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1. CBS's Regan Repeatedly Labels Bush-Lieberman 'Kiss' as 'Infamous' Twice on Tuesday, CBS News correspondent Trish Regan labeled as "infamous" the embrace, derided as "The Kiss" by supporters of Connecticut Senate hopeful Ned Lamont, between President George W. Bush and incumbent Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman in the well of the House after Bush's 2005 State of the Union address. Regan didn't attribute the characterization to Lieberman's opponents. She stated it as fact. On the Early Show she explained over brief video of the event: "Ned Lamont has used this now infamous kiss to his advantage on campaign buttons and television ads, suggesting Lieberman is just too cozy with the President." Then on the CBS Evening News, Regan asserted over the same video: "His campaign has used images like this now infamous kiss." 2. NBC's Today Broods: 'License To Kill, Self-Defense Gone Too Far?' As more and more states recognize the basic right to defend yourself, NBC's Today, not surprisingly, took a dim view. On Tuesday's Today, Ron Mott in a segment headlined by the graphic: "License To Kill, Self-Defense Gone Too Far?", slanted his story with alarmist rhetoric and unbalanced talking heads. Matt Lauer introduced the story: "Now a debate. How far can you go in the name of self-defense? In a growing number of states people have much more leeway to use deadly force. Supporters say that's a good thing but critics argue it's a case of shoot first and ask questions later. We have more on this now from NBC's Ron Mott." Mott then began the segment portraying the right-to-self-defense laws as a path to anarchy: "Has the 'Wild, Wild West,' gone South?" 3. Most Think Media 'Hurt' America by Revealing Terrorist Tracking A Pew Research Center for the People and the Press survey released Tuesday discovered, by "by a margin of 50 percent to 34 percent, Americans think that news organizations have hurt rather than helped the interests of the American people" with "news reports that the government has been secretly examining the bank records of American citizens who may have ties to terrorist groups." However, "an even larger 65 percent to 28 percent majority believes that these news accounts told citizens something that they should know about." Republicans are much more upset with the media than Democrats, the poll, conducted July 6-19, found: "While nearly seven in ten Republicans (69 percent) believe the press reports have hurt the interests of the American people," with a piddling 17 percent of Republicans contending it helped, "relatively few Democrats agree (38 percent). Instead, a 46 percent plurality of Democrats regards the press reporting as beneficial to the public's interest." 4. Gallup: Dems Hold More Favorable Views of Rather, Couric, Vieira A week after a Pew Research Center for the People and the Press survey determined that a much higher percentage of Democrats than Republicans prefer to get their news from the broadcast networks, CNN, MSNBC and NPR, a new Gallup Poll released Tuesday provides additional evidence that Democrats look more favorably upon the "mainstream media" as Gallup showed how "Democrats are more favorable than Republicans in their views" of eleven of 17 news personalities respondents were asked to assess. Dan Rather had the greatest net difference -- 38 percent -- with 86 percent of Democrats viewing him favorably, compared to just 48 percent of Republicans. Only two of the 17 news personalities (Bill O'Reilly and Geraldo Rivera) got more favorable evaluations from Republicans than Democrats. Others with a significant Democratic versus Republican approval gap include the incoming CBS Evening News anchor and the new co-host of NBC's Today: 17 points for Katie Couric (68% vs. 51%) and 15 points for Meredith Vieira (45% vs. 30%). 5. PBS Slams 'Market' Slavery, Bush's Dictatorial Wishes for Press Friday night's edition of Now with David Brancaccio on PBS followed the old Bill Moyers formula of two leftists having an echo-chamber conversation. Brancaccio and Berkeley journalism dean Orville Schell agreed and agreed about how the press aren't liberal enough, the people don't want another Watergate/Vietnam era enough, and the free market can't be counted on to provide "independent" (read: thoroughly ultraliberal) journalism. "We're all [a] slave to the market," Brancaccio suggested. Since Schell was a China scholar, Brancaccio even suggested the current administration might be inspired in their devotion to squelching the press by the Chinese communists. "I'm not sure I want to give government ideas on this particular point, but maybe our government could look to China, which has really raised this notion of, of censorship of their news media to almost a scientific level." CBS's Regan Repeatedly Labels Bush-Lieberman 'Kiss' as 'Infamous' Twice on Tuesday, CBS News correspondent Trish Regan labeled as "infamous" the embrace, derided as "The Kiss" by supporters of Connecticut Senate hopeful Ned Lamont, between President George W. Bush and incumbent Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman in the well of the House after Bush's 2005 State of the Union address. Regan didn't attribute the characterization to Lieberman's opponents. She stated it as fact. On the Early Show she explained over brief video of the event: "Ned Lamont has used this now infamous kiss to his advantage on campaign buttons and television ads, suggesting Lieberman is just too cozy with the President." Then on the CBS Evening News, Regan asserted over the same video: "His campaign has used images like this now infamous kiss." ABC's Jake Tapper, in contrast, managed to avoid such loaded terminology on Tuesday's World News when he delivered this sentence over video of Bush and Lieberman followed by a "The Kiss" button and a look at a truck carrying check-to-cheek Bush and Lieberman figures: "Liberals perceive Lieberman as too close to Bush, especially on the war, encapsulated with this presidential embrace, an image Lamont supporters have made iconic." [This item was posted Tuesday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ] The Oxford Dictionary, built-in to the WordPerfect I'm using to write this, defines "infamous" as "well known for some bad quality or deed" and "morally bad; shocking." Dictionary.com defines "infamous" as "Having an exceedingly bad reputation; notorious." and "Causing or deserving infamy; heinous: an infamous deed." See: dictionary.reference.com The MRC's Michael Rule caught Regan's "infamous" reference on Tuesday's The Early Show. A partial transcript of Regan's August 8 CBS Evening News story from Hartford:
Trish Regan: "...Businessman Ned Lamont went from political obscurity to front-runner with a one-issue campaign: Lieberman's support for the war in Iraq."
NBC's Today Broods: 'License To Kill, Self-Defense Gone Too Far?' As more and more states recognize the basic right to defend yourself, NBC's Today, not surprisingly, took a dim view. On Tuesday's Today, Ron Mott in a segment headlined by the graphic: "License To Kill, Self-Defense Gone Too Far?", slanted his story with alarmist rhetoric and unbalanced talking heads. Matt Lauer introduced the story: "Now a debate. How far can you go in the name of self-defense? In a growing number of states people have much more leeway to use deadly force. Supporters say that's a good thing but critics argue it's a case of shoot first and ask questions later. We have more on this now from NBC's Ron Mott." Mott then began the segment portraying the right-to-self-defense laws as a path to anarchy: "Has the 'Wild, Wild West,' gone South?" Mott went on to air three talking heads opposed to the laws including two supposed "victims" of the self-defense to just one talking head from the NRA. Mott could've interviewed any number of ordinary men and women that have protected themselves and/or property against criminals but didn't, thereby humanizing the anti-self-defense law side. Mott then continued to scaremonger: "Many opponents fear the laws could actually encourage some people to settle minor disputes with deadly force, allowing claims of self-defense to over power what some critics say could be criminal intent." [This item, by Geoff Dickens, was posted Tuesday afternoon on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ] The following is the full transcript of the August 8 segment:
Matt Lauer: "Now a debate. How far can you go in the name of self-defense? In a growing number of states people have much more leeway to use deadly force. Supporters say that's a good thing but critics argue it's a case of shoot first and ask questions later. We have more on this now from NBC's Ron Mott."
Most Think Media 'Hurt' America by Revealing Terrorist Tracking A Pew Research Center for the People and the Press survey released Tuesday discovered, by "by a margin of 50 percent to 34 percent, Americans think that news organizations have hurt rather than helped the interests of the American people" with "news reports that the government has been secretly examining the bank records of American citizens who may have ties to terrorist groups." However, "an even larger 65 percent to 28 percent majority believes that these news accounts told citizens something that they should know about." Republicans are much more upset with the media than Democrats, the poll, conducted July 6-19, found: "While nearly seven in ten Republicans (69 percent) believe the press reports have hurt the interests of the American people," with a piddling 17 percent of Republicans contending it helped, "relatively few Democrats agree (38 percent). Instead, a 46 percent plurality of Democrats regards the press reporting as beneficial to the public's interest." Further, "Democrats are almost unanimous (82 percent) in believing that the public needed to know about the government's bank monitoring program. Republicans are evenly divided on this question -- 45 percent say it was something the public should know about, 47 percent say the public did not need to know." [This item was posted Tuesday afternoon on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ] Pew titled its August 8 summary: "Public Holds Conflicting Views of Press Reports About Government Monitoring Bank Records." See: people-press.org
The PDF of the questionnaire (part of a larger survey), provides this text for the key question: The PDF: people-press.org The program targeted the financial transactions of those connected to terrorism whose activities were processed by a European clearinghouse, not just "American citizens," so Pew's wording probably lowered the percent who otherwise would have said they believe the news media "hurt the interests of the American people."
Gallup: Dems Hold More Favorable Views of Rather, Couric, Vieira A week after a Pew Research Center for the People and the Press survey determined that a much higher percentage of Democrats than Republicans prefer to get their news from the broadcast networks, CNN, MSNBC and NPR, a new Gallup Poll released Tuesday provides additional evidence that Democrats look more favorably upon the "mainstream media" as Gallup showed how "Democrats are more favorable than Republicans in their views" of eleven of 17 news personalities respondents were asked to assess. Dan Rather had the greatest net difference -- 38 percent -- with 86 percent of Democrats viewing him favorably, compared to just 48 percent of Republicans. Only two of the 17 news personalities (Bill O'Reilly and Geraldo Rivera) got more favorable evaluations from Republicans than Democrats. Others with a significant Democratic versus Republican approval gap include the incoming CBS Evening News anchor and the new co-host of NBC's Today: 17 points for Katie Couric (68% vs. 51%) and 15 points for Meredith Vieira (45% vs. 30%). Some others: Anderson Cooper (49% vs. 36%); Matt Lauer (65% vs. 53%), Barbara Walters (71% vs. 59%), Diane Sawyer (86% vs. 74%), Larry King (62% vs. 53%) and Bob Schieffer (54% vs. 47%). Gallup reported: "Republicans are more likely than Democrats to rate Fox News personality [Bill] O'Reilly more favorably (65% vs. 31%), while [Geraldo] Rivera has a slightly -- but not statistically significant -- more positive rating among Republicans (37% vs. 31%). All other personalities are either rated equally by partisans of both parties, or more favorably among Democrats." The Gallup summary noted: "There are essentially no partisan differences in views of [Regis] Philbin, [Lou] Dobbs, [Charles] Gibson, and [Brian] Williams." [This item was posted early Tuesday afternoon on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ] For a rundown of the partisan results for all 17 news personalities in the summary titled, "Americans Rate Television News and Talk Personalities: ABC's Diane Sawyer tops the list," scroll down to the last section of the August 8 rundown of poll results: "Opinion of Television Personalities by Party Affiliation." Go to: poll.gallup.com
An August 1 CyberAlert posting, "Pew: More Dems Than Repubs Get News from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, NPR, MSNBC...", recited: For the CyberAlert item in full: www.mrc.org
PBS Slams 'Market' Slavery, Bush's Dictatorial Wishes for Press Friday night's edition of Now with David Brancaccio on PBS followed the old Bill Moyers formula of two leftists having an echo-chamber conversation. Brancaccio and Berkeley journalism dean Orville Schell agreed and agreed about how the press aren't liberal enough, the people don't want another Watergate/Vietnam era enough, and the free market can't be counted on to provide "independent" (read: thoroughly ultraliberal) journalism. "We're all [a] slave to the market," Brancaccio suggested. Since Schell was a China scholar, Brancaccio even suggested the current administration might be inspired in their devotion to squelching the press by the Chinese communists. "I'm not sure I want to give government ideas on this particular point, but maybe our government could look to China, which has really raised this notion of, of censorship of their news media to almost a scientific level." [This item, by Tim Graham, was posted Tuesday morning on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ] (MRC intern Chadd Clark transcribed the August 4 program on Monday, and explained with animated exasperation that it's "the worst thing I've seen all summer. The whole thing is outrageous." Welcome to your taxpayer-funded television, Chadd.) The interview was taped at the Aspen Ideas Festival a few weeks ago. Brancaccio quickly put the supposedly timid liberal media and the censorious Bush administration in the hero and villain roles: "Tell you what, you can make enormous political headway by bashing the press in America these days. The White House Spokesman, Tony Snow, after the New York Times published details of efforts to sift through bank accounts in the War on Terror, his construction was something like, 'the New York Times in this case has put the public's right to know above people's right to live.'"
Schell replied that it was somehow dangerous for anyone to criticize the press, and stacked the deck by complaining that liberals are for truth and authenticity, while conservatives favor plastic public-relations cliches: Brancaccio didn't sit down to challenge Schell's comfortable left-wing assumptions, merely to endorse them: "Well, you're not kidding, lost sight of it. I mean, you've seen the poll research from just this year that says when the American public is told that journalists do what we do in the public interest to make the country or the world a better place, they completely don't buy that. They say that we reporters, when we say that, are either being delusional or are just lying." Remember a sentence like this when PBS boosters try to tell you it's not about "shout shows" and talk-radio hyperbole. Can anyone find a poll where the public calls reporters "delusional"? (It's not in the new Pew poll, for one: people-press.org )
This is where Schell goes socialist, suggesting that capitalism and "independent" journalism don't mix well: The dynamic left-wing duo then worried about how a "business model" is ruining the press's image by making it look like it's driven by private interests or bias:
Brancaccio: "So I hear you saying that this is not just an apparent conflict of interestâ€" the fact that journalists may report to a corporate master who have business reasons for doing what they do â€" but you're saying it actually may be affecting the journalism, worrying about the business model." It's not a surprise that this kind of conversation would take place on public television, where liberals feel that the quality of their "independent" thought is so high that it shouldn't have to beg for support. It ought to be granted by a benevolent philanthropist or government with zero strings attached. How that leads to an absence of "bias" is absolutely puzzling. Then the conversation turned to Bush's dictatorial impulses toward the press, and how it was ironic that Bush claims to support building democracy abroad, while questioning the media at home:
Brancaccio: "We expect the government to question our motives. It's sort of built into the tension. But when-" Finally -- and there is more, but how much can be absorbed? -- Schell suggested that in the current political environment, the media merely shows political weakness when it evaluates its own biases or wonders if it's mangled the truth. That only softens you up to being run over by right-wingers:
Brancaccio: "But would you say the Bush administration has been successful? The news media is now cowed?"
-- Brent Baker
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