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1. NBC Pushes as 'New' Murtha's Stale Charge About Civilians Killed
2. Time Mag Goes Left, Picks Bradley Adviser as New Managing Editor
3. Da Vinci Code Actor McKellan: Bible as Much "Fiction" as Movie
4. Letterman's "Top Ten Signs the Government Is Spying on You"
NBC Pushes as 'New' Murtha's Stale Charge On the six month anniversary of Democratic Congressman John Murtha's successful publicity stunt call for the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq, Wednesday's NBC Nightly News jumped on the chance to highlight Murtha's charge that last November some Marines deliberately killed more than a dozen innocent Iraqi civilians. But in treating Murtha as some kind of authoritative figure making "new allegations," NBC ignored how the fairly well established as accurate charge (pictures exist of the immediate aftermath and three Marine officers were relieved of their commands) is old and has already been widely-reported -- including on the March 20 NBC Nightly News. Brian Williams touted: "There are disturbing new allegations tonight from the Congressman and decorated Marine veteran who stunned the Bush administration about six months ago with his call for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq." Following a rundown from Jim Miklaszewski of the allegations, Williams trumpeted Murtha's credibility and relevance: "Jim, we should go over again, why is it significant that John Murtha is the one saying this?" Miklaszewski responded with Murtha's argument that the event bolsters his political point as to why the U.S. should leave Iraq, preceded by the misnomer that Murtha had "recently" turned against the war: "It's important because as somebody who recently turned against the war, Murtha held this up today as one of the reasons the U.S. military should get out of Iraq as soon as possible." [This item was posted Wednesday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org. To share your views, go to: newsbusters.org ]
Back on the Monday, March 20 NBC Nightly News, Miklaszewski himself outlined the November incident: On the same night's CBS Evening News, Lara Logan filed a story on the incident and David Martin followed up on the Friday, April 28 CBS Evening News in a story he began: "Pentagon officials tell CBS News the evidence turned up so far shows American Marines deliberately shot Iraqi civilians, including women and children, and tried to cover it up." CNN aired stories in April and early May. A quick search via Nexis located dozens of print articles published throughout April in major newspapers and the wire services. Nonetheless, NBC apparently saw another chance to champion Murtha. (To mark the six month anniversary of Murtha's November 17 attack on Bush's Iraq policy, Chris Matthews made Murtha his lead guest on Wednesday's Hardball on MSNBC and gave him air time to attribute the November incident to excessive "pressure" felt by stressed Marines forced to serve in a misguided war.)
The November 18, 2005 CyberAlert item, "Nets Lead With Murtha, Highlight His Ridicule of Cheney's Lack of Military Service," recounted how the networks embraced Murtha, including the way Brian Williams led the NBC Nightly News by promoting his supposedly unique newsworthiness:
Jim Miklaszewski: "Brian, this all stems from an incident that occurred last November, and today the military's investigation is still dragging on. From the very beginning, Iraqis in the town of Haditha claimed U.S. Marines deliberately killed at least 15 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including seven women and three children. This young Iraqi girl claims the Marines killed six members of her family, including her parents. 'The Americans came into the room where my father was praying,' she says, 'and shot him.' Today, in a remarkable statement in Washington, Democratic Congressman John Murtha claims it's true." Criticizing the war was not new for Murtha in November of 2005. As the May 7, 2004 MRC CyberAlert noted, Ted Koppel featured Murtha's anti-war take as he "opened the May 6 Nightline, over video of bomb-damaged trucks and Humvees and a wounded U.S. soldier: 'No one ever said it would be easy, but few predicted it would be like this. Today, the most hawkish Democrat on the Hill said this: [Murtha]: 'We can not prevail in this war at the policy that's going today.'"
Time Mag Goes Left, Picks Bradley Adviser Time magazine, which apparently only considered liberals for the position, on Wednesday announced that they've named Richard Stengel, who worked on left-winger Bill Bradley's 2000 presidential campaign, as the new Managing Editor for Time magazine and the Time.com Web site, the top editorial job. As if the magazine isn't already opinionated enough, he told the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz: "I'd like us to have a stronger point of view about things." In Thursday's New York Times, Katharine Seelye listed three other finalists, all liberals, though she did not label them as such: Tina Brown, the former Editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, Jacob Weisberg, the Editor of Slate and Michael Kinsley, the former left half of CNN's Crossfire.
For Kurtz's May 18 article: www.washingtonpost.com For the Poynter Institute's posting of Time's announcement memo: poynter.org Stengel, the President of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia since 2004, joined Time magazine in 1981 and held a variety of writing and editing positions, including nation editor and culture editor before and after signing aboard the Bradley campaign in 1999 as a senior advisor and chief speechwriter. He re-joined Time after Bradley's campaign to the left of Al Gore fizzled. Stengel insisted to Kurtz that liberal ideology had nothing to do with working for Bradley: "Stengel, who played on the 1975 Princeton basketball team that won the National Invitational Tournament -- though not, he admits, as a starter -- said Bradley was 'my idol from the time I was 9 years old' and that he was not a Democratic partisan. He described himself as 'a flaming moderate.'" A media "moderate" = liberal as defined by those outside the media. Indeed, the MRC's Scott Whitlock checked the MRC's archive and found some examples of Stengel's "moderate" views: criticizing Whittaker Chambers as a "snitch," characterized the description of Reaganomics as "voodoo economics" as "the unvarnished truth" and denounced Steve Forbes, during his 1996 presidential campaign, for supposedly having "attracted to his organization two veterans of Jesse Helms' race-baiting campaigns." # Stengel on "Dubious Influences," June 14, 1999 Time: "Whittaker Chambers was mostly right about communism and Alger Hiss, but he was a nasty piece of work and nobody likes a snitch. Even Joe McCarthy may have been on to something, but he was a crude and cruel man who ruined people's lives for 48-point type. You might call this the When Bad People Spoil Good Things school of history." # Time Senior Editor Richard Stengel, August 31, 1998 news story: "Inside the Beltway, the scandal is not the lie but the unvarnished truth. George Bush's campaign barb about Reaganism being voodoo economics raised far more hackles than his claim that Clarence Thomas was the most qualified man in America to be on the Supreme Court." # The January 1997 MediaWatch noted the lengths to which Mr. Stengel would go to attack then presidential candidate Steve Forbes: "At first glance, Steve Forbes' presidential campaign would seem to fulfill the media's standards for a proper Republican candidate: One with sufficiently soft stands on social issues to avoid the 'divisive' label. Unable to attack Forbes as extremist (he has suitably 'tolerant' stands on such issues as abortion and immigration), in the December 4 [1996] Time, Senior Writer Richard Stengel charged that 'for all his patrician good humor, Forbes' message and his campaign have begun to show a hard edge.' Stengel exploited a tenuous link between Forbes and Senator Jesse Helms' racially-tinged campaigns: 'While Forbes generally shuns the politics of exclusion, he has nonetheless attracted to his organization two veterans of Jesse Helms' race-baiting campaigns.'"
Da Vinci Code Actor McKellan: Bible as Da Vinci Code actor: Bible as much "fiction" as the movie. In a Wednesday Today session in Cannes, France with actors and producers of the Da Vinci Code movie, Matt Lauer asked about how, given how many want the movie to be clearly labeled "fiction," they would have "felt if there was a disclaimer at the beginning of the movie? Would it have been okay with you?" Actor Ian McKellen replied: "Well I've often thought that the, the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying, this is fiction. I mean walking on water? I mean it takes an act of faith. And I have faith in this movie. Not that it's true, not that it's factual but that it's a jolly good story and I, I think, I think audiences are clever enough and bright enough to separate out, separate out fact and fiction and discuss the thing when they've seen it." Unfazed by McKellan's slam at the Bible, Lauer moved ahead with his agenda: "Would it have mattered to the rest of you? Would it have bothered you if there had been a disclaimer?" The MRC's Brad Wilmouth provided this transcript of the relevant portion of the 8am half hour outdoor segment on the May 17 Today:
Matt Lauer: "Let me ask you all to jump in on this. There have been calls for some religious groups. They wanted a disclaimer at, at the beginning of this movie saying it is fiction because, again, one of the themes in the book really knocks Christianity right on its ear. If Christ survived the Crucifixion he did not die for our sins and therefore was not resurrected. Tom's looking like, 'what?'" On the MRC's NewsBusters blog on Wednesday morning, Mark Finkelstein posted an item about McKellan's take on the Bible, to which the MRC's Michelle Humphrey added video: newsbusters.org The DrudgeReport.com picked up the item, leading to a big visitor day to NewsBusters, and to ABC's World News Tonight featuring McKellan's comment.
In a Wednesday World News Tonight story on the controversy surrounding the movie based on a novel, Jake Tapper noted: "Today at the Cannes film festival in France, the creators of the film tried to quell the controversy." The Real and Windows Media video, as well as MP3 audio, will be added to the posted version of this item. In the meantime, check the NewsBusters posting or the MRC's "Hear & See the Bias" page of videos: www.mrc.org
Letterman's "Top Ten Signs the Government From the May 17 Late Show with David Letterman, the "Top Ten Signs the Government Is Spying on You." Late Show home page: www.cbs.com 10. Post office wall has several photos of you sleeping 9. Your houseplant occasionally sneezes 8. Domino's keeps delivering to unmarked van parked across the street 7. Birthday card from your mom has several words blacked out 6. You get nominated for "Outstanding Lead Performance in an NSA Surveillance Video" 5. Your dishwasher functions are "Wash," "Rinse" and "Record" 4. Local news only reporting things that happen in your living room 3. Every time you say goodbye on the phone, you hear a strange voice say, "Roger that, Chico" 2. You googled a recipe for humus and the FBI raided your house 1. Suddenly discover there's an antenna bolted to your ass
-- Brent Baker
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