MRC in the News -- September 2003 -- Media Research Center

September 2003

Many media outlets — radio, television and print — regularly feature MRC guests on their programs, quote MRC spokespeople in their articles, and cite MRC research in their stories. Below is a sampling of MRC making news in the news media. Links are provided when available, and were active when posted.

Kansas City Star
"Hidden Stories of Iraq: Hunting for the Good Stuff is Worth It," by E. Thomas McClanahan.
September 30, 2003

Consider this report last month on an attack on a pipeline in northern Iraq, by CBS's Kimberly Dozier, as transcribed by the Media Research Center.

The attack, she said, “…added to a growing sense of frustration among top brass here that no measure is enough to protect their soldiers or Iraq's resources…Ordinary Iraqis blame Americans for not fixing the damage fast enough, even as the soldiers are risking their lives to do it…America has made new enemies. They're chanting the name of that old foe, Saddam Hussein, and vowing to attack Americans everywhere.”

This was so over-the-top that CBS anchor Dan Rather reminded viewers that TV “sometimes has trouble with perspective, so you may want to note that in some areas of Iraq, things are peaceful.”

See Story

World Net Daily
"Fashionably Blasting the Gospelm" by Jerry Falwell
September 27, 2003

This is not the case, though, when filmmakers make movies blaspheming and mocking Jesus Christ.

Brent Bozell, founder of the Media Research Center, pointed to "The Last Temptation of Christ" – the 1988 film depicting Jesus as a man believing himself to be possessed and having sexual feelings about Mary Magdalene – as a case in point. That movie was "the toast of the town among critics," Bozell recalled. In addition, he noted that critics also acclaimed "Terrence McNally's play 'Corpus Christi,' which presented Jesus as a gay man." What's more, ministers and conservative Christians are frequently depicted as mean-spirited and corrupt in many contemporary movies.

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TownHall.com
"Democrate Tin Men and Teddy," by Mark Alexander
September 27, 2003.

The biased reporting does more than create discord at home, however; it also strengthens the resolve of terrorists targeting our troops in Iraq. And it's not just Republicans who understand this. Rep. Jim Marshall (D-GA) notes: "[The news media] are dwelling upon the mistakes, the ambushes, the soldiers killed, the wounded.... Fair enough. But it is not balancing this bad news with 'the rest of the story,' the progress made daily, the good news. The falsely bleak picture weakens our national resolve, discourages Iraqi cooperation and emboldens our enemy."

"In short," notes Media Research Center's Brent Bozell, "anchors are acting like they are the ones who run this country and could prosecute this war better than the Bush administration."

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Rush Limbaugh.com's "Stack of Stuff"
September 17

Media Research Center
Jennings Cites Hussein’s “Alleged” Weapons of Mass Destruction
Amanpour: Scribes Too Pro-Bush/FNC, Burns: No, Too Pro-Saddam
ABC on Tax: “Who Could Say No to an Extra Dime to Help Kids?”
Gumbel's Show Avoids Liberal Bias, Brokaw Justifies No Flag Pin

See Story | More on these topics

Rush Limbaugh.com's "Stack of Stuff"
September 15

Media Research Center
ABC Frets Over Lack of Civil Rights for Guantanamo Detainees
During Names Reading, Couric Relays How Bush Has Alienated World
MSNBC’s Olbermann Focuses on EPA’s “Indefensible Deception”

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ContraCostaTimes.com
September 14, 2003
Survey: CBS, ABC on opposite ends of coverage
By Mark Jurkowitz
Boston Globe

Is Dan Rather a super patriot and Peter Jennings a near subversive? That would certainly seem to be stretching things. But a new survey -- coupled with other analyses of coverage of the war in Iraq -- suggests that there was a substantive difference in tone between ABC's war-wary "World News Tonight" and the more gung-ho "CBS Evening News."

...In late April, the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog group in Alexandria, Va., released a report card based on viewing extensive war coverage from March 20 through April 9. It gave ABC a D- and Jennings an F. And it accused the network of "knee-jerk negativism that played up Iraqi claims of civilian suffering, hyped American military difficulties, and indulged antiwar protesters with free air time."

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RushLimbaugh.com
Rush's Total Stack of Stuff
September 11, 2003

Read the wide array of articles that the EIB staff puts together and that El Rushbo reads for show prep....

Media Research Center
(CBS: Bush’s Actions "Raising New Questions About" His Leadership)
(John "Even Republican" McCain, Nets Trumpet His Iraq Criticisms)
(On Iraq Money Request, a Sudden Concern About Too Much Spending)
(CBS’s Smith to Kennedy: Bush Guilty of "Sexing-Up Intelligence"?)
(USA Today Story Tags Coulter as "Ultraconservative" Extremist)
(CNN: "Another Drawn-Out, Inconclusive Vietnam War in the Making?")