TV lately. Dr. Arnot’s contract was up at NBC in December 2003 and, according to the network, won’t be renewed in the foreseeable future.

Dr. Arnot did not leave willingly.

Although personal, his departure has also exposed the divides over TV coverage of the war in Iraq.

In a 1,300-word e-mail to NBC News president Neal Shapiro, written in December 2003 and obtained by NYTV, Dr. Arnot called NBC News’ coverage of Iraq biased. He argued that keeping him in Iraq and on NBC could go far in rectifying that. Dr. Arnot told Mr. Shapiro that NBC had alienated the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad since it shot and then aired footage of correspondent Jim Miklaszewski at the scene of the November bombing of the Al Rashid Hotel, in which a C.P.A. staffer was shown injured. That incident, he wrote, "earned the undying enmity of the C.P.A."

"We’ve been at a significant disadvantage given NBC’s reputation in Iraq," Dr. Arnot wrote Mr. Shapiro. He argued that due to his excellent relationships with military and C.P.A. personnel, NBC News could repair its standing with government authorities by airing more of his material.

"I’m uniquely positioned to report the story," he wrote. "NBC Nightly News routinely takes the stories that I shoot and uses the footage, even to lead the broadcast," but "refuses to allow the story to be told by the reporter on the scene."

In other words, he suggested, NBC News did not like putting him on the air.

Dr. Arnot included excerpts from an e-mail from Jim Keelor, president of Liberty Broadcasting, which owns eight NBC stations throughout the South. Mr. Keelor had written NBC, stating that "the networks are pretty much ignoring" the good-news stories in Iraq. "The definition of news would incorporate some of these stories," he wrote. "Hence the Fox News surge."

Reached for comment, Mr. Keelor said that he was "not lambasting anyone" and that NBC News "indicated they were sensitive to the issues." But he added, "Of course it’s political. Journalism and news is what unusual [events] happened that day. And if the schools are operating, they can say that’s usual. My response to that is, ‘The hell it is.’ My concern there is that almost everything that has occurred in a Iraq since the war started is unexpected."

That pretty much summed up Dr. Arnot’s attitude as well. In his letter to Mr. Shapiro, he wondered why the network wasn’t reporting stories of progress in Iraq, a frequently heard complaint of the Bush administration. "As you know, I have regularly pitched most of these stories contained in the note to Nightly, Today and directly to you," he wrote. "Every single story has been rejected."

Reached at home in Vermont, Dr. Arnot said Mr. Shapiro was no longer interested in his kind of coverage. "On the MSNBC side, they’ve been very generous and they want me back," he said. "But from the NBC vantage point, Neal neglected to put any money into the pot, and that’s the reason I’m not back in Baghdad."

Did Mr. Shapiro respond to his e-mail? "That particular e-mail, I didn’t get any response," he said. "There was an earlier e-mail, and the response said, ‘We’re just too strapped. We don’t have the money to be able to afford the editorial oversight.’"

Dr. Arnot said he knew for "a fact" that Mr. Shapiro’s problem with his reporting was that "it was just very positive."

Mr. Shapiro responded by e-mail, saying that NBC News had re-evaluated its coverage for 2004, determined that "we were in the post-war period in Iraq" and shifted its resources to political coverage.

"Given that we were well covered in Iraq with regular correspondents, we explored other options with Bob, which to this point have not resulted in a new agreement …. Any implication that NBC News has been reluctant to cover the rebuilding story in Iraq is absolutely ridiculous," Mr. Shapiro wrote, citing pieces on "the reopening of schools" and on how the 101st Airborne "reorganized the north and has very good relations there." Mr. Shapiro added that the Center for Media and Public Affairs found NBC News to be the most balanced among the networks. "I am proud of our coverage, and feel absolutely comfortable with the way Bob Arnot’s reporting was utilized by the network."

A number of high-ranking military officials contacted by NYTV complimented Dr. Arnot’s superior reporting skills, especially in light of what they perceived as the chronically negative war reporting on TV in the United States. Larry DiRita, the Pentagon spokesman for Donald Rumsfeld, said that Dr. Arnot captured Iraq as he experienced it when he visited there himself. "It was complex and nuanced and uneven then, and you had to get around to see it that way—and he does," Mr. DiRita said. "I think his coverage provided an aspect of daily Iraqi life that is being missed by a heck of a lot of coverage."

Maj. Clark Taylor e-mailed NYTV from Baghdad to state that Dr. Arnot "highlighted what is really happening over here …. He generally reported positive things because, generally, that is what is happening. Of course there are occasional bad things … and he reported those as well. The fact was, he reported what he saw—which generally was positive."

"As you probably know, he is quite a renaissance man (doctor, athlete, TV journalist, etc.)," wrote Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus in an e-mail, "and the ‘Screaming Eagles’ (the nickname for the 101st’s soldiers) really took to him. Our soldiers and leaders were particularly pleased that he demonstrated so much interest in the nation-building endeavors that were carried out by our troopers and our many superb Iraqi partners."

Another military official, Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling, said he and his colleagues had recently done an assessment of the 37 reporters they’d worked with, determining which ones they liked and which ones they didn’t. "Thirty-seven different reporters we talked about, and we decided who we would really like to go to war with in the future, or who we would like to drink a beer with later on," General Hertling told NYTV. "I won’t tell you that number," he added, laughing, but he did say Dr. Arnot was at the top of the list.

In his e-mail to Mr. Shapiro, Dr. Arnot argued that his relationships with the authorities earned him access to stories that other reporters couldn’t get.

"I was the only reporter to be shown the actual list of terrorists found in Saddam’s briefcase," he wrote. "The military even let me witness the capture of one of the leaders of the insurgency … a major general in the Baathist military wing."

And Mr. Shapiro had a number of complimentary things to say about Dr. Arnot, calling him an "intrepid live reporter."

But in the halls of NBC News, a number of insiders at the network said, Dr. Arnot was seen as a cheerleader for the military and the C.P.A. Some questioned his accuracy as a reporter.

In 1998, Mr. Arnot’s best-selling book, The Breast Cancer Prevention Diet, came under intense scrutiny from medical watchdogs for its broad claims—so much so that both the American Cancer Society and Memorial–Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City complained of inaccuracies and misstatements in Dr. Arnot’s book. "In the end, there were no technical faults with the book," said Dr. Arnot.

In 2001, Dr. Arnot—then chief medical correspondent for NBC’s Today show and for Dateline NBC—gave up his stethoscope and donned a flak jacket for some foreign adventures.

Dr. Arnot’s friendship with MSNBC president Erik Sorenson, a colleague from his days at CBS, helped transform him into a special foreign correspondent after Sept. 11, 2001. He made his way to dangerous hot spots like Sudan and Somalia, writing about his adventures for Men’s Journal; in 2003, he went to Baghdad and embedded with the First Marine Expeditionary Force.

"There was a lot of pressure to make sure that Fox didn’t win the war," said an NBC insider familiar with Dr. Arnot’s work. But, the insider said, NBC "didn’t have correspondents who wanted to fight that war." Dr. Arnot was willing and able. He said he had risked his life many times for MSNBC and NBC News. And he was very friendly with the military.

In his e-mail, Dr. Arnot revealed the kind of thing he would offer NBC if he was allowed to stay: "At the end of the war I scrubbed in on an operation to save a young girl hit by a grenade. As a female surgeon closed her abdomen at the end of the operation, I asked if the child would survive. She said, ‘Yes she will, she is the future of Iraq.’ She also survived because a US Army sergeant took the ticking grenade from her hand and turned away from her. The girl survived because of his heroism. At my request, the Army sent a Blackhawk helicopter to evacuate a four and a half year old girl with 55 percent burns … under fire … and protected by two Apache gunships. These stories never made air on NBC.

"What happens if NBC is wrong[?]" he wrote. "What happens if this is a historical mission that does succeed … that transforms the Middle East … that brings peace and security to America. What if NBC’s role was like that of much of the media in general … allowing the terrorists to fight their war on the American television screen, where their stories of death and destruction dominate rather than that of American heroes?"

Dr. Arnot became popular with military leaders in Iraq and with the C.P.A. in Baghdad. A high-ranking C.P.A. official said Dr. Arnot "was visible, he was active, he told a compete story," adding that NBC News had effectively stopped reporting on Iraq, leaving a single Pentagon reporter, Mr. Miklaszewski, in Baghdad. "NBC doesn’t really cover the Iraq story," the official said. "They don’t have serious resources on the ground. If they did, they would cover the release of the Zarqawi memo with a reporter on the ground," referring to a document that the U.S. military said demonstrates an Iraqi insurrection orchestrated by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a terrorist that the White House has linked to Al Qaeda.

"It’s been over six months since Brokaw has been here," the official added. "There are over 120,000 troops on the ground and there’s no real NBC presence."

Dr. Arnot told NYTV: "I’ve been attacked many times—once with guns, once with swords. Once was at the al-Aike Hotel when it was blown up. There have been no journalists who have been purposely attacked. And the bomb was right under my window. We were attacked with swords down in Najaf. It was a 10 seconds’ difference between being hacked down …. And just before Christmas, I was basically ambushed with assault weapons in Abu Ghraib in the middle of the night. That was a bad situation. It’s a very dangerous thing. My mother is saying, ‘I don’t think it’s the smart thing for you to be out there.’"

Dr. Arnot’s e-mail to Mr. Shapiro claimed that the Sept. 25, 2003, bombing of the al-Aike Hotel in Baghdad—where NBC employees were stationed at the time—was aimed directly at him. "I’ve been targeted on several occasions," he wrote, recalling "a bomb placed directly under my window at the IKE [sic] hotel resulting in several shrapnel wounds."

Dr. Arnot’s enthusiasm occasionally got the best of him, said NBC News staffers, such as when Dr. Arnot—who claimed he knew how to speak Arabic—tried his chops on some Iraqi barber-shop customers, asking them what they thought of a speech by President Bush. "He’s … telling them what Bush is saying in Arabic and then translating their responses live on the air," said one co-worker, who said that NBC translators "said he was talking gibberish."

"I was asking these guys yes-or-no questions, and this guy went on and on and on," said Dr. Arnot. "There are many kinds of Arabic … and am I good at understanding the Iraqi accent? No, I’m terrible."

NBC sources said that when the statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled in Baghdad, Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw declined to put Dr. Arnot on the air, even though he was the sole NBC reporter on the scene. Instead, Mr. Brokaw aired a British reporter from a news agency called ITN. "They used ITN, their British affiliate … rather than someone on the NBC payroll," said the NBC staffer. "They don’t use his reporting because they don’t trust his reporting."

In November, Dr. Arnot reported a series for MSNBC’s Hardball, "Iraq: The Real Story," an effort to find the so-called "good news" stories that Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III and the C.P.A. had found lacking in the media. The C.P.A. was so distressed by network coverage that its senior media advisor, Dorrance Smith, created a separate government feed—an attempt to provide the kind of stories they wanted to local affiliates in the U.S.

Mr. Smith told NYTV that he had prompted MSNBC to do the Hardball series.

Dr. Arnot was not the first NBC employee to complain about coverage in Iraq. In fact, Noah Oppenheim, the producer of the Hardball series, a self-identified neoconservative and onetime producer for Scarborough Country, wrote an article for The Weekly Standard upon his return from his three weeks in Iraq, asserting that reporters rarely got out of the so-called Green Zone in Baghdad, and that they cribbed wire reports. Mr. Oppenheim left MSNBC when Nightly News executive producer Steve Capus and anchor Tom Brokaw complained openly that the article was unseemly coming from a NBC-affiliated news producer.

While Dr. Arnot’s fitness as a reporter may be under scrutiny, his criticism of NBC News does go to the heart of an ongoing issue in this election season, the media perception of the war in Iraq. On Sunday, Feb. 8, when Tim Russert asked President Bush on NBC’s Meet the Press if the administration had miscalculated "how we would be treated and received in Iraq," Mr. Bush’s responded that he disagreed with the premise of the question: "Well, I think we are welcomed in Iraq. I’m not exactly sure, given the tone of your questions, we’re not."

The exchange showed the distance between the White House and the media on how the war had been presented to Americans. They were two men watching different TV shows—Mr. Bush had his sources, and Mr. Russert saw what he saw.

And so did Dr. Arnot.

You may reach Joe Hagan via email at: jhagan@observer.com.

back to top

This column ran on page 1 in the 2/16/2004 edition of The New York Observer.

[igloo]

Australian Broadcaster Accused of Anti-US Bias in War Coverage

Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - Coverage of last year's war in Iraq by Australia's taxpayer-funded national broadcaster was largely "negative, defeatist, anti-American and skewed heavily against the Australian government," according to a new report.

The report, compiled by two Sydney-based journalists on behalf of a leading Australian think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), examined transcripts of ABC radio and television programs before, during and after the war.

The authors probed story selection decisions, guest billing, terminology, tone, and what they called a tendency "to predict events unfavorable to the coalition" -- events that invariably did not take place.

While pointing out instances of fairness in the war-time coverage, they said they found that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation "time and time again ... failed to live up to its duty to present balanced views."

The IPA report is not the first time the ABC's coverage of the war has been questioned. Last year, the government minister responsible for communications media accused the broadcaster's main morning radio program of biased and anti-American reporting.

The IPA report, entitled "Anti-American Biased Collective: Your ABC and the Iraq War," was raised, unannounced, by government lawmaker Senator Santo Santoro, during a Senate committee meeting Monday on the ABC's budget.

The meeting was attended by ABC senior officials, who are asking the government for an extra eight million Australian dollars ($6.3m) in funding this year.

Pre-war predictions and other problems

The report's authors, Tim Blair and James Morrow, said pre-war coverage was marked by exaggerations about the likely duration, civilian death toll, humanitarian disaster and Muslim world backlash.

Examples of "inaccurate predictions" included the unqualified assertion that "Australia faces a greater risk of a terrorist attack once the war against Iraq is underway."

"Anti-war commentators appeared regularly, while supporters of the war - aside from representatives of the pro-war governments - were few," the authors said.

"Great concern was held for the viability of the United Nations, should war occur without a U.N. mandate. The legitimacy and worth of the U.N. seemed to be assumed."

The report tracked ABC correspondents' mostly unsuccessful attempts to find on the ground any Iraqis prior to the war who opposed Saddam Hussein.

"It wouldn't have hurt for the ABC to indicate more regularly that many in Iraq feared for their lives if they spoke against Saddam's regime, and that opinions given in Iraq may have reflected this," the authors wrote.

Highlighting difficulties

The report found that, despite President Bush's warnings about expecting "difficulties and challenges," the ABC coverage from the outset of hostilities emphasized coalition difficulties, characterizing them as unexpected.

With the war barely one week old, a presenter said that "Australia's Defense Minister Robert Hill on Monday told this program that the war would be short as far as wars go. But is that time line now being extended?"

Ever since Baghdad fell, the report said, "the ABC has been relentless in its efforts to both de-legitimize the war and paint it as a disaster for those who no longer have to live under Saddam Hussein's yoke."

With the end of Saddam's regime came this unenthusiastic comment from one presenter: "Well, dawn has broken over Baghdad, welcoming day one of the new freedom, but if this is liberty, then it's far from perfect."

The IPA authors wrote: "The fact that all the worst wartime predictions of the

ABC and its guests - massive casualties amongst Iraqi civilians and coalition troops, a refugee camp-filling humanitarian crisis, a violent, anti-Western uprising of the so-called 'Arab street' - failed to occur did not stop the network from being relentlessly negative

during the immediate aftermath of the fall of Baghdad."

The toppling of the Ba'athist regime was followed by reports of looting, including looting at the National Museum, and -- according to the ABC -- "the loss of irreplaceable jewels, artifacts, scripts and sculptures dating back to the dawn of human civilization."

But once the reports of the systematic looting of the museum were acknowledged to have been "a complete fabrication," the authors said, the ABC had "moved onto other topics."

"For the ABC, the non-story of the pillaging of the Iraqi National Museum, was, as the saying goes, too good to be true. Not only did the supposed looting show that American troops had already lost control of the city they had just conquered, but it also helped confirm other ABC assumptions about the philistine nature of the United States."

The report also criticized the ABC for focusing since the war's end on the unsuccessful search for weapons of mass destruction, "while ignoring the constant stream of news about Hussein's human rights atrocities such as mass graves ..."

Anti-U.S. tone

The authors included examples of what they found to be an anti-war and anti-American tone in the coverage, including the description by one ABC staffer of former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer as President Bush's "chief propagandist."

Another reporter predicted that the official U.S. media center briefings would be "selective, self-serving and at times perhaps, even worse."

A U.S.-based correspondent called the "lack of political debate" in America -- that is, the lack of opposition to the war -- "the saddest thing about this whole issue."

One program ran a clip of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers speaking about a review into the use of cluster bombs. Myers ended by saying "there's been only one recorded case of collateral damage from cluster munitions noted so far."

To which an ABC correspondent remarked: "That's a rather offensive way of saying that one person was killed."

"This is textbook ABC anti-war and anti-American bias -- and an example of a journalist unprofessionally inserting his own editorial comments into a news story, to boot," the IPA report's authors commented.

'Subjective propaganda'

The decision by Prime Minister John Howard's government to support and participate militarily in the U.S.-led war was a divisive one, opposed by opposition parties and many campaigning groups outside of parliament.

Howard's then Communications Minister, Senator Richard Alston, at the time accused the ABC's morning radio news and current affairs program, of bias in its coverage of the war, presenting a dossier of 68 specific complaints.

The broadcaster's own complaints review body investigated, but threw out all but two of the complaints.

The ABC then referred the matter to an independent panel, which upheld 17 complaints, including 12 of "serious bias," four of breaching policies of refraining from "emotional language or editorialization" in its reporting of the war, and one complaint of inadequately identifying sources.

The panel said it found no evidence, overall, of "biased and anti-coalition coverage," as alleged by Alston.

Alston, who retired from politics early this month, declined to comment on the IPA report, saying it would not be appropriate.

But Santoro, the senator who raised the IPA report at Monday's committee meeting, told CNSNews.com that it should be "required reading" among senior management and news executives at the ABC.

"It forensically dissects the skewed processes of news presentation by the ABC over the Iraq crisis and subsequent conflict and shows just where the broadcaster went so wrong," he said.

Santoro said despite prior criticism, the broadcaster had not shown "that it might, even momentarily, think its critics over Iraq coverage have a genuine or substantial point."

"Australians want to be kept informed. They should not be made the targets of subjective propaganda," he said.

"There are still substantial unanswered questions about the ABC's failure to achieve true objectivity in its Iraq reporting and I look forward to asking them."

Last August, Santoro publicly slammed the ABC over an internal staff memo which said ABC journalists should not refer to Australian troops as "our troops" in reports on the conflict.

"It highlights a viciously pernicious form of political correctness," he said in parliament at the time. "The ABC has no difficulty -- and certainly exhibits no hesitation -- in referring to 'our cities,' 'our scientists' and 'our athletes.'"

'They don't like Bush'

A senior Australian politician, who would not speak on the record, attributed the problems at the ABC to what he called an "anti-establishment" culture among ABC journalists.

"They seem to be constantly pulling down or rejecting what should be fairly uncontroversial propositions and they'll put their own spin on it - I think in large part because they don't like George Bush and co," he told CNSNews.com .

The politician said another problem was that any criticism of the ABC -- "no matter how well-based" -- was seen by the ABC and many other mainstream media in Australia as a political "attempt to muzzle," without any attempt to look into whether the broadcaster was measuring up to its own standards.

He said although the focus now was on ABC coverage during the Howard era, when the Labor Party was in power between 1983 and 1996, it also clashed with the broadcaster.

The ABC's annual report for 2003 says it received more than 7,000 "audience contacts," over its coverage of the war, of which more than 5,500 were complaints, mostly relating to scheduling changes.

"There were 144 complaints related to anti-U.S. coverage and 147 complaints about pro-U.S. coverage," it says.

[igloo]

ABC, CBS and NBC Give Bush “AWOL†Charge Double the 1992 Coverage of Clinton’s Draft Dodging

Kerry’s Partisan Partners

in Smearing Bush

When a liberal Democrat faces a personal charge, the national media find ways to avoid discussing it in public. Is there proof of wrongdoing, or merely suspicion? Is it relevant to their public role? Does everybody do it? Do voters even care? When they want to, the media can usually find an excuse to spike an uncomfortable story before the feeding frenzy ever begins.

Reporters could not justify pursuing the Bush “AWOL†story by citing any actual proof of wrongdoing, any relevance to Bush’s role as President, any sign that his conduct in 1972-73 was especially uncommon, or any clamoring from voters to get to the bottom of the story. The only impetus was DNC boss Terry McAuliffe’s wish to contrast “John Kerry, a war hero with a chest full of medals†with “George Bush, a man who was AWOL in the Alabama National Guard.â€

The networks followed McAuliffe’s agenda. From Feb. 1-16, ABC, CBS and NBC aired 63 National Guard stories or interview segments on their morning and evening news programs. That’s far more coverage than Bill Clinton’s draft-dodging scandal received in 1992. Back then, the three evening newscasts offered 10 stories on Clinton’s complete evasion of service; this year, those same broadcasts pumped out 25 stories on whether Bush’s acknowledged service was fully documented.

Despite the fact that no Democrat had substantiated their AWOL claims, the networks put the burden on Bush to prove his innocence. After the White House released documents on February 10 showing Bush had satisfied the Guard’s requirements and received an honorable discharge, reporters wanted more evidence (see box). The records showed Bush was never “AWOL,†exposing the baselessness of the Democrats’ original charge, yet none of the networks framed their stories around questionable Democratic tactics. Instead, they kept the onus on Bush: “The issue is not going to go away,†ABC’s Terry Moran promised. Other lowlights:

• On February 12, the CBS Evening News promoted a conspiracy theory floated by retired National Guard officer Bill Burkett, who claimed he overheard a 1997 order to purge Bush’s records. The Boston Globe reported the next day that Burkett’s back-up, George Conn, totally disagreed with his friend’s version of what happened, but the Evening News never told viewers about that crucial detail.

• Early on, John Kerry tried to egg on the media. “Was he present and active, on duty in Alabama, at the times he was supposed to be?†he challenged on February 8. “Just because you get an honorable discharge does not in fact answer that question.†Given Kerry’s defense of the draft-dodging Clinton twelve years ago (“We do not need now to divide America over who served and howâ€), unbiased reporters would have pounded the candidate for his hypocrisy in at least not repudiating the other Democratic “dividers,†but ABC, CBS and NBC concealed the Kerry flip-flop and kept him above the fray.

• Last Thursday, Peter Jennings refused to report the finding of ABC’s polling unit that two-thirds of the public, including 58 percent of Democrats, thought the Bush story was “not a legitimate issue.†Instead, Jennings highlighted how Bush’s “rating for honesty and trustworthiness is at a new low†— as if the networks’ biased promotion of phony charges had nothing to do with that.

— Rich Noyes

[marksimons]

clinton's draft dodging is different to bush's...

clinton was anti-war, bush was apparently pro war, but he just did service that put him in no danger at all.

then tries to claim he's a military man or whatever the fuck he is...

igloo, what about the lie Clinton told about having oral sex with an intern.

did the liberal left wing media ignore that one?

no.

I believe the right wing press went into overdrive.

where is the same zeal for going after bush's lies? that have resulted in thousands of deaths, a bit more pressing than a stained dress.

[igloo]

Originally posted by marksimons

clinton's draft dodging is different to bush's...

where is the same zeal for going after bush's lies? that have resulted in thousands of deaths, a bit more pressing than a stained dress.

These two statements clearly show what a dumb fuck you are, and truly have no fucking clue about the shit that flows from your rotted ass...

I am sure you will continue with your rants and tangents that hijack this thread in your typical clueless, cunt manner...but I suggest you actually read the content.......perhaps, just perhpas, you may learn that there is content out there that differs from the .org bullshit that you inject in your asshole first thing in the morning....

[joeygk]

<snooze>....I wish there was a left wing liberal media.....the overwhelming majority of media in this country is so watered down & moderate that everyone is afraid to express a real opinion or forcefully support an issue ------

[howardstone]

First of all! the media carries there cameras on thier RIGHT shoulders, so tell me.... how do they lean left if thier camera's are on thier right shoulder's? huh? huh?

[joeygk]

I was almost convinced reading that article until I read the last line ------->

Originally posted by igloo

— Rich Noyes

hmmm.....do you think that article is objective coming from a contributer to 'Human Events - The National Conservative Weekly' and the author of the book 'Liberal Spin Prevails: How CBS led the Charge' ---- looks to me like Mr. Noyes is trying to create press for himself & his work.

*QUESTION WHAT YOU READ. ALWAYS BE A CYNIC.

[igloo]

Originally posted by joeygk

I was almost convinced reading that article until I read the last line ------->

hmmm.....do you think that article is objective coming from a contributer to 'Human Events - The National Conservative Weekly' and the author of the book 'Liberal Spin Prevails: How CBS led the Charge' ---- looks to me like Mr. Noyes is trying to create press for himself & his work.

*QUESTION WHAT YOU READ. ALWAYS BE A CYNIC.

It is not simply an editorial, so acting "cynical" towards the author does not work....plus there are multiple sources listed on this thread supporting this "author's" views.....in addition, there are countless books and material available that show FACT and EXAMPLES on the whole liberal media bias discussion........not to mention those in the establishment who admit to this bias (such as in some of these articles).......

May this author have self-serving ambitions, of course...no different than someone on the left saying there is no liberal bias.....but to simply dismiss the content is absurd....read BOTH sides and make your own call....and I have, and there is overwhelming evidence to support the liberal bias in American media.....to not see that is to be blind.....

Look no further of the outrage of FOX News......I find it hilarious that the lefties have such a problem with FOX news, but did not seem to mind that when viewers only had the TV choice of CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNN...that did not matter.....because Dan Rather and Peter Jennings and Andy Rooney and the like could never be "liberally biased"....could they?....

The success of Fox News and conservative talk radio could never be that people were sick of being spoon fed views that tilted one way, and finally had an alternative.....nah

[howardstone]

Originally posted by igloo

unrelated to the topic at hand.... but.... do you live in an igloo:confused:

[joeygk]

Originally posted by igloo

It is not simply an editorial, so acting "cynical" towards the author does not work....plus there are multiple sources listed on this thread supporting this "author's" views.....in addition, there are countless books and material available that show FACT and EXAMPLES on the whole liberal media bias discussion........not to mention those in the establishment who admit to this bias (such as in some of these articles).......

May this author have self-serving ambitions, of course...no different than someone on the left saying there is no liberal bias.....but to simply dismiss the content is absurd....read BOTH sides and make your own call....and I have, and there is overwhelming evidence to support the liberal bias in American media.....to not see that is to be blind.....

Look no further of the outrage of FOX News......I find it hilarious that the lefties have such a problem with FOX news, but did not seem to mind that when viewers only had the TV choice of CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNN...that did not matter.....because Dan Rather and Peter Jennings and Andy Rooney and the like could never be "liberally biased"....could they?....

The success of Fox News and conservative talk radio could never be that people were sick of being spoon fed views that tilted one way, and finally had an alternative.....nah

"BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.........."

1. Brevity is a virtue.

2. You can find "sources" to support almost any claim, that is the beauty if debate - it is therefore the author or the one who crafts the argument that needs to be scrutinzed ~ (but you can pretend to ignore his bias if it makes you sleep better at night) - just as you pore over and dissect the "left wing media" you need to do the same of the biased right ---- it's a two way street --- you act as if only one side distorts the facts

3. FYI >> Fox News & Conservative Radio is propaganda for Christian Fundamentalists and inbred bible beating old people who are out of touch w/ society.

[mrmatas2277]

Originally posted by joeygk

3. FYI >> Fox News & Conservative Radio is propaganda for Christian Fundamentalists and inbred bible beating old people who are out of touch w/ society.

come on Joey...thats not fair to group ALL "conservatives" into ur "out of touch with society" theory...on my voter's card is says "non-partisan"...and this election year i am pulling for a certain Democrat (not KERRY)...i consider myself a very very very Liberal Republican (and NO its not an oxymoron)..if it makes u feel any better, u can call me a Southern Democrat...they are Republicans anyway....

[igloo]

Originally posted by joeygk

"BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH.........."

2. You can find "sources" to support almost any claim, that is the beauty if debate - it is therefore the author or the one who crafts the argument that needs to be scrutinzed ~ (but you can pretend to ignore his bias if it makes you sleep better at night) - just as you pore over and dissect the "left wing media" you need to do the same of the biased right ---- it's a two way street --- you act as if only one side distorts the facts

3. FYI >> Fox News & Conservative Radio is propaganda for Christian Fundamentalists and inbred bible beating old people who are out of touch w/ society.

No, I do not act like only one side distorts the facts in this particular debate....You are blowing a lot of useless hot air son...

Like I said, there is overwhelming evidence that there is a liberal bias in the mainstream media.....from multiple sources on BOTH sides of the aisle....WAKE UP RETARD...do your own research and get a clue, not just shoot off your mouth....

No shit you can find sources to "support" any claim....do you think you are revealing something earth shattering professor?

And with this particular author in question, who the fuck is ignoring his potential bias????..did I not state about his self-serving ambitions????

Like I said and to repeat for the challenged (you)...."May this author have self-serving ambitions, of course...no different than someone on the left saying there is no liberal bias.....but to simply dismiss the content is absurd....read BOTH sides and make your own call"...

Is this too difficult for you?.......perhaps spend a little more time on reading comprehension, and a little less time on just shooting off your clueless mouth.....

And retard, this debate has nothing to do with a medium that is left wing or right wing....it is about bias in the "mainstream"......understand retard?

And your last comment about FoxNews and conservative talk radio is all that needs to be said about your so-called insight and knowledge on this issue....clueless

[jamiroguy1]

Originally posted by igloo

No, I do not act like only one side distorts the facts in this particular debate....You are blowing a lot of useless hot air son...

Like I said, there is overwhelming evidence that there is a liberal bias in the mainstream media.....from multiple sources on BOTH sides of the aisle....WAKE UP RETARD...do your own research and get a clue, not just shoot off your mouth....

No shit you can find sources to "support" any claim....do you think you are revealing something earth shattering professor?

And with this particular author in question, who the fuck is ignoring his potential bias????..did I not state about his self-serving ambitions????

Like I said and to repeat for the challenged (you)...."May this author have self-serving ambitions, of course...no different than someone on the left saying there is no liberal bias.....but to simply dismiss the content is absurd....read BOTH sides and make your own call"...

Is this too difficult for you?.......perhaps spend a little more time on reading comprehension, and a little less time on just shooting off your clueless mouth.....

And retard, this debate has nothing to do with a medium that is left wing or right wing....it is about bias in the "mainstream"......understand retard?

And your last comment about FoxNews and conservative talk radio is all that needs to be said about your so-called insight and knowledge on this issue....clueless

So much for brevity. Hard to prove your point without losing your shit, huh?

[joeygk]

Fortunately, I tend to disregard the off cuff nattering of someone who constructs his arguments by referring to other people as "retards" and uses four letter expletives in an attempt to appear persuasive.

[igloo]

Originally posted by jamiroguy1

So much for brevity. Hard to prove your point without losing your shit, huh?

It is my colorful literary style son......you should know better than anyone since you have been on the recieving end of countless ass-kickings.....

[igloo]

Originally posted by joeygk

Fortunately, I tend to disregard the off cuff nattering of someone who constructs his arguments by referring to other people as "retards" and uses four letter expletives in an attempt to appear persuasive.

:laugh:

And your blah, blah, blahs and rolleyes and absurd statements about FoxNews is not the same....

Fucking laughable.......typical jerkoff....the minute your own shit gets tossed back in your face, you cry like a bitch....

[jamiroguy1]

Originally posted by joeygk

Fortunately, I tend to disregard the off cuff nattering of someone who constructs his arguments by referring to other people as "retards" and uses four letter expletives in an attempt to appear persuasive.

He's a douchebag. There's an explicative for ya.

[joeygk]

Originally posted by igloo

And your blah, blah, blahs and rolleyes and absurd statements about FoxNews is not the same

No they're not, I'm glad you see that.