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1. ABC Hits Cardinal from Left, Plugs Pope's Critique of Capitalism On Sunday's This Week, ABC's George Stephanopoulos harangued Washington's Cardinal Theodore McCarrick from the left. In an interviewed taped on Saturday, Stephanopoulos told McCarrick that "the practices and opinions of American Catholics seem to be at odds with the teachings of the church." Stephanopoulos soon chided McCarrick for how during the campaign the Eucharist became "a partisan battleground" because a Cardinal "did express his view that any Catholic who votes for a pro-choice politician is committing a sin that he or she has to confess." McCarrick corrected his false charge, but Stephanopoulos remained undeterred as he pressed McCarrick to "respond to those Democrats who feel that the bishops have been more partisan than principled" and lamented how while "so much has been made of the Pope's anti-communism," the Pope "has had a very forceful critique of the excesses of capitalism, and it hasn't seemed to have taken hold in the same way." 2. Media Biased Against Religious, Few "People of Faith" at NY Times Two Washington press corps veterans have conceded that the news media have a bias against religious believers. On CNN's Reliable Sources on Sunday, New Republic Senior Editor Michelle Cottle asserted that journalists "behave as though the people who believe" in widely-held Christian values "are on the fringe." Steve Roberts, who noted how he "worked for the New York Times for 25 years," revealed: "I could probably count on one hand, in the Washington bureau of the New York Times, people who would describe themselves as people of faith." That disconnect hurt the media, Roberts suggested, in how "there was so much attention...on the rockers and the sports celebrities who were registering voters." Roberts asked: "And how many stories did we see about that compared to the pastors and churches in Ohio who were registering ten times as many voters?" 3. NPR's Totenberg Uses Schiavo to Push for Universal Health Care Some journalists, on talk shows over the weekend, used the Schiavo case to forward their personal political agendas. On Inside Washington, NPR's Nina Totenberg contended that "if we really believed in an unmitigated, uncurbed in any way culture of life, we would be having universal health care." Colbert King of the Washington Post raised the school shooting in Minnesota and asked: "What about the guns that take away the life?" On the McLaughlin Group, Newsweek's Eleanor Clift castigated the Republican Party for only caring "about people before they're born and then really after they're dead. What about the time in between? That's when we need government involved." 4. GMA Seeks Kevorkian's "Very Interesting Perspective" on Schiavo ABC decided that a convicted murderer had "a very interesting perspective" on the Schiavo case and so Friday's Good Morning America featured a taped interview, by phone from a Michigan prison, with Jack Kevorkian, aka "Dr. Death." Charles Gibson asserted that "one voice we haven't heard from" is Kevorkian's, as if he were so deserving of publicity, and touted how Kevorkian supposedly "brings a unique perspective to the issues raised by the Schiavo controversy." Though Kevorkian created a media circus himself a few years ago, Gibson asked him to condemn the activities around Schiavo: "When you see Congress begin to get involved, when you see this go through layer after layer in the courts, has it become something, in your mind, of a circus?" Gibson also highlighted the allegedly "interesting development" that Kevorkian has agreed to a book and movie deal. 5. CBS Uses "Guerrilla News Network" Video to Show a Homeless Vet Without identifying the agenda of its source of video of a homeless veteran, the CBS Evening News on Friday night displayed an on-screen credit for "GNN.TV" and ran soundbites from a "filmmaker." In fact, GNN stands for Guerrilla News Network, a far-left outfit. CBS used the video to illustrate the contention that homelessness amongst Iraq war veterans is a significant problem. Anchor Bob Schieffer plugged the story: "He served his country in Iraq, but ended up homeless -- and he's not the only one." Focusing on Herold Noel, Byron Pitts intoned: "Like so many, Noel came home a hero, but he wound up homeless." But Pitts put the number of homeless Iraq vets at just one hundred, a statistically insignificant sliver of the more than 800,000 troops deployed to Iraq. Nonetheless, Pitts recounted how "filmmaker Dan Lohaus found" homeless Iraq vets "on the street and in shelters across the country." ABC Hits Cardinal from Left, Plugs Pope's Critique of Capitalism On Sunday's This Week, ABC's George Stephanopoulos harangued Washington's Cardinal Theodore McCarrick from the left. In an interviewed taped on Saturday, Stephanopoulos told McCarrick that "the practices and opinions of American Catholics seem to be at odds with the teachings of the church." Stephanopoulos soon chided McCarrick for how during the campaign the Eucharist became "a partisan battleground" because a Cardinal "did express his view that any Catholic who votes for a pro-choice politician is committing a sin that he or she has to confess." McCarrick corrected his false charge, but Stephanopoulos remained undeterred as he pressed McCarrick to "respond to those Democrats who feel that the bishops have been more partisan than principled" and lamented how while "so much has been made of the Pope's anti-communism," the Pope "has had a very forceful critique of the excesses of capitalism, and it hasn't seemed to have taken hold in the same way." The McCarrick-Stephanopoulos session was taped Saturday in an ornate setting, most likely a room at the Archdiocese of Washington, with a fireplace in the background. After a discussion of the Schiavo case, Stephanopoulos moved on to the bigger picture:
Stephanopoulos: "On so many of these culture of life issues, the practices and opinions of American Catholics seem to be at odds with the teachings of the church: contraception, abortion. Does this create a crisis of authority for the church hierarchy?"
After some talk about the Pope's health, Stephanopoulos rued: "So much has been made of the Pope's anti-communism and his role in bringing down communism, yet he also had a very forceful critique, has had a very forceful critique of the excesses of capitalism, and it hasn't seemed to have taken hold in the same way." For a picture and bio of McCarrick: www.adw.org For the Web site for the "Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club," a site devoted to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, "head of the Catholic Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith," go to: www.ratzingerfanclub.com
Media Biased Against Religious, Few "People of Faith" at NY Times Two Washington press corps veterans have conceded that the news media have a bias against religious believers. On CNN's Reliable Sources on Sunday, New Republic Senior Editor Michelle Cottle asserted that journalists "behave as though the people who believe" in widely-held Christian values "are on the fringe." Steve Roberts, who noted how he "worked for the New York Times for 25 years," revealed: "I could probably count on one hand, in the Washington bureau of the New York Times, people who would describe themselves as people of faith." That disconnect hurt the media, Roberts suggested, in how "there was so much attention...on the rockers and the sports celebrities who were registering voters." Roberts asked: "And how many stories did we see about that compared to the pastors and churches in Ohio who were registering ten times as many voters?" "Media Bias on Religion" read the on-screen tag line during a segment of the March 27 Reliable Sources, which was taped earlier, that followed a look at Schiavo coverage. On the three-person in-studio panel in addition to Cottle and Roberts, who now teaches at the George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs, was Joe Watkins, a Philadelphia minister and radio talk show host.
Host Howard Kurtz proposed: "Let's broaden this to other religious-related issues: teaching of evolution in Kansas schools, a lot of coverage there, whether it should be required, whether creationism should be included; the Ten Commandments displays in Alabama and elsewhere; even gay marriage in San Francisco. Isn't there some built-in media bias by the East Coast journalists toward those who have a different view of these matters?"
Later, during a discussion of why no network has a reporting covering religion full time, Roberts suggested that "religion coverage has been ghetto-ized. It's been marginalized. It's never considered a plum assignment. It's never considered a stepping stone to bigger things. Everybody wants to cover the Congress or the White House, not religion. For The New Republic's page for Cottle's articles: www.tnr.com For a picture of her, on a CNN page for an old CNN show, Take 5, see: archives.cnn.com For GWU's bio page for Roberts, a White House reporter for the New York Times during the Reagan years, with a picture of him: smpa.gwu.edu For a picture and bio of Watkins, a Saturday morning host on WPHT Radio and "pastor of the Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church, the oldest African-American Lutheran Church in Philadelphia," go to: www.thebigtalker1210.com
NPR's Totenberg Uses Schiavo to Push for Universal Health Care Some journalists, on talk shows over the weekend, used the Schiavo case to forward their personal political agendas. On Inside Washington, NPR's Nina Totenberg contended that "if we really believed in an unmitigated, uncurbed in any way culture of life, we would be having universal health care." Colbert King of the Washington Post raised the school shooting in Minnesota and asked: "What about the guns that take away the life?" On the McLaughlin Group, Newsweek's Eleanor Clift castigated the Republican Party for only caring "about people before they're born and then really after they're dead. What about the time in between? That's when we need government involved." -- The final comments on the March 26/27 Inside Washington, a weekly public affairs show carried on Saturday night on NewsChannel 8, a cable channel run by the owner of Washington, DC's ABC affiliate, and on that ABC affiliate, WJLA-TV, on Sunday morning:
NPR reporter Nina Totenberg: "If we really believed in an unmitigated, uncurbed in any way culture of life, we would be having universal health care that paid for every conceivable medical treatment in the world." -- McLaughlin Group over the weekend. Eleanor Clift: "There's something odd about a party that worries about people before they're born and then really after they're dead. What about the time in between? That's when we need government involved."
GMA Seeks Kevorkian's "Very Interesting Perspective" on Schiavo ABC decided that a convicted murderer had "a very interesting perspective" on the Schiavo case and so Friday's Good Morning America featured a taped interview, by phone from a Michigan prison, with Jack Kevorkian, aka "Dr. Death." Charles Gibson asserted that "one voice we haven't heard from" is Kevorkian's, as if he were so deserving of publicity, and touted how Kevorkian supposedly "brings a unique perspective to the issues raised by the Schiavo controversy." Though Kevorkian created a media circus himself a few years ago, Gibson asked him to condemn the activities around Schiavo: "When you see Congress begin to get involved, when you see this go through layer after layer in the courts, has it become something, in your mind, of a circus?" Gibson also highlighted the allegedly "interesting development" that Kevorkian has agreed to a book and movie deal. ABC delayed the airing of the segment, which they trumpeted as an "Only on GMA" feature, until the 8:30am last half hour of the show -- so maybe they weren't as proud it as Gibson implied. During Gibson's narration of the taped and edited interview by phone with Kevorkian, ABC displayed "Only on GMA" next to a photo of Kevorkian with this below: "On the Phone: "Dr. Jack Kevorkian "Thumb Correctional Facility Lapeer, Michigan" The MRC's Jessica Barnes took down the March 25 segment:
Gibson led the 6:30 half hour: "We're going to start going back to the Terri Schiavo case. So many people have had so many opinions about what has played out in recent days, but one voice we haven't heard from. A man with a very interesting perspective on all of this is Dr. Jack Kevorkian. You remember him, a leading advocate of assisted suicide. Well, he's been in prison and he's not been doing interviews -- this is his first in six years.
Gibson to Kevorkian: "Dr. Kevorkian, I'm interested in your reaction. This country has been so preoccupied and so focused in recent days on the Schiavo case, and I'm curious, since this is so much a part of the debate that you raised in this country, your reaction."
For the Michigan Department of Correction's page on offender #284797, convicted in 1999 of second degree murder: www.state.mi.us
CBS Uses "Guerrilla News Network" Video to Show a Homeless Vet Without identifying the agenda of its source of video of a homeless veteran, the CBS Evening News on Friday night displayed an on-screen credit for "GNN.TV" and ran soundbites from a "filmmaker." In fact, GNN stands for Guerrilla News Network, a far-left outfit. CBS used the video to illustrate the contention that homelessness amongst Iraq war veterans is a significant problem. Anchor Bob Schieffer plugged the story: "He served his country in Iraq, but ended up homeless -- and he's not the only one." Focusing on Herold Noel, Byron Pitts intoned: "Like so many, Noel came home a hero, but he wound up homeless." But Pitts put the number of homeless Iraq vets at just one hundred, a statistically insignificant sliver of the more than 800,000 troops deployed to Iraq. Nonetheless, Pitts recounted how "filmmaker Dan Lohaus found" homeless Iraq vets "on the street and in shelters across the country." CBS's piece followed the same storyline as a February 8 Christian Science Monitor story, "Back from Iraq -- and suddenly out on the streets," which also focused on Herold Noel. See: www.csmonitor.com
Friday was the second time the CBS Evening News highlighted homelessness amongst Iraq war veterans. As recounted in the April 26, 2004 CyberAlert:
Earlier this year, NBC hopped on the subject, as reported in the January 26 CyberAlert: Schieffer introduced the subsequent piece by admitting his naivete: "The war is taking its toll on Iraqis and Americans in many ways. Byron Pitts is in Baghdad, working a side of the story that, frankly, I didn't know about."
Pitts began, from Iraq: "Well, Bob, according to the Department of Veteran Affairs, there are now at least a hundred Iraq war veterans who are now homeless. For some, this war, this place is simply more than they can bear." A check of the "GNN.TV" Web address determined it stands for "Guerrilla News Network." Amongst the "headlines" on it at about the time Friday the Pitts piece aired: - "Democracy -- or is it the US military -- on the march Amongst the "articles" highlighted: - "Saddam and 9/11: Americans still believe Bush's war propaganda The film CBS showcased, When I Come Home, is listed as a "work in progress." See: www.gnn.tv GNN.TV's newest film: "Bush Boys." See if you can follow this: "In early 2004, DJ Danger Mouse became world famous for his 'Grey Album,' the Jay Z/Beatles mash-up that sent hundreds of lawyers into convulsions. Months earlier, Danger Mouse had dropped his acclaimed hip-hop record Ghetto Pop Life. 'Bush Boys,' an anti-Bush anthem with lyrics by MC Jemini, was part of that masterpiece. The video for 'Bush Boys' is a collaboration between Danger Mouse and his longtime friend, video producer Alex Motlagh, who had access to CNN's vast library. The video was first seen in 'Under the Influence,' a compilation DVD by Atlanta's film collective YETI. subMedia put the video online on April of 2003 and since it has been downloaded over 100,000 times. 'Bush Boys' will be included in subMedia's upcoming DVD/Zine 'Molotov.'" See: www.gnn.tv If any of that is not news to you, you're ahead of me.
-- Brent Baker
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