MetroWest Daily News
“Holmes: Fight to the finish,” by Rick Holmes
October 31
…The liberal bias charge is a familiar one that is finally meeting some resistance. The Media Matters organization, founded by reformed right-wing spear-chucker David Brock, is modeled on Brent Bozell's Media Research Center, which has been hectoring the so-called liberal media since 1987. Brock has been counting the panelists on cable news shows, for instance, wondering why Fox News and MSNBC regularly "balance" centrist journalists with unabashed conservative commentators. …
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Story
Richmond Times Dispatch
“Week’s End,” (no byline)
October 30
You can't discriminate in the rights that you afford people."... Bush, on October 13, eloquently expressed the opposing vision: "I believe the role of government is to stand side by side with our citizens to help them realize their dreams, not tell citizens how to live their lives." The Founders would agree./ / *Herman Cain and Dan Gainor of the Media Research Center: [The years 1996 and 2004] had incumbent Presidents running for elec tion. Both saw declining unemployment, an increase in jobs, and strong economic growth. Some of the numbers are so similar it's eerie. Yet the major media covered those time periods as differ ently as night and day. During [1996], stories about job creation and unemployment under Clinton were positive 85 percent of the time - more than six times as often as they were for Bush. Reporters praised the Clinton unemployment rate of 5.6 percent as "low," but they ignored a 5.4-percent rate under Bush./ / *Former ABC correspondent Bob Zelnick, now chairman of the department of journalism at Boston University: There's one word I haven't heard [from Dan Rather or CBS] so far: retraction. They've yielded inch by inch on the authenticity of the [purported Texas Air National Guard] documents and the reliability of the source, but without the documents there was no story. [Until CBS retracts the story and apologizes directly to Bush,] it mitigates the potential beneficial effect of an independent board.
Sydney Morning Herald
“Media get a blogging from internet pundits,” (no byline)
October 30
... The harshest criticism comes from sites with open political leanings. The conservative Media Research Centre posts a daily list of supposed infractions on its website. A typical item, posted last week: CBS News did not identify a September 11 widow voicing support for Kerry, Kristen Breitweiser, as "an outspoken, anti-Bush activist". Sandy Genelius, a CBS News spokesman, said the report was "straightforward, fair and accurate.”
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Story
ChronWatch
“The President Who Committed Treason,” by Raymond Kraft
October 29
...Various news stories from multiple sources over the last few months report that somewhere between 31 and more than 100 pages of his records have not been released. See ''Navy Contradicts Kerry on Release of Military Records,'' Marc Morano, CNSNews.com, September 16, 2004. See
www.CNSNews.com.
See
Story
Agape Press
“Commentary & News Briefs,” Compiled by Jody Brown
October 29
...A media watchdog believes ABC's recent interview of President Bush was designed to get the president in trouble with his Christian base. During a recent interview on ABC's Good Morning America, host Charles Gibson asked the president whether he believes if both Christians and Muslims make it to heaven. The president responded: "Yes, they do. They take different routes to get there." Tim Graham of the Media Research Center says it was clearly a trick question. "The president tried to say 'I don't decide who goes to heaven, as president of the United States.' What Gibson's trying to do here is merely get the president in trouble," Graham says. "I believe Charles Gibson is asking these questions to get the president to disappoint his Christian supporters. That is the ABC agenda today." Graham says it is unfortunate that Bush cannot say what one would think he believes -- that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6) -- because he is afraid what his political enemies and the liberal news media would do with such a statement. "The press would start suggesting that President Bush wants all the Muslims exported from the United States, etc.," Graham speculates. "President Bush has done nothing in his term to oppress or discriminate against Muslims." In reality, Graham points out, Bush has frustrated many Christians by constantly referring to Islam as a "peaceful" religion. [Chad Groening]
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Story
Agape Press
“Expert Calls Missing Weapons Story Biased Media Hit Job,” by Chad Groening
October 28
…Tim Graham of the Media Research Center suspects the selective reporting on these alleged missing weapons, and its timing, suggests that this is just another cheap trick from left-leaning mainstream media. "This was meant to be the 'October surprise,'" he says, adding, "CBS has a history of dirty tricks. This is their latest one." …
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Story
ChronWatch
Media Bias Is Just a Comparative Fairy Tale, Not!” by Howard Llewellyn
October 28
No doubt there still remain liberals, deluded ones, to be sure (some would say that includes all liberals), who think, er, feel, that conservatives’ complaints about ''media bias'' are just a bunch of sour grapes. But, wonders columnist Brent Bozell, how can anyone with more than three brain cells communicating with one another fail to recognize that this bias indeed exists, and has grown to disturbing proportions? Surely anyone who regularly reads or watches mainstream news and has an I.Q. exceeding his body temperature can see it. …
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Story
Pittsburgh Tribune
“Midweek Briefing…” (no byline)
October 27
…Kerry said he met for hours with all members of the U.N. Security Council before he voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq. But The Washington Times now reports four of the five ambassadors then on the council deny any such meeting. Another Kerry fib. ... The United Steelworkers union is thanking the Bush administration for its temporary steel tariffs by allowing a phalanx of organized labor groups to use its Pittsburgh headquarters for their anti-Bush efforts. Which should tell Mr. Bush all he needs to know about the dangers of pandering. ... The mainstream media regularly praised the 5.6 percent rate of unemployment when Bill Clinton sought re-election in 1996. But there's nary a peep about the current 5.4 percent rate, concludes an analysis by the Media Research Center. Are you surprised? ... Eight early voting precincts in Florida may be closed because Kerry supporters are attempting to intimidate voters, The New York Sun reports. Of course, if this comes to pass, these same intimidators then will accuse Republicans of disenfranchising voters.
New York Times
“THE NEWS MEDIA Web Offers Hefty Voice to Critics of Mainstream ...” by Jim Rutenberg (p. A23) gives a review of media criticism Web sites:
The conservative Media Research Center posts a daily list of supposed infractions on its Web site. A typical item, posted last week: CBS News did not identify a Sept. 11 widow voicing support for Mr. Kerry, Kristen Breitweiser, as "an outspoken, anti-Bush activist." Sandy Genelius, a CBS News spokeswoman, said the report was "straightforward, fair and accurate."
See
Story
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
Midweek briefing… (no byline)
October 27
... But there's nary a peep about the current 5.4 percent rate, concludes an analysis by the Media Research Center. Are you surprised? ... Eight early voting precincts in Florida may be closed because Kerry supporters are attempting to intimidate voters, The New York Sun reports. Of course, if this comes to pass, these same intimidators then will accuse Republicans of disenfranchising voters.
See
Story
WMCU: Miami, FL
October 27
MRC President Brent Bozell discussed Weapons of Mass Distortion: The Coming Meltdown of the Liberal
Media.
The Washington Times
“CBS Eyed '60 Minutes' Bush Bombshell," by Jennifer Harper
October 27
…The" 'October surprise' missing-weapons story flops," noted the Media Research Center's Brent Baker, while the Drudge Report cast CBS as a habitual Republican basher, airing accounts critical of the party "a few days before the vote" in 1992 and 2000.
See
Story
Jewish Press
“Politically Motivated ‘Scoop’?” by Clay Waters
October 27
See
Story
Hannity and Colmes
Guests: Brent Bozell, Danny Schechter
October 26
HANNITY: As we continue on HANNITY AND COLMES, I'm Sean Hannity.
Also coming up tonight, Alan's exclusive interview with the rising Democratic star and Illinois Senate candidate, Barack Obama. That's coming up.
But first, John Kerry has jumped at the chance to criticize the president over the missing explosives. Now has the media also been a little too quick to go with this story? Was "The New York Times" trying to make President Bush look bad a week before the election?
Joining us from Washington is the president of the Media Research Council, Brent Bozell. Here in New York, executive director of Mediachannel.org, Danny Schechter is with us.
Thank you both for being with us.
Brent, let me ask you this. The way I see this, and the way I read this, is they don't have any proof that those weapons were even there when the troops got there.
BRENT BOZELL, MEDIA RESEARCH COUNCIL: It's incredible, Sean. You know, for 24 years, I've been hearing about supposed Republican October surprises that were going to happen and they never happened.
But this year, we've had two surprises, and both of them have come from the media. First, the September National Guard surprise from CBS and now the October "New York Times"/CBS weapons explosives accusation.
Look, the truth of the matter is that the "New York Times" came out with this accusation, and it took only one day for NBC to come out and say, "We were there when the troops arrived and those weapons weren't there."
Where is the idea of due diligence in reporting? It is so obvious what the media are doing in this campaign, that they will do -- they will run with anything to defeat George Bush, no matter what, no matter how untrue it is.
HANNITY: Well, all right, let me ask you.
Do you think, Danny, that we need at least proof that the -- look, maybe they were there. But if we're going to remove 380 tons of dangerous weapons -- which John Kerry said didn't exist anyway -- but if you're going to remove them, wouldn't we have known about it?
DANNY SCHECHTER, MEDIACHANNEL.ORG: Well, first of all, the charges came from the Iraqi government, the government that President Bush has been citing as authoritative and legitimate. That's point one.
Point two, the International Atomic Energy commission is the people who verified this and went to the Security Council reporting it. These are the people who are the international agency.
Now, did both the Iraqi government, the International Atomic Energy Agency, "The New York Times," CBS, the media and everybody else conspire against President Bush? Come on, Sean. That's not how it works.
HANNITY: Danny, if there is no definitive evidence those weapons were even there -- nobody has been able to chronicle they were even there -- wait a minute. We're talking a week before an important election. To leave that impression -- and we saw John Kerry jump on it without any proof.
SCHECHTER: Well, of course, John Kerry is going to jump on any information that makes the president -- questions his integrity or capacity. He's been doing it throughout the campaign. That's not a surprise. That's not a surprise.
HANNITY: But what if it's not true? What if it's a lie?
SCHECHTER: But the International Atomic Energy Commission says it's true. The Iraqi government says it's true. Only Sean Hannity is saying it's not true.
HANNITY: No, but the problem is nobody has any evidence or proof that it was taken out. Nobody even knows if it was there when we got there.
SCHECHTER: Sean, I just finished a film, "WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception" about the media coverage of the war. And throughout it I've documented things that were important that weren't true, including, heaven forbid, on Fox itself. On Fox will...
(CROSSTALK)
COLMES: All right, let me get to Brent Bozell here.
Look, the inspector for the IAEA -- I mean, a spokesperson for the IAEA, Melissa Fleming, says that they knew that weapons were there January 2003. Then in March, 2003, they were back -- they didn't actually see the explosives, but they saw the tags were still there and not broken.
Now, between then and April, between March and April, were this all to be removed, wouldn't we have known about it? There's no evidence that those weapons left between when the IAEA believes they were there and when our troops were there.
BOZELL: Doesn't it tell you something, Alan, what Jim Miklaszewski of NBC reported last night, which seems very, very apparent?
This story comes out eight days before the presidential election. If they knew all these things when they say they knew all these things, why didn't they say anything about these things when they knew about them?
COLMES: Well, isn't a question, if the president knew about this, and there's reports that the president was aware of this, and we knew that there had been weapons and looting and weapons missing all along, did the president have a responsibility -- did the administration have a responsibility to inform the American people what they knew about it?
BOZELL: You know, Alan, you can't win with you people.
(CROSSTALK)
COLMES: Hold on, let Brent respond.
BOZELL: What has the president been saying since the very beginning? That this guy was a dangerous demagogue, a dangerous figure on the face of this earth. Think about this for a second, guys. Think about this. One pound of these weapons could bring down an airline. He had 380 tons of this.
(CROSSTALK)
COLMES: Right. And the big story here, Danny, is how good a job the United States did in protecting the weapons in Iraq and protecting security in Iraq.
BOZELL: Great. Great. More demagoguery.
COLMES: This is for Danny Schechter. Hold on, Brent. Hold on. Let's get the other guest in. That's the issue here.
BOZELL: More demagoguery from you.
COLMES: Danny, go ahead.
SCHECTHER: I mean, first of all, "The New York Times" has just done a series for an entire week talking about the flaws and problems with the American military strategy there, things we thought were true that wasn't true.
Of course, Saddam had weapons. As they say, we have the receipts. A lot of them were sold to him by Western powers. We knew the weapons that he had. That's not a surprise.
But what is at question here is whether the media performed accurately and honestly. That's the question.
COLMES: And we know there was weapons. And we know there was looting. There was looting, as I pointed out a few minutes ago, at the top nuclear facility in Iraq. We knew that there were weapons that were not being protected. Isn't that the big story here, Brent? Isn't that a legitimate news story?
BOZELL: Let's put this in perspective. The 380 tons constitutes less than 1/10 of 1 percent of the total weaponry -- 400,000 tons -- we've captured. Let's put that in perspective.
SCHECHTER: But let tell you something. I got a report today from Turkey, from a correspondent of ours who's there, who says that a lot of heavy weapons are being smuggled there by different Kurdish factions into Turkey, bombs are going off there. American weapons, which have disappeared from Iraq, are being used in Turkey today. It's not even being reported.
HANNITY: We'll pick it up here. But I'm going to tell you, I think this today has made the best case ever that WMDs potentially were sent to Syria or elsewhere. We'll get into that when we get back.
And we'll check in now with Greta Van Susteren who is standing by for a sneak peak at what's coming up in 22 minutes from right now when she goes "ON THE RECORD" -- Greta?
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: Sean, Dr. Henry Kissinger is going to be here.
Plus, we're going to talk about all the potential problems on election night, and they may be big problems.
And we're going to take calls on the Scott Peterson double-murder case. That and much more.
Back to you.
HANNITY: "ON THE RECORD," coming up right after HANNITY AND COLMES.
And coming up later, Democratic Senate hopeful Barack Obama. He has a surprising outlook on the war in Iraq, and we'll show you what he had to say in a very rare interview. Coming up, straight ahead.
COLMES: And a page tonight from the HANNITY AND COLMES notebook.
The Capitol Hill newspaper, "Roll Call," is reporting today that South Dakota Republicans are going after Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle by attacking his wife. Linda Daschle has worked as a Washington lobbyist since the 1980s, and previously worked for the FAA.
But Daschle's Republican challenger, John Thune, took out an ad in last Saturday's newspaper trying to, well, impugn Mrs. Daschle's reputation about lobbying money that Daschle has received from drug companies. The South Dakota Republican Party also sent out a mailing that attacked Mrs. Daschle's lobbying on behalf of the airline industry with a post-September 11th airline bailout that Senator Daschle supported.
At a time when Republicans are screaming about Senator Kerry mentioning the vice president's daughter, shouldn't they leave the family members of their opposition alone?
We now continue with Brent Bozell from the Media Research Center and Danny Schechter from Mediachannel.org.
One point I want to make, Brent, is this was not just any -- you said this was a small percentage of the cache of weapons that they had in Iraq. But this is not just any location. This was a place that was a known location of a developing nuclear weapons before the Iraq war.
The IAEA had warned the administration many times to watch out for this particular location, if we are to believe many reports on this, and so it should not be a surprise. And that this was a place they should have been looking at very careful all along.
BOZELL: Isn't it funny that liberals are suddenly wondering about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? I mean, I've heard it all now.
COLMES: First of all...
BOZELL: We've come full circle. We've come...
(CROSSTALK)
COLMES: See, you're avoiding my question, by saying that we don't care about weapons of mass destruction. What we want is the truth.
BOZELL: We've been hearing for three years -- for three years we've been hearing nonstop that they weren't there, that they weren't there, that they weren't there. And now what we're hearing is they were there and they disappeared.
COLMES: First of all, I'm not sure that we're talking about the weapons -- they're not all defined as weapons of mass destruction.
SCHECHTER: No, they are not weapons of mass destruction.
COLMES: These are not all weapons of mass destruction. That's not what we're talking about.
SCHECHTER: They're not weapons of mass destructions. They're not nuclear weapons. They're not chemical weapons. They're not bacteriological weapons.
BOZELL: They can trigger nuclear devices. They can have the same impact as any other weapon of mass destruction.
SCHECHTER: Listen, you can stretch the definition to include a Saturday night special, if you want to, in terms of the number of weapons that kill more people are often just ordinary rifles and the handguns.
BOZELL: They don't bring down buildings, my friend.
HANNITY: Danny, here's the point. If our troops had not gone into Iraq, as John Kerry didn't want them to go, 400,000 tons of dangerous weapons would still be in the hands of Saddam Hussein, who could ultimately partner with terrorists, correct?
SCHECHTER: Well, you know, he could. And he could, and you could, and we could, and could, could, could, could, could. The point is, where's the evidence, where's the beef? We don't have the beef.
The WMD issue, everybody looked into it, couldn't find anything. The media reported it as if it was true. Fox reported it.
The only guy on Fox who I have respect for on this issue is Bill O'Reilly, believe it or not, who said he was wrong with the WMDs, that he exaggerated it.
HANNITY: All right.
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: Let me ask you, Brent, this question. The best case, I think, we have is right now that, if they can remove these weapons, as they claim, although there's no proof, doesn't it prove the point that those WMDs that everyone now dismisses could have been moved to Syria, could have been hidden elsewhere?
BOZELL: How in the world can you say, a, that Saddam Hussein did not represent a threat when he had, at the very least we're told, 380 tons of this highly explosive material?
Secondly, where did it go if it was taken out? Where is it? There is the speculation that these things were taken across the border. If those things were taken out before the army arrived, which is appears that happened, I'm sure that's exactly what happened. And I'm sure they're out there.
COLMES: No one ever said...
BOZELL: And for, you know, for liberals, again, I've got to say this. Liberals can't have it both ways.
COLMES: We've got to go. We never said he never had weapons. These are not classified as WMD.
SCHECHTER: It's not the liberals who are saying this. It's the Iraqi government. It's the International Atomic Energy commission.
COLMES: We've got to run. We thank you both very much.
Coming up next, my one-on-one interview with rising Democratic star Barack Obama. That's coming up next on HANNITY AND COLMES.
Pittsburgh Tribune Review
“Media Monday” (no byline)
October 25
Here are some of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous quotes from the liberal media, courtesy of the Media Research Center:
Not a liberal? "Bush is out there flailing around with this liberal name-calling, ... (I)t's a very weak argument."
-- Newsweek's Eleanor Clift.
Not a liberal? John Kerry showed in the debates that "he's not a raving liberal."
-- CNN's Margaret Carlson.
Yep, he's liberal: "My theory is they sent John Kerry back to Washington in order to make Teddy Kennedy look a little more moderate, because John Kerry's lifetime liberal rating (by Americans for Democratic Action) is even higher than Ted Kennedy's. So it worked."
-- National Review's Kate O'Beirne.
Florida Times-Union
“MEDIA; Helping Out” (no byline)
October 23
If one member of "the mainstream media" is correct, liberal candidate for president John Kerry has big guns on his side.
Newsweek's Evan Thomas said on CNN recently that he thought most reporters wanted Kerry to defeat President Bush, according to the Media Research Center.
Asked about a previous statement in which he said the media support was worth 15 points for Kerry, Thomas said that was "a stupid thing to say."
It actually may be worth only 5 points, he said.
That could translate into 5 million votes.
Kerry has accused Bush of planning to privatize Social Security and reinstate the draft. He has said Bush banned stem cell research and is to blame for the flu vaccine shortage.
All those statements are totally false. Yet, they have generated thousands of words of criticism in the mainstream media.
Media Research Center has uncovered examples of media Bush-bashing to support the observations by Thomas.
ABC's Nightline sent someone to Vietnam to interview a former Viet Cong who supported one of Kerry's stories about his service there, the center said. Nightline has not interviewed any of the swift boat veterans who served with Kerry and are challenging his claims, the center said.
NBC interviewed Mikhail Gorbachev. The former dictator of the Soviet Union, who sent tanks into Lithuania in 1990 after it declared independence in March, said he thought Bush had violated international law.
Oddly enough, despite all the media support in the guise of covering the news, and despite Kerry's vaunted intelligence and skill in debate, Bush led Kerry by four points in a Zogby public opinion poll taken three days after the last debate.
One might fairly surmise from those facts that Bush might be leading the race by 9 percentage points -- if not for the media's help.
The Record (Bergen County, NJ)
“Letting the Fax Get in Other People's Way,” by Brian Kladko
October 23
John Bischoff, a retiree in the one-stoplight town of Aulander, N.C., is not a regular reader of The Record - in fact, he may never have read it at all. Nor does he watch the newscasts of KOLO in northern Nevada or KAMR in Amarillo, Texas.
But that didn't stop Bischoff from sending an angry, almost threatening letter recently to those media organizations, along with many others.
"... I want you to know that we are watching the news you produce and pay for closely ... very closely ... ," he wrote. "We expect you to start TELLING THE TRUTH by labeling blatant leftist propaganda as 'opinion' or 'commentary' instead."
Bischoff did not write the letter or send it from his computer. He gave his name and e-mail address to a conservative group called the Media Research Center, which sent it for him. The organization did the same for about 850 others.
The mass e-mailing orchestrated by the Media Research Center - which loaded the inboxes of the nation's top 100 newspapers, the top managers of television networks' parent companies and the sponsors of national news broadcasts - is the latest example of advocacy groups using the Internet to make a point. …
…It will be impossible to measure whether the Media Research Center's spam campaign, called "Tell the Truth," is effective. Most news organizations didn't reply to the people who lent their names to the effort. The few that did insisted their reporting was fair.
"It's unfortunate that you chose this method of campaigning to get your point of view across," wrote Debbie Shollenberger, the programming director of WVEC in Norfolk, Va., in an e-mail to Bischoff. "The effect it is having is more to disrupt our daily operations, as opposed to creating a constructive forum."
The Record's editor, Frank Scandale, said the hundreds of e-mails didn't influence him, except to assign a story about such tactics. Nor did he bother to reply to the senders.
"My policy is to respond to all legitimate letters and e-mails that have thought and substance behind them," he wrote in an e-mail. "When hundreds of copies of the same memo come through the Internet, it actually decreases the letters' importance."
The Media Research Center's effort showed how little thought is required to participate in this type of automated advocacy.
"When I signed up for the MRC tell-the-truth campaign I didn't realize they were going to spam media people nationwide," wrote Bruno Wilson of Marysville, Wash., in an e-mail. "I wouldn't have authorized the use of my name and e-mail if I had understood that. ..."
The Media Research Center, which bills itself as "America's media watchdog," would not discuss its "Tell the Truth" campaign. The group's publicist, Steven Scheiderer, said, "We have our reasonings, and it was done, and whether it was effective or not, time will tell."
CNBC News Transcripts
Capital Report 7:00AM
October 20
“Tim Graham of Media Research Center and Howard Wolfson of the DNC Discuss Sinclair Broadcast Group's Plans to Show Only Parts of an Anti-Kerry Documentary,” with Gloria Borger
GLORIA BORGER, co-host:
And welcome back to CAPITAL REPORT.
Sinclair Broadcasting has caved in on its plans to air an anti-Kerry documentary before Election Day. Now only parts of the film "Stolen Honor" will be shown as part of a one-hour news special. So did the company make the right call? Joining me now are Tim Graham, director of media analysis for the Media Research Center, and Howard Wolfson, senior adviser for the Democratic Naitonal Committee.
Thanks to both of you for being here tonight. Let me start with you, Tim Graham. Did they back down, and was it a good idea?
Mr. TIM GRAHAM (Media Research Center): I think it's too early to know whether they backed down. I guess they obviously suggested before they were going to air this film in its entirety, and now they're talking about airing pieces of it. We don't really know. This show in the end may be just as anti-John Kerry as it was before. Certainly we still have that problem that the rest of the media hasn't told this story. These American POWs that are offended by what John Kerry said and how it affected them inside prison walls--it's just a story the rest of the media has not wanted to tell at all, and they certainly don't want to do it at this time of the year.
BORGER: Howard Wolfson, a top Sinclair executive, clearly miffed, charged that--let me read this to you--quote, "We have received threats of retribution from a member of Senator John Kerry's campaign." Is that you?
Mr. HOWARD WOLFSON (Democratic National Committee): I don't think so. I can't imagine what he would be preferring to. Look, the fact is that this is not a company that's acted in any kind of good faith. They have a long history of pro-Republican bias, chief executives giving hundreds, thousands of dollars to the Republican National Committee, refusing to air a Democratic National Committee ad, refusing to air the "Nightline" special honoring our troops because they thought it was anti-war. Just this past week, their chief Washington journalist was fired because he came out and said that this anti-Kerry, quote, unquote, "documentary" was a sham and was poor journalism. I'm going to take that gentlemen at his word.
I think that this is terrible journalism. It's an anti-Kerry commercial masquerading as a documentary. And while we are pleased that they have appeared to back down, it's really kind of hard to know what they're doing and certainly very hard for us to put any faith in their good intentions, which is why today the Kerry campaign put out a statement saying that we would not be cooperating with this sham effort.
BORGER: Well, Tim Graham, let me read you something also that Senator Kerry put out in the statement that Howard Wolfson is referring to. He said, quote, "Sinclair Broadcasting has a history of putting their own partisan politics ahead of honest journalism. We do hope they will reconsider their decision to help their friend, George W. Bush, by imposing false, negative attacks upon the viewers. It's not the American way for local television stations to promote their own political agenda." What do you say to that?
Mr. GRAHAM: Well, again, it's ludicrous for them to suggest that somehow there's never been media bias in America until Sinclair Broadcasting came on the scene. This has been a historic year, a watershed for anti-Republican bias, where we have forged documents on CBS, the words `I lie' are framed next to the president's face on NBC, and ABC's writing internal memos about--`The Bush campaign are bigger liars than Kerry, and we have to make sure the American people know it.'
BORGER: OK. Howard, I'm going to give you the final word on that to respond.
Mr. WOLFSON: Well, I think anybody watching would realize that the argument that the gentleman just made essentially comes down to `There's left-wing bias, so there ought to be right-wing bias, and it's OK for that reason.' But that's not a reason why anybody ought to support a local television station or set of stations engaging in partisan political commentary or activity. We don't expect that in the United States of America. It is frankly un-American for TV stations to get involved in a partisan political contest like this one, and they ought to stay on it.
Mr. GRAHAM: Well, then Dan Rather's un-American, by your standard.
Mr. WOLFSON: Well, Dan Rather actually--I'm not here to defend him or condemn him.
BORGER: OK.
Mr. WOLFSON: I think at least he was attempting to exercise good journalistic judgment.
BORGER: OK.
Mr. GRAHAM: No, he wasn't. It wasn't honest.
Mr. WOLFSON: This isn't even an attempt at good journalistic judgment.
BORGER: OK, guys. We can't re-litigate the Dan Rather case right now. So thanks so much, Tim Graham and Howard Wolfson. Thanks for being with me.
Mr. WOLFSON: Thank you.
BORGER: And up next, Alan will talk to the man who brought the Declaration of Independence to New York City this week; that's Norman Lear.
And later, what do the Bush twins and NASCAR drivers have in common? We'll tell you when we come back. So stay with us; you're watching CAPITAL REPORT on CNBC.
AlterNet
"The GOP Stampede," by: Joshua Holland
October 26
Creating impressions is an imperative in the age of electronic politics. And nowhere has the right's grassroots had a greater impact than on the mainstream media. The most prominent of a number of 'citizens' groups dedicated to fighting supposed liberal bias in the news is the Media Research Center (MRC), headed by L. Brent Bozell III, a conservative in a constant state of anger who Media Transparency, a watchdog group, calls "a zealot of impeccable right-wing pedigree ... the nephew of columnist William F. Buckley and the son of L. Brent Bozell, Jr., who assisted Barry Goldwater with the writing of 'Conscience of a Conservative.'"
See
Story
Fox News
"One Economy, Two Spins," by Herman Cain and Dan Gainor
October 25
Summer was proclaimed a time of "strong economic growth and low unemployment" by Jerry King of ABC's World News Tonight.
King was right. Declining unemployment, low inflation and landmark homeownership all point to great news for the economy. There's just one problem: King wasn't talking about this summer. That story aired on Aug. 4, 1996. But his comment could easily apply now because the economic conditions are nearly identical.
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
“Jennings tips his left hand,” by Dimitri Vassilaros
October 25
The interviewer could have given him 184 examples, but she did not. Each quote is found easily on the Media Research Center Internet site:
http://archive.mrc.org. The MRC is a media watchdog that keeps track of the news gatekeepers.
An example:
"Do you or do you not think it's fair that those Swift Boat ads should have attacked (John Kerry's) combat record, not the stuff after?" Jennings said to Laura Bush on ABC's "World News Tonight" on Sept. 2. Jennings continues, "But I've heard you talk in the past about how you'd like the campaign generally, politics generally, to be more generous and less nasty. As one of the country's leaders, do you, don't you have a role in trying to damp it down?"
Actually, that seems to be Jennings' role.
"'ABC World News Tonight' did not mention the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth charges against John Kerry until Aug. 19, when Kerry himself responded," said Rich Noyes, MRC research director. "Then they dumped out of the story as fast as they could."
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Story
Boston Globe
“Two Sides to Every Story,” by Mark Jurkowitz
October 25
…Brent Baker is a vice president of the Media Research Center, a conservative press monitor ever vigilant for liberal tilt in election journalism. This year's coverage, he said, is ''biased by a million cuts, little things. It's every single day."…
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Story
The story also ran on the following web site:
Lucianne.com as a link with discussion
October 25
TheReporter.com
“Dubious Facts Don't Point to Saddam,” by Jack Kelly, Winters
October 23
…In a recent piece entitled "Unmasked Men," a reporter claims that the purported explosive documents, mostly memos from Saddam's intelligence apparatus dating to 1993, were leaked to a group of purported Middle East experts by an "unknown source."
These experts in turn tipped off Cybercast News, an arm of the Media Research Center and the brainchild of right-wing propagandist Brent Bozell. Cybercast News Service's - and MRC's - mission is nothing less than to prove to the world that "liberal media bias" permeates most mainstream American broadcast and print outlets, including NBS, ABC, CBS, Time and Newsweek magazines, for starters, among countless others. To the MRC, partial credibility among broadcast media belongs mainly to Fox News. …
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Story
Agape Press
“Media Watchdog Warns GOP Against Letting Up in Final Stretch,” by Chad Groening
October 22
…Tim Graham is the director of media research analysis for the Alexandria, Virginia-based Media Research Center. He believes George W. Bush, if he truly hopes to be re-elected, will have to overcome not only John Kerry but also the liberal media as well.
"I think obviously it's in the interest of Bush and the Republicans to run
scared every day on these issues," Graham says, "and to keep pounding their message. The problem you're going to have there, of course, is the liberal media's going to pound their anti-Bush message all the way alongside them." …
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Story
Center for American Progress
“Think Again: Money Matters, Part II,” by Eric Alterman with Paul McLeary
October 20
…And for all of its money and media power, the Coors family is hardly exceptional. The F.M. Kirby Foundation, run by the Kirby family, provided $3.5 million in grants between 1999 and 2001, giving large sums to Cato, the Heritage Foundation, AEI and the Hudson Institute, and along with the Coors family, partially funding L. Brent Bozell's Media Research Center, the right-wing media watchdog group. The Koch family, however, holds even more influence, with two brothers, Charles and David, running Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation ($8.7 million in grants), and the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation ($6.8 million), and through other giving, the family contributed more than $20 million to conservative causes during the study period. Charles also founded the Cato Institute (where both brothers serve on the board) and both foundations share the ideology of stressing free market ideals and privatization on a massive scale. …
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Story
The Washington Times
“Inside Politics,” by Greg Pierce
October 19
…Mr. Stewart, at a Thursday breakfast event sponsored by the New Yorker magazine, "also lashed out at columnist Bob Novak for his column which cited Valerie Plame," Brent Baker writes at
www.mediaresearch.org.
"In Friday's New York Daily News, Lloyd Grove quoted Stewart as charging: 'He leaked a CIA source for punitive reasons — for ugly, partisan purposes.' Stewart complained: 'There's millions of dollars being spent on this investigation, and people are going to jail, but his evil is not allowed even in the darkened abyss of his soul — some would say soul.'
"Stewart grew even more vicious: 'I would not have him on the show. I have standards. I wouldn't do it. He shouldn't be on television. CNN should not have him on the air. He should not be amongst civilized people.' "
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Story
Center For American Progress
Think Again: Money Matters, Part II, by Eric Alterman and Paul McLeary
October 20
... AEI and the Hudson Institute, and along with the Coors family, partially funding L. Brent Bozell's Media Research Center, the right-wing media watchdog group. ...
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Story
Washington Times
"Inside Politics", by Greg Pierce
October 20
"When Bill Clinton ran for re-election in 1996, unemployment was 5.2 percent, inflation 3 percent, and economic growth 2.2 percent. Economic conditions are similar today: unemployment is 5.4 percent, inflation 2.7 percent, and economists' consensus forecast for economic growth this quarter is 3.7 percent," the Media Research Center reports.
"Yet a new study by the MRC's Free Market Project found that while the national media mainly cheered the Clinton economy (85 percent positive), reporters have mostly jeered the Bush economy (77 percent negative)."
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Story
Fox News Channel
Your World with Neil Cavuto
October 19
Brenda Buttner made seemingly obvious references to the One Economy, Two Spins Free Market Project (FMP) Special Report. The references to the Special Report were immediately followed by a graphic about unemployment that cited FMP as the source.
The Weekly Standard
“Dan Rather’s Day of Reckoning;” From the October 4, 2004 issue: It didn’t start with Rathergate by John Podhoretz, The Weekly Standard
October 4
Throughout the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, organizations like Accuracy in Media and the Media Research Center dedicated themselves to the laborious (pre-Internet) collection of examples of media bias in print and on television. The evidence they gathered, like the social science data that continued to show an overwhelming preference for liberal ideas and Democratic politicians in the decades after the first Lichter-Rothman study, was overwhelming and unimpeachable.
Human Events
“Bozell Meticulously Documents Leftward Tilt in Weapons of Mass Distortion
Dissecting Liberal Media Bias,” by Paul Hannaford
October 4
Most conservatives know there is left-liberal bias in most mainstream newspapers and all the broadcast networks, but they aren’t keeping score. Brent Bozell is--and has been since founding the Media Research Center in 1987. In the years since, he and his colleagues have meticulously catalogued thousands of instances of leftward tilts in major media. …
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Story
San Diego Union Tribune
“Media overlooks successes in nation, military leaders say,” by Rick Rogers
October 4
Brent Baker, a spokesman for the Media Research Center, which he said is the largest conservative media watchdog group in the country, has a different take.
"The networks and newspapers do do positive stories, but they are far outnumbered by the stories about bombings and the kidnappings," Baker said in a telephone interview from Alexandria, Va. "While they are stories, I think it gives the misimpression that mayhem is going on in the whole country.
"It (the coverage) lacks context. You can watch TV news in San Diego about murders and robbings. But you know that that isn't happening in La Jolla. You realize that the whole city isn't in a crime wave," Baker said.
"The military sees good things on the ground that are not being reported," Baker said. "They want people to know that Iraq isn't as hopeless as it seems."
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Story
NewsMax.com
“Dan Rather: White House out to 'Smear' Me,” by Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff
October 3
…Brokaw singled out the Media Research Center's L. Brent Bozell, who the network newsman said was "doing as much damage as he can, and I choose that word carefully, to the credibility of the news divisions." …
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Story
Washington Post
“Dan Rather, In the Eye Of the Storm,” by Howard Kurtz
October 2
…Brokaw was also forceful in taking on critics of network news. He said that Brent Bozell, who runs the conservative Media Research Center in Alexandria, has been "doing as much damage as he can, and I choose that word carefully, to the credibility of the news divisions." Brokaw noted the growing criticism from left-wing bloggers and expressed skepticism toward Internet detractors: "When it comes to fraudulence, forgeries and claims that cannot be supported, that's where you see an enormous harm being done to the country." …
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Story
ChronWatch
“Libs Loved Kerry's Performance, Are You Surprised?” by Denise Delgado
October 2
…It was evident after Thursday night's debate that the liberal media--sit down, because this is going to be a stunner--really, really like John Kerry. No matter what he says. No matter how many positions he takes. No matter how many distortions and lies come out of his frowny face. That's the conclusion of columnist Tim Graham after surveying the talking heads on the fair and balanced (that is leftwing) media following the debate. …
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Story
Reason Foundation
“Teletubbies: fat ad budgets and fat kids;” by Jacob Sullum
October 1
A FEBRUARY REPORT from the Kaiser Family Foundation noted that kids who watch a lot of TV are more likely to be fat than kids who don't. It said exposure to food commercials was the most likely explanation. That theory fit well with recent press coverage of the issue: A study released in June by the Media Research Center's Free Market Project found that news reports overwhelmingly blame food vendors' attempts to pad their bottom lines for Americans' expanding waistlines.
2004 Archive
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