Bill Press Is A Journalist?
Topic: NewsBusters
In a March 9 NewsBusters post, Noel Sheppard noted that Bill Press criticized "his journalistic colleagues."

Hate to break it to you, Noel, but Bill Press is a syndicated columnist, radio host and Democratic operative -- not a journalist. Nor, as far as we know, has Press ever claimed to be one.

No wonder the MRC thinks all journalists are liberal -- it apparently uses an unusually broad definition of the term.

WND Makes Bogus Kaloogian Claim
Topic: WorldNetDaily
A March 6 WorldNetDaily article by James L. Lambert (last seen here making dubious claims about child pornography) claims that Howard Kaloogian is "the front-runner for the San Diego-area congressional seat held by Republican Rep. Randy 'Duke' Cunningham, who was sentenced last week to eight years in prison on corruption charges." We have found no evidence to support Lambert's claim.

We were not able to find any poll numbers on that race, unsuprising since the final candidate list was finalized only on Feb. 28. But MyDD reported in January that internal polling for Democrat Francine Busby reported that "In head-to-head match ups, Busby leads all six potential Republican candidates by up to 14%." That presumably includes Kaloogian, who had declared his candidacy months earlier.

Phil Brennan, Conservative Lackey
Topic: Newsmax
NewsMax's Phil Brennan does a fine job of spouting conservative talking points in his March 8 column, repeating not only the bogus spin point that there's "a very big difference" between a topped levee and a breached levee -- ignoring the fact that topped levees tend to become breached ones -- but also the MRC's dishonest attack on the CBS poll showing record-low approval ratings for President Bush, which fails to disclose the fact that the Democrat-heavy methodology being attacked accurately reflects the composition of the pool of registered voters.

The irony, of course, is that as Brennan peddles these tropes, he spends the rest of the column whining that President Bush is the victim of "the media's big-lie operation."

AIM Hangs With Sam Francis
Topic: Accuracy in Media
In a March 8 Accuracy in Media column, Cliff Kincaid attacks David Frum for criticizing Robert Novak. In an aside, Kincaid added:

Another Frum target, columnist Sam Francis, who has since passed away, commented, "It would be nice if Mr. Frum, himself an immigrant from Canada, could decide which country is his own before he accuses others of hating theirs."

Francis has a documented history of expressing views that might best be described as white supremacism. And the site from which Kincaid links Francis' comment describes itself as "white nationalist."

Is Francis really the kind of person you want to be on record as sympathizing with, Cliff?

A Letter to WorldNetDaily
Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've done it here before, but now we're taking it to the source: We've written WorldNetDaily's Joseph Farah requesting full disclosure and transparency regarding the Clark Jones libel lawsuit. Read more.

WND AWOL On Harris Implosion
Topic: WorldNetDaily
As it has in most things related to the Duke Cunningham scandal and other Republican scandals -- and in defiance of its claim to be a watchdog of government fraud and corruption -- WorldNetDaily is nowhere to be found as Katherine Harris' Senate campaign implodes.

There's another likely reason for this lack of coverage, too: the first book WND published was written (well, sort of) by Harris.

Back when WND released Harris' book, WND editor Joseph Farah claimed, "This book is certain to be a collector's item for many reasons." Well, not really; it looks like Harris is yet another in the long line of felons and liars whose books WND has published.

More Poll Misrepresentation
Topic: WorldNetDaily
The Media Research Center isn't the only ConWeb component misrepresenting polls these days.

A March 7 WorldNetDaily article on a Zogby International poll claiming that "69 percent of Americans believe public school teachers should present both the evidence for and against Darwinian evolution" fails to note that the poll was commissioned by the anti-evolution, pro-"intelligent design" Discovery Institute. This means that Zogby crafted the questions in such a manner as to promote the views of the institute, since it wouldn't be paying Zogby to do a poll that didn't reflect its views.

The WND article also noted a previous WND article claiming that "more than 500 scientists with doctoral degrees have signed a statement expressing skepticism about Darwin's theory of evolution." But neither that article nor the one citing it noted (as we have) that many of those signers have doctorates in disciplines that have nothing to do with supporting or disproving evolution.

NewsBuster vs. NewsBuster
Topic: NewsBusters
With a March 6 NewsBusters post highlighting Chris Matthews' comment that Hillary Clinton is Dukakis in a dress," Mark Finkelstein somehow forgets to rehash the NewsBusters mantra that, despite significant evidence to the contrary, Matthews is liberal, liberal, liberal -- a view best summed up by fellow NewsBuster Noel Sheppard, who claimed that Matthews is a "San Francisco liberal" with an "ultra-left, San Francisco Chronicle columnist side."

I'm rooting for a street rumble between Finkelstein and Sheppard outside MRC's offices to settle this one.

The Daily Les, 3/6
Topic: The Daily Les
Judging by his March 7 WorldNetDaily column, Les Kinsolving seems pretty proud of asking this question at a White House press briefing yesterday:

KINSOLVING: Did the president watch any of the Academy Awards for prostitution and sodomy last night?

Scott McClellan actually issued an appropriate answer to Kinsolving's line of questioning: "I'm not going to dignify any more with a response."

Which prompted Kinsolving to grumble in his column: "With that, I was cut off from any more questions about what so many millions of Americans had seen the previous evening – whose pro-prostitution and pro-sodomy awards simply must have been known to Scott."

Actually, we're not sure "so many millions of Americans" care about Kinsolving's obsession with gay sex.

New Article: Leading By (Bad) Example, Part 2
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah's own reporting for WorldNetDaily is sadly emblematic of the dubious journalism standards across the entire site. Read more.

More Dishonest Poll-Bashing
Topic: Media Research Center
A March 2 MRC "Media Reality Check" by Tim Graham lives up to our prediction that the MRC would continue to dishonestly attack a CBS News poll showing record low job-approval ratings to President Bush.

Graham writes:

As the blogosphere quickly discovered from CBS's online report, CBS "weighted" its sample to reflect an ideal cross-section of American adults. They adjusted the number of self-described Republicans up to 28 percent and Democrats down to 37 percent, and independents with the rest. That's hardly the exit-poll breakdown the networks found on Election Day 2004 (37 percent GOP, 37 percent Democrat, 26 percent independent).

Graham fails to tell his readers that the Democrat-Republican ratio of the CBS poll closely mirrors the general population of registered voters, as Republican strategist Rich Galen pointed out in a March 1 column at MRC sister site CNSNews.com. Graham also does not explain why a poll methodology based on registered voters is less valid or accurate than one based on likely voters or one based on the voter ratio of the last major election.

Instead, Graham dishonestly attacks the CBS methodology as "biased" despite the fact that there is a solid, logical methodology behind it.

NewsBusters Busts NewsBusters
Topic: NewsBusters
A March 6 NewsBusters post by Noel Sheppard notes that the new issue of Popular Mechanics "took on virtually all of the media myths and misnomers that were so drilled into the citizenry by press representatives that many have become part of the public psyche." And -- though Sheppard doesn't note it -- NewsBusters itself.

Sheppard quotes the Popular Mechanics article debunking claims made by NewsBusters and other MRC affiliates that topping of a levee is a separate and unrelated event to a levee breach: "Most of the New Orleans floodwall failures occurred when water up to 25 ft. high overtopped the barriers, washing out their foundations."

Waddaya think, guys -- time to give up on this spin point?

'Lying or Ignorant'
Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com editor in chief David Thibault claims in a March 6 commentary that "the president's political and media enemies" are either "lying or ignorant" when they don't follow the official Republican line -- which, as repeated by Thibault, is that overtopping of a levee is a separate and unrelated event from a levee breach.

But given the fact that, as we've noted, overtopping of a levee is often a precursor to a levee breach and the fact that many of the levee breaches in New Orleans were caused by overtopping, it appears to be Thibault who is either "lying or ignorant."

What A Surprise
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Richard Bartholomew discovers that WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein has been whitewashing the background of yet another right-wing Israeli extremist.

'Just a Little Nuts'
Topic: Media Research Center
In a March 5 NewsBusters post, Tim Graham claims that to write about threats of violence against abortion doctors "is just a little nuts, considering that Dr. Barnett Slepian was the last abortion doctor to be killed in America, and that was eight years ago." Let's look back at how the MRC reacted to Slepian's murder:

-- It complained about a news report noting that "critics charge rhetoric from the anti-abortion movement is helping to incite this kind of murderous violence."

-- It further complained that "liberal environmentalists" weren't being similarly blamed for a radical group that burned down buildings in Colorado at the same time as Slepian's murder, adding that "while the networks have devoted more than 500 news stories since 1993 to violence and threats against abortion clinics, only a handful of stories have touched on hundreds of cases of organized eco-terrorism in the West."

-- In 2003, Graham complained that when news organizations focus on extremists who support Slepian's murder, "the pro-life movement is being demonized on television by its most unrepresentative elements."

-- MRC news division CNSNews.com countered coverage of Slepian's death with a January 2002 article about a "pro-life activist" who claimed to have "collected eight thousand examples over the last decade of abortionists participating in criminal activity, including sexual assault, sexual harassment, even murder."

-- The only mention of Slepian's killer, James Kopp, on CNS is a reproduction of a January 2003 statement by an anti-abortion group distancing itself from Kopp.

So, which is more "nuts"? Noting that abortion doctors have ample reason to live in fear of their lives, or dismissing that fear as silly?