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The 2,359th CyberAlert. Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
11:05am EST, Friday February 16, 2007 (Vol. Twelve; No. 29)
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2. Olbermann's Record of Hateful Diatribes Against Conservatives
3. Olbermann Assumes NBC's Bill Moyers Chair In Liberal Outrage
4. New NBC Political Director Toiled for Harkin, But 'Fan' of MRC
Reciting a February 15 conference call held by NBC News President Steve Capus to make the announcement, Bauder relayed how "the news chief also said he saw no problem giving a more prominent role on NBC News to someone with clearly stated political opinions." Capus asserted: "I think the viewers are sophisticated enough to welcome all viewpoints." But only one kind of viewpoint, that of the far-left, conservative-hating Olbermann is getting two hours in NBC prime time and monthly commentaries on the NBC Nightly News. As for the popularity of Olbermann's liberal rantings, Bauder recited how though "Olbermann's viewership in January was up 85 percent over January 2006, according to Nielsen Media Research," he's "still in O'Reilly's shadow: the Fox show has averaged 2.4 million viewers so far this year while Olbermann, in the same time slot, has averaged 672,000."
For Bauder's February 15 AP dispatch: news.yahoo.com
Spruiell's item: media.nationalreview.com See item #2 below for a rundown of Olbermann's liberal crusading and conservative-bashing over the last few months. 
From calling President Bush a "compulsive liar" who has committed "impeachable" offenses and forgotten "the lessons of 9/11" so "may this country forgive you," to denouncing Donald Rumsfeld as a "quack" pushing "fascism," to bringing up the possibility that conservatives might intentionally "provoke potential terrorists" in an effort to "maintain influence and control of the presidency," to accusing Rush Limbaugh of "following the logic and ethics of Osama bin Laden," to sliming Fox's Chris Wallace as "a monkey posing as a newscaster," Keith Olbermann has used his MSNBC Countdown show over the past year to launch vitriolic personal attacks on those with whom he disagrees. He even once tagged the Media Research Center as a "rabid right-wing spin group" which has been "inventing liberal bias since 1987." Back in 1998, he asserted that "the person Ken Starr has reminded me of facially all this time was Heinrich Himmler" and asked if Starr's pursuit of Bill Clinton prompts "some sort of comparison to a persecutor as opposed to a prosecutor for Mr. Starr?" Below are highlights of some of Olbermann's more obnoxious left-wing comments, with links to full transcripts and videos:
The segment is a strong measure of the MSNBC host's overwhelming bias against conservatives as the segment has served as a launchpad for attacks against conservative figures and positions at a dramatically greater rate than against the left. By a staggeringly lopsided 8 to 1 margin, Olbermann has targeted conservatives, sometimes with substantial venom, while hitting a comparatively minuscule number of liberals. Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World" segment normally features three nominees, although sometimes fewer, for the title of the same name, with the third place award labeled "Worse," second place labeled "Worser," and the first place award labeled "Worst." His targets have ranged from dumb criminals to politicians and public figures, many of whom have simply made controversial statements upsetting to Olbermann. MRC analysts examined every "Worst Person" segment, beginning with the first installment on June 30, 2005, and ending with June 23, 2006. The total number of nominees counted during the period was 592. Of these, 197, or about one-third, were politically salient figures. Out of these 197 nominees, there were 174, or 88 percent, that featured an attack on a conservative target or ideas, compared with 23 nominees, or 12 percent, that featured an attack on liberal targets or ideas. For the full report, and link to a list of Olbermann's targets: www.mrc.org
For more: www.mrc.org
For more, including a video clip: www.mrc.org
For more: www.mrc.org
For more: www.mrc.org
For more, including video: www.mrc.org
For more, including video: www.mrc.org
For more, including video: www.mrc.org
For more, including video: www.mrc.org
For more, including video: www.mrc.org
For more, including video: www.mrc.org
For more, including video: www.mrc.org
For more, including video: www.mrc.org
For more: www.mrc.org
For more, including video: www.mrc.org
For more, including video: www.mrc.org
For more, including video: www.mrc.org
For more, including video: www.mrc.org
For more, including video: www.mrc.org
# June 29 CyberAlert: Olbermann Lashes Out at MRC: 'Inventing Liberal Bias Since 1987'
For more, including video: www.mrc.org
For more, including video: www.mrc.org
For more: www.mrc.org
For video, as produced for the MRC's first DisHonors Awards in 1999, go to:
www.mediaresearch.org
In the commentary and prime-time special clauses of Olbermann's new deal, there are obvious parallels with Moyers. They are two fiercely left-wing commentators who oddly deny a liberal bias when asked by the press. In February 1995 promotional spots NBC promised: "Bold, clear, balanced and fair. Now NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw has a new dimension -- Bill Moyers." Moyers began his new duties on February 14, 1995, and NBC had no plans to provide a conservative counter-weight. See: www.mrc.org [This item, by Tim Graham, was posted Thursday on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ] Just like the odd denials of Steve Capus that it's "really sad and pathetic" to think Olbermann tilts NBC further to the left (see 1 above), in February of 1995, we reported in MediaWatch that the New York Times relayed February 1 that NBC News President Andy Lack dismissed questions about Moyers' liberal bias at PBS, insisting "that perception is inside the beltway, and perhaps inside about ten blocks of New York and ten blocks of L.A. I don't think the American people give a whit about it." The same day the Baltimore Sun quoted Moyers: "I'm not in politics. I have no agenda. I'm not pushing a platform. I have no ideology." Really? In a 1989 Esquire profile Moyers tagged Newt Gingrich as "Joe McCarthy with a southern accent." See: www.mrc.org Here's an example of his Nightly News commentary, from March 7, 1995: "Gingrich uses words as if they were napalm bombs....He sent conservative candidates a long list of words to smear their opponents -- words like 'sick,' 'pathetic,' 'traitors,' 'corrupt,' 'anti-family,' 'disgrace.' With talk radio quoting it all back to us, our political landscape is a toxic dump." Moyers only lasted a few months, leaving his evening-news spot due to heart trouble. A year later, on April 12, 1996, Moyers hosted a Dateline NBC special blaming conservatives for the Oklahoma City bombing -- which might offer an inkling of the kind of prime-time Olbermann specials we might see: As Welch listened to G. Gordon Liddy on his car radio, Moyers charged: "The airwaves are still saturated with militant rhetoric. Day and night you can hear a stream of rage and insult directed with unremitting hostility at government and others. It rubs like salt in deep wounds and some of the families are trying to counter it." Then, as viewers saw several victims being interviewed by KTOK's Carole Arnold, Moyers explained: "Emerging from their private grief, they appeal for an end of hateful talk and political invective. Their experience is their message. What a society sows, it reaps....This local station has given the families a forum, but it also carries several hours of talk every day that they find inflammatory." The station does not carry Liddy, so the broadside against "hate" and "inflammatory" talk goes undefined. Welch proceded to tell Arnold: "Of course I think the media need to be involved a little bit in a little bit of control of the hate radio going on. I'm very disturbed about that. I mean where's the responsibility?" ...Moyers concluded the hour with this seeming indictment of House Speaker Newt Gingrich as co-conspirator: "It will never be the same. The bombers saw to that. The tears and grief, the pain and the sorrow were all intended. Terrorism is the politics of murder. We should have seen it coming. Hate was in the air. Government had been vilified, found guilty and sentenced to die. It didn't matter who was in the way. There are lessons for us here, something to take away from the wreckage of that day, if we're listening, one year later." END of Excerpt For more: www.mrc.org One more footnote in recent media history: Moyers was also an early contributor on MSNBC, back when they tried the schtick of hitching their network to the Internet. Moyers rotated in as a host of their badly named prime-time interview show "Internight," and lit up with the usual liberal bias. See: www.mrc.org
Finkelstein's February 15 posting on NewsBusters: When word emerged yesterday [Wednesday] that NBC had named Chuck Todd, currently the Editor-in-Chief of National Journal's "The Hotline," as its new political director, my curiosity as to his personal politics was naturally aroused. I found a MediaBistro reprint of NBC's press release that included this intriguing sentence: "Before coming to the world of political reporting and analysis, Todd earned practical political experience on initiative campaigns in Florida and various national campaigns based in Washington, D.C." MediaBistro's posting: www.mediabistro.com Todd responded by indicating that in 1991 he had worked on the presidential campaign of Tom Harkin, the liberal Democratic senator from Iowa, later mentioning that as a youth in 1984 he had also worked casually with his grandfather on Ronald Reagan's campaign. The Florida initiatives were ones concerning a bottle bill and off-shore drilling, Todd having worked on the "green" side of both issues. At the same time, the new political director made these points: -- "I am a fan of the Media Research Center and of Mr. Bozell [MRC founder and president] and am aware of your mission." -- "I only ask that you and your readers before drawing conclusions, judge me on my work over my 15-year career covering politics. I'm an analyst; I don't have an agenda other than making politics interesting and sharing my passion for the subject in a way that will draw more folks into the arena." -- "My politics really is as neutral as it comes; I've gotten so engrossed in the game of campaigns that I don't pigeon-hole anyone. For those familiar with The Hotline, they can vouch for that. I view my job as an analyst. Who's up and who's down and why are they up and why are they down." As I responded to Todd: "From my perspective it would be nice if, once in a while, someone in your position would have to explain that they don't have an agenda despite having worked for Republican politicians or conservatively-oriented initiatives. Instead, we're asked to accept that neither Chris Matthews nor Tim Russert -- and now you --- have an agenda despite having all worked for liberal Democrats." By the same token, Chuck Todd's willingness to engage with NewsBusters, his admiration for MRC and Brent Bozell, his long tenure out of partisan politics and in reporting at Hotline, and his avowal of neutral-as-can-be politics, are encouraging. Todd will have a much higher profile than his predecessor as NBC political director, Liz Wilner. In addition to his behind-the-scenes duties, Todd will serve as NBC News' on-air political analyst for NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, Today, Meet the Press with Tim Russert and MSNBC, including Hardball with Chris Matthews. END of Finkelstein's item which is posted at: newsbusters.org From my reading of Todd's articles and his appearances on televisions shows, mainly Hardball, I'd agree with his self-assessment that he's a straight-shooter when it comes to reporting on and assessing the political landscape. -- Brent Baker
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NBC News on Thursday announced that the network has extended its contract with Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC's Countdown, for four years.
As part of the deal with the vitriolic journalist who, the AP's David Bauder
reported, "has become a liberal hero" and who "has seen his ratings increase
since launching a series of anti-President Bush commentaries late last summer,"
he will be elevated to the broadcast network which will air two Countdown
specials a year and he will contribute "occasional essays" on NBC Nightly News.
In announcing the deal on his program, Olbermann said the frequency of the
"essays" will be "periodic" and during an afternoon interview on MSNBC he
suggested he'd do about a dozen a year.
# June 27, 2006 Media Reality Check by the MRC's Brad Wilmouth: "The 'Worst' of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann; 3rd Place Cable Host Uses 'Worst in the World!' Segment to Savage Conservatives & His Competitors." The study found: 
The night after the four-hour, two-night season premiere of Fox's 24 ended with a "suitcase nuke" being set off by Middle Eastern terrorists in a Southern California warehouse, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann saw a nefarious plot to aid President Bush: "Is 24 just entertainment or is it propaganda designed to keep people thinking about domestic terrorism to keep us scared?" He demanded Tuesday night: "Gripping drama or thinly veiled propaganda?" Olbermann recounted how 24 "featured a mall attack, a would-be suicide bomber on a subway, and a successful suicide bombing on a passenger bus. Not in places where these things have already happened, but in a country called the United States of America. In case you missed the point, the show finished up with a nuclear weapon detonating in a major American city, literally conjuring up the administration's imagery for the war in Iraq, the good old mushroom cloud." Olbermann soon proposed that "if the irrational right can claim that the news is fixed to try to alter people's minds or that networks should be boycotted for nudity or for immorality," then "shouldn't those same groups be saying 24 should be taken off of TV because it's naked brainwashing?" 
On Friday's Countdown show, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann again discussed whether President Bush is the "worst ever" President, inspired by comments from Republican Senator Gordon Smith that leaving American troops in Iraq could be "criminal." Coining the phrase "Mr. Smith goes to his conscience," Olbermann introduced an interview with Newsweek's Richard Wolffe comparing Smith's comments to the "watershed" moment when Republican Senators Hugh Scott and Barry Goldwater convinced President Nixon to resign. After bringing aboard former Nixon counsel John Dean, Olbermann referred to their past discussion of the Bush White House being a "textbook case of authoritarianism" and wondered if President Bush might soon be "declared once and for all" the worst President ever: "If in face of the overwhelming evidence that the plan in Iraq is not working, the public disapproval at this extraordinary high, if even now President Bush is not willing to change course on a real basis and Mr. Rumsfeld's not expressing any remorse, might that be the deciding historical factor in declaring once and for all this President the worst one ever?" 
On Thursday's Countdown, two days after comparing Newt Gingrich's ideas on free speech and anti-terrorism measures to Naziism, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann aimed his latest "Special Comment" rant at the former House Speaker over a speech he gave at the Nackey S. Loeb First Amendment award dinner, during which Gingrich had talked about restricting some free speech rights for those who incite terrorism. Olbermann used a number of charged words and phrases in hitting Gingrich, including "fascism," "barbarism" and "delusions of grandeur." He also referred to Gingrich as a "dangerous creature" and compared Gingrich to an "arsonist giving the keynote address at a convention of firefighters." Accusing Gingrich of "exploiting" terrorism to pursue the presidency, the Countdown host quoted a line from The Manchurian Candidate referring to Angela Lansbury's character who planned to seize power while "waving the flag every time she subjugates another freedom." Olbermann concluded by proclaiming that he is "thankful" not to be with Gingrich in "that dark place" where "the way to save America is to destroy America." 
On Friday night's Countdown, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann renewed his "Special Comment" attack on President Bush, replaying the original comments from Monday's show, and adding a condemnation of Bush for an awkwardly worded, off-the-cuff remark made by the President during Friday's news conference that it is "unacceptable to think" the actions of America can be compared to those of terrorists. Not catching on to the President's likely meaning that it is "ridiculous to claim" the actions of America are similar to those terrorists, Olbermann referred to a favorite topic of his, George Orwell's 1984, as he attacked Bush's "chilling" words. Olbermann: "'It's unacceptable to think.' Sounds like something straight out of George Orwell's 1984. Instead, it was something straight out of George Bush's mouth.... And not only issuing those chilling words, 'It's unacceptable to think,' but doing so in answer to the call to conscience from his own former Secretary of State, Colin Powell." 
On Monday's Countdown, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann hosted former Nixon White House counsel and frequent Bush administration critic John Dean to promote his latest book attacking conservatives, titled Conservatives Without Conscience, which the Countdown host labeled "an extraordinary document." Olbermann, who has a long history of bashing President Bush's tactics in the war on terrorism, provided Dean with a sympathetic, non-challenging forum to argue that modern conservatives are moving the Republican party toward "authoritarianism" as Dean tagged some conservatives, specifically George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, as having an "authoritarian personality," and labeled 23 percent of the population as "right-wing authoritarian followers" who are willing to "march over the cliff." Olbermann not only made his latest reference to George Orwell's 1984, but he also found relevance in bringing up Nazi Germany as he wondered if there had been similarity in the "psychological principles" in "Germany and Italy in the 30s," and, quoting a passage from Dean's book, brought up the possibility that conservatives might intentionally "provoke potential terrorists" in an effort to "maintain influence and control of the presidency." 
Keith Olbermann's arrival as the lone commentator at NBC Nightly News is the first overt commentator NBC's hired since PBS omnipresence Bill Moyers in 1995. A quick Nexis search shows Olbermann has been very rarely on NBC News airwaves. He actually anchored NBC Nightly News as a weekend substitute on April 12, 1998 (Easter Sunday, see accompanying screen shot which will be added to the posted version of this CyberAlert) and May 9, 1998. In recent years, he's surfaced a few times on the Today show. He was interviewed to plug his "Worst Person In the World" book last September 15. He reported on major-league shortstop Alex Rodriguez on February 16, 2004, and co-hosted the Saturday edition of Today with Campbell Brown on August 23, 2003. 
The new Political Director for NBC News once toiled for liberal Democrat Tom Harkin's 1992 presidential campaign, but is also a "fan" of the MRC who maintains his politics are now "as neutral as it comes." Mark Finkelstein, a regular contributor to the MRC's NewsBusters blog, was intrigued by this sentence in NBC's press release announcing the hiring of Chuck Todd, now Editor-in-Chief of Hotline: "Before coming to the world of political reporting and analysis, Todd earned practical political experience on initiative campaigns in Florida and various national campaigns based in Washington, D.C." So Finkelstein contacted Todd and learned "that in 1991 he had worked on the presidential campaign of Tom Harkin, the liberal Democratic Senator from Iowa." Todd added, however: "I am a fan of the Media Research Center and of Mr. Bozell and am aware of your mission."