Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center meekly suggests that an inaccurate ABC miniseries be edited, but it expends much more effort attacking Democrats upset with fictionalized portrayals of the Clinton administration. Read more.
Monday, September 11, 2006
New Article: The Path to 9/11 Bias
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center meekly suggests that an inaccurate ABC miniseries be edited, but it expends much more effort attacking Democrats upset with fictionalized portrayals of the Clinton administration. Read more.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:30 AM EDT
A Look Back
Topic: The ConWeb How did the ConWeb react to 9/11? The ConWebWatch archive has the answers: -- The bodies weren't even cold before WorldNetDaily and NewsMax blamed it on Clinton, with NewsMax adding for effect: "The president has been eloquent. He has been confident. Real Americans support him 100 percent." -- The ConWeb quickly moved on to branding any criticism of President Bush as tantamount to treason. -- The MRC was actually nice to Dan Rather, and WorldNetDaily's Anthony LoBaido went on his infamous tirade blaming the U.S. for the attacks and noting that "All that is evil in the world can be found in New York -- a screed too extreme even for WND, which eventually deleted it. -- NewsMax couldn't decide whether to attack or embrace Bill Maher's "cowards" remark. So it didn't, then it did. -- Hugh Hewitt went wobbly on supporting the president post-9/11 if that president was Al Gore. -- It was never too early to start deifying Barbara Olson -- and to profit by plugging her books.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:29 AM EDT
Sunday, September 10, 2006
Corsi, Gilchrist Push Unsupported Claim on Illegals
Topic: Newsmax A Sept. 7 NewsMax article by Jerome Corsi and Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist promotes their claim that there are 30 million illegal immigrants in America. But they offer no actual evidence to support their claim. Here's what they claim:
While Corsi and Gilchrist attack the way the federal government and the Pew Hispanic Research Center -- who both estimate that the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. is around 11 million -- compile their statistics, they offer no details on how their "research" making that conclusion was compiled, which casts a cloud over their claim. As we've noted, Corsi's boss at WorldNetDaily, Joseph Farah, has also promoted this inflated number -- but at least he grudgingly admits, "I'm guessing, too."
Posted by Terry K.
at 6:44 PM EDT
NewsBusters Downplays GOP Ties of 9/11 Commissioners
Topic: NewsBusters A Sept. 10 NewsBusters post by Noel Sheppard praised the comments of 9/11 Commission co-chairman Thomas Kean and commission member John Lehman in favor of airing ABC's "The Path to 9/11," While Sheppard includes a long quote from Lehman identifying himself as "a Republican having lived with the hostility of Hollywood through the last 30 years" (which Sheppard called "brilliantly offered"), he fails to note Kean's Republican affiliation. Why does this matter? Because NewsBusters has been quick to highlight the Democratic links of other 9/11 Commission members who have spoken out on the film. A Sept. 6 post by Clay Waters, for instance, described commission member Richard Ben-Veniste as "a hard-core Democratic and Clinton partisan."
Posted by Terry K.
at 6:22 PM EDT
Updated: Sunday, September 10, 2006 6:29 PM EDT
Saturday, September 9, 2006
MRC's Mixed Message on Editing 9/11 Movie
Topic: Media Research Center We were so giddy at the idea that the MRC thinks we have influence over Keith Olbermann that we forgot to address the mixed message being sent by Brent Baker in that same NewsBusters post in which he credits us for the manner in which Olbermann named Brent Bozell the day's "Worst Person in the World." Baker wrote:
But Bozell's Oct. 23, 2003, column, rather than detailing how the Reagan movie was "riddled throughout with misrepresentations," cited only two problematic scenes: -- "a conversation between Reagan and his agent during the Hollywood years about offering the names of communists to Congress, in which fake-Reagan declares "I've never called anybody a commie who wasn't a commie." Bozell added: "In real life, Reagan denied doing that, although he did cooperate with FBI investigations." -- "During a scene in which his wife pleads with him to help people battling AIDS, fake-Reagan says, 'They that live in sin shall die in sin' and refuses to discuss the issue further." In a Dec. 1, 2003, review of The Reagans, (which he said was "was every bit as awful as conservatives feared with a belittling portrayal of Ronald Reagan"), Baker called it "condescending" for the head of Showtime Networks for noting that the movie was "criticized by those who have yet to see it." Why is not similarly "condescending" for ABC to point out the same thing to its critics? Baker then ridicules the Showtime guy for saying "Nearly all of the historical facts in the movie can be substantiated and have been carefully researched" -- but "nearly all" is the same factual standard he and Bozell have embraced as acceptable on "The Path to 9/11." Bozell may have said that inaccurate claims in the 9/11 movie should be edited, but that message is overshadowed by Bozell's and Tim Graham's attacks on the Clinton administration for pointing out those inaccuracies. The MRC is certainly not fighting for those edits the way it fought for the Reagan miniseries to be altered or canceled. Graham, in an appearance on Fox News' "Your World with Neil Cavuto," said that "the Clinton administration are bunch of babies that can't handle criticism" and that they are engaging in "hyperbolic screaming" that the movie's producers are "delusional or psychotic." (Graham offered no evidence to support that claim.) Graham further issues a partisan attack against Clinton: "Bill Clinton is here to say these ridiculous things about 'Don't put any lies in it.' What does he know about lying and truth?" When Cavuto pointed out that the 9/11 Commission "does not purport to show to show the things and the statements in this documentary," Graham notes that "If you're Madeline Albright or if you're Condoleezza Rice, you're not going to like the way you're portrayed in this movie" but didn't demand edits for accuracy. Bozell, Graham, and Baker are trying to have it both ways. They can tout Bozell's one-time claim that inaccurate claims should be edited, but they're still running around bashing liberals for criticizing it, even though they themselves took umbrage at being criticized for attacking the Reagan movie. It's still a double standard.
Posted by Terry K.
at 5:06 PM EDT
Updated: Saturday, September 9, 2006 5:11 PM EDT
Olbermann Quotes ConWebBlog?
NewsBusters thinks so, anyway. On Friday, Keith Olbermann named the MRC's Brent Bozell the day's Worst Person in the World:
Brent Baker, in a NewsBusters post, helpfully noted the sources of the Bozell quotes, then added:
Hey, we're flattered -- not just because Olbermann appears to have used little ol' us for insipiration but because this is the first time in six-plus years of doing this that the MRC has publicly acknowledged our existence. Think of what we can accomplish in another six years ... they might acknowledge us again!
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:54 AM EDT
Friday, September 8, 2006
WND: 9/11 Miniseries Screenwriter Relied on Anti-Clinton Author's Book
Topic: WorldNetDaily From a Sept. 8 WorldNetDaily article by Art Moore:
Patterson's claim to fame is that from 1996 to 1998, he was in charge of the nuclear "football." "Dereliction of Duty," published in 2003 by right-wing publishing house Regnery -- amid dishy Clinton-bashing claims such as allegedly cheating at golf and groping a female enlisted soldier on the galley of Air Force One -- alleges that the Clinton administration essentially did nothing to react to 1996 intelligence document describing a al-Qaeda plan to crash jets into U.S. targets, called "Operation Bojinka." These days, Patterson proclaims himself to be "The Conservative Military Voice in American Politics." He is vice president and chief operating officer for the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and he hosts a talk show on the conservative Internet radio website Rightalk. He distorted John Kerry's record during the 2004 presidential campaign, and has made other false claims about Clinton. His soon-to-be-released book (by Random House's conservative Crown Forum imprint) is called "War Crimes: The Left's Campaign to Destroy Our Military and Lose the War on Terror." Moore, though, fails to mention any of those hardcore conservative bona fides. He does, chat up Patterson's anti-Clinton claims, such as a claim that "his book put him under intense pressure from Clinton officials – an aide even spoke of taking away his military retirement benefits." Unsurprisingly, Patterson approves of the fictional depiction of Sandy Berger refusing to authorize a mission to capture bin Laden after CIA operatives and Afghan fighters had the al-Qaida leader in their sights:
Patterson appears to be very much an anti-Clintonite, even though, of course, he claims not to be -- the promo copy for "Dereliction of Duty" insists that it is "is not a personal attack on President Clinton" and that "Patterson does not seem to have a political ax to grind." Any chance Cyrus Nowrasteh will get around to admitting using anti-Clinton sources for his movie? UPDATE: Max Blumenthal reports that the Horowitz connection to "The Path to 9/11" goes far beyond Patterson.
Posted by Terry K.
at 8:29 PM EDT
Updated: Saturday, September 9, 2006 12:35 AM EDT
Dick Morris Issues Disingenous Attack
Topic: Newsmax Yes, we know -- calling Dick Morris disingenous is redundant. But he lives up to it again in a Sept. 8 NewsMax article in which he criticizes "Bill Clinton and his allies" for criticizing the inaccuracies in ABC's "The Path to 9/11." But never once does Morris address the specific claim being made by the Clintonites -- that a key scene depicting Osama bin Laden as being cornered and the administration refusing to OK his capture -- is entirely made up. Once more, Morris lets his pathological Clinton hatred get ahead of the facts. Again, a redundancy to point out.
Posted by Terry K.
at 3:37 PM EDT
Bozell Favors Editing 9/11 Miniseries -- But Not At MRC Site
Topic: Media Research Center As an aside in a Sept. 8 NewsBusters post about "The Path to 9/11," Tim Graham says of his boss, Brent Bozell: "Brent still believes that if ABC corrects its docudrama if it doesn't have documentation for something being challenged, it's doing the right thing." But where? Nowhere on the MRC website, that's for sure. No MRC press release has been issued thus far to that effect. Bozell apparently made this pro-editing statement on the Sept. 6 edition of MSNBC's "Scarborough Country," when he said that ABC should "edit" or "correct" scenes "that do not have any bearing on reality." But that appearance is not noted on the NewsBusters blog -- which usually makes note of Bozell's TV appearances -- nor is it currently noted on the "MRC In the News" page, which stops at Aug. 25. (The MRC front page lists only the three most recent MRC media cites, and if the Scarborough clip was there, it has apparently cycled out.) NewsBusters does offer a video of Bozell's appearance on the Sept. 8 edition of "Fox & Friends" -- but then, Bozell changes his tune. He attacked criticism of "The Path to 9/11" as "classic Team Clinton spin," adding that "perhaps 2 percent of it was wrong, perhaps 2 percent is debatable":
Bozell says nothing here about editing the film for accuracy. If Bozell is as in favor of editing as Graham claims he is -- which would, in fact, put him in league with fellow conservatives like Bill Bennett and Richard Miniter -- why won't the MRC admit to it and issue an official statement to that effect?
Posted by Terry K.
at 2:50 PM EDT
Updated: Friday, September 8, 2006 3:10 PM EDT
Sheppard Tries to Change the Subject Again
Topic: NewsBusters In a pair of posts on Sept. 7, NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard tries to change the subject again as a diversion from criticism of the factual accuracy of "The Path to 9/11" by dragging Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" into. Sheppard's basic point is that nobody forced Moore to fix any factual errors in his movie. As Sheppard states in one post:
Sheppard fails to point out in both posts that "Fahrenheit 9/11" was privately distributed and admission was charged to see it, while "The Path to 9/11" will be aired on free, federally regulated public broadcast airwaves. Privately distributed productions are not subject to any federal standards, and other privately distributed productions can counter it; as we've noted, conservatives made no less than three films to rebut "Fahrenheit." Broadcasters using public airwaves, however, are subject to some level of regulation. Sheppard also fails to note that Disney, whose Miramax subsidiary produced "Fahrenheit 9/11," refused to distribute it, forcing Miramax to find another distributor. That's arguably a form of censorship, though it did ultimately receive wide distribution. And discredited Clinton-hater David Bossie (producer of one of those aforementioned "Fahrenheit" rebuttal movies) did attempt to censor the movie, filing a federal lawsuit to kill advertising for it as a purported violation of federal election laws. Sheppard's attempts at diversion fail to conceal the fact -- just as it didn't earlier in the day, when he claimed that ABC's docudrama was only a movie, which would seem to contradict his whining about "Fahrenheit" -- that "The Path to 9/11" is still factually inaccurate, something that Sheppard apparently has no problem with.
Posted by Terry K.
at 2:13 AM EDT
Riehl Irony
Topic: NewsBusters You gotta love the irony of someone who baselessly smears people passing judgment on others, but here we have Dan Riehl in a Sept. 8 NewsBusters post weighing in on Scholastic's decision to withdraw and revise its "Path to 9/11" materials to more accurately reflect reality. Quoth Riehl: "This is getting entirely out of hand. What a crock. This is disgusting." Funny, that's what we thought about what his baseless attacks on S.R. Sidarth.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:38 AM EDT
Another Anonymous Klein Attack on Olmert
Topic: WorldNetDaily A Sept. 7 WorldNetDaily article by Aaron Klein once again uses anonymous sources to attack Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert. This time, unnamed "Israeli military leaders" are criticizing Olmert for lifting an aerial blockade against Lebanon. As we've noted, Klein regularly uses anonymous sources to level attacks against Olmert, casting a shadow on his reporting.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:26 AM EDT
Thursday, September 7, 2006
Kincaid Dissembles Again on Secret Prisons
Topic: Accuracy in Media Apparently, we won't be getting that apology from Cliff Kincaid. In a Sept. 7 Accuracy in Media column, Kincaid again dissembles and parses about the CIA secret prison issue. This time, he takes on reports that President Bush admitted that the secret prisons exists. Au contraire, Kincaid says:
In other words, because Bush didn't say the magic words, those "secret prison" magically don't exist as far as Kincaid is concerned -- just as he did when he attacked Washington Post reporter Dana Priest for exposing these nonexistent "secret prisons" in the first place. He will admit, though, that "a secret CIA program to interrogate terrorists, including the architects of 9/11, did exist" and that "the President acknowledged that the CIA has maintained an interrogation "program" in which "a small number of suspected terrorist leaders and operatives captured during the war have been held and questioned outside the United States," but Kincaid never says what the difference is between that and a "secret prison." Kincaid also repeats his claim that "AIM contended, and still does, that the story was essentially false," but again, he won't explicitly say why it's "false" to use the term "secret prison" when 1) it was secret and 2) people were imprisoned. Kincaid is playing a game of sematics: He refuses to call them "secret prisons," so therefore, it's wrong for anyone else to call them that.
Posted by Terry K.
at 7:16 PM EDT
Speaking of Outrageous ...
Topic: NewsBusters From a Sept. 7 NewsBusters post by Dan Riehl:
No, Dan, smearing S.R. Sidarth and not apologizing for it is outrageous. Clean your own house first, dude.
Posted by Terry K.
at 4:47 PM EDT
Bozell's Double Standard
Topic: Media Research Center Here's what Brent Bozell has to say about a certain TV "docudrama":
No, this wasn't about "The Path to 9/11" -- this is from an Oct. 23, 2003, column about a planned CBS miniseries on Ronald Reagan. After CBS pulled it from the schedule and shunted it to Showtime, Bozell crowed: "for once, conservative pressure, and the national outcry of Reagan-loving Americans, was the deciding factor in a program’s cancellation." Bozell is much more sanguine about error-filled "docudramas" when the falsehoods are told about Democrats. From Bozell's Sept. 6 column:
When Reagan was the target, Bozell insisted Hollywood "made some of this stuff up." When Democrats were being defamed, Hollywood was taking "poetic license with history." Nice double standard there, Brent.
Posted by Terry K.
at 4:37 PM EDT
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