WND Joins Parade of Inconvenient Misreporting Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joining Noel Sheppard and CNSNews.com in failing to fully report a British court's ruling on the Al Gore documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" is WorldNetDaily, which claimed in an Oct. 12 article that "a British High Court ruling that found 11 serious inaccuracies in the documentary." In fact, as even Sheppard was forced to admit, the court found nine inaccuracies.
WND fails to report the complete ruling, which stated that that "four main scientific hypotheses" put forward in "An Inconvenient Truth" are "very well supported by research published in respected, peer-reviewed journals and accords with the latest conclusions of the IPCC."
CNS: Deutsch Faking His Offense at Coulter Remarks Topic: CNSNews.com
An Oct. 12 CNSNews.com article by Susan Jones rather unsubtly suggests that CNBC's Donny Deutsch is faking his offense at Ann Coulter's remark that "We just want the Jews to be perfected."
Jones wrote that "Coulter later told Deutsch, who claimed to be personally offended, that she did not mean to offend him." Later, Jones added: "NBC's Today show interviewed CNBC's Deutsch in person on Friday morning, stoking his professed outrage to keep the controversy going."
Nowhere does Jones note that there is, in fact, a legitimate reason for Deutsch to have been offended by Coulter's remark: As he told Coulter, Deutsch is Jewish. And nowhere does Jones note that Coulter herself has a financial interest to create and "keep the controversy going": she has a new book out.
CNS Inconveniently Misreports British Court Ruling on Gore Movie Topic: CNSNews.com
An Oct. 12 CNSNews.com article by Randy Hall featuring attacks on Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize by his "critics" incompletely reported on a British court ruling. Hall writes:
[Steve] Milloy [publisher of JunkScience.com] pointed to a ruling last week in a British court that "An Inconvenient Truth" contains at least nine material falsehoods and can be shown to students only if it is identified as containing "partisan political views" that promote only one side of the global warming argument.
"It is plainly, as witnessed by the fact that it received an Oscar this year for best documentary film, a powerful, dramatically presented and highly professionally produced film," Judge Michael Burton said in his ruling.
However, "it is now common ground that it is not simply a science film - although it is clear that it is based substantially on scientific research and opinion - but that it is a political film," the judge added.
But Hall didn't report the full ruling from that case -- that the judge also ruled that "four main scientific hypotheses" put forward in "An Inconvenient Truth" are "very well supported by research published in respected, peer-reviewed journals and accords with the latest conclusions of the IPCC." As we noted, NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard similarly misreported the ruling. (We also noted that one of the purported "material falsehoods" is a false conflation of two different calculations.)
Hall also wrote: "Then on Thursday, the BBC aired a report claiming that Gore knew his 'alarmist' movie presented 'false facts,' because he feared any uncertainty in his film would only fuel opponents of global warming regulation." In fact, the video report Hall cites -- which is about the above court ruling -- makes that assertion without any supporting evidence, something Hall presumably would not let stand had such a statement been made about a pet conservative cause.
Sheppard Peddles More Misleading Gore Claims Topic: NewsBusters
Noel Sheppard just can't stop peddling misleading claims about Al Gore.
In an Oct. 9 NewsBusters post, Sheppard claimed that "a British court has determined that Al Gore's schlockumentary 'An Inconvenient Truth' contains at least eleven material falsehoods." Sheppard, as he frequently does, credits Marc Morano for this information. But at least one of those purported "material falsehoods" is misleading.
Sheppard regurgitated: "The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration." In fact, Sheppard is trying to conflate two different calculations: Gore predicted a 20-foot (7m) rise in sea levels if the Greenland or West Antarctic ice sheets were to melt completely or collapse at an indefinite point in the future. The 40 cm (23 inches) figure comes from a February 2007 United Nations IPCC report, which projected a maximum 23-inch sea-level rise before 2100 as a result of rising temperatures.
But two days later, Sheppard posted a "correction": apparently, the judge "listed only nine key scientific errors" in the movie. Sheppard doesn't explain who is to blame for the error -- the right-wing think tanks for whom Sheppard serves as a stenographer or Sheppard himself pulling false claims out of a certain bodily orifice. Sheppard tried to cover up his faulty reporting by hurling insults, calling the movie "this piece of detritus that should never have been allowed by the Motion Picture Association of America or the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to be marketed as a documentary."
Funny thing, though: Sheppard doesn't report what else the judge ruled about "An Inconvenient Truth." As reported by the London Times (via Fox News, so it must be true):
Despite finding nine significant errors the judge said many of the claims made by the film were fully backed up by the weight of science. He identified “four main scientific hypotheses, each of which is very well supported by research published in respected, peer-reviewed journals and accords with the latest conclusions of the IPCC.”
In particular, he agreed with the main thrust of Gore’s arguments: “That climate change is mainly attributable to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (‘greenhouse gases’).”
The other three main points accepted by the judge were that global temperatures are rising and are likely to continue to rise, that climate change will cause serious damage if left unchecked, and that it is entirely possible for governments and individuals to reduce its impacts.
Oops! And especially oopsie after Sheppard lectures the press to tell the full story lest they are "abdicting their solemn responsibility to the public in order to advance an agenda." For Sheppard, though, telling his readers the full truth about this case was too, um, inconvenient.
Sheppard keeps up his fictitious slant in an Oct. 11 post on a conservative group asking that the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences revoke the Oscars "An Inconvenient Truth" won, he noted that "only Investor's Business Daily and the Washington Times reported the errors in Gore's film to American print readers." But Sheppard again failed to report to his readers that the film's four main hypotheses are "very well supported by research published in respected, peer-reviewed journals and accords with the latest conclusions of the IPCC.”
"Tim Graham pointed out to me that CNN had a real attachment to the word ‘lurid’ yesterday [regarding Mark Foley's emails]. As disturbing as this story is, do we need to use tabloid adjectives? If they are going to treat the story like that, why not follow it with pieces on the latest Hollywood scandal or alien abduction? They would do their counterparts at the National Enquirer proud." -- Michelle Humphrey, Oct. 4, 2006
"ABC pounded the word "tabloid" in all of their coverage [of Dick Morris' relationship with a prostitute in 1996]. ... But now ABC is the 'tabloid' outlet on the ['D.C. Madam'] Call Girl beat." -- Tim Graham, April 30
"Will ABC News admit it was not only misinformed on an easily checked issue, but acted with tabloid journalism to boot?" -- Warner Todd Huston, April 21
But now that a tabloid is reporting something NewsBusters wants to hear, they want more. An Oct. 10 post by Jason Aslinger happily reports that "Ann Coulter did her best to drop a bomb on the October 10 episode of 'Tucker' " by repeating a National Enquirer claim that "John Edwards had an 18-month affair while on the campaign trail." While Aslinger does note that "this allegation must be met with a healthy degree of skepticism," he nevertheless demands that the media cover it anyway:
So now we have a tabloid allegation of marital infidelity by a presidential candidate. And the allegation has been repeated by Ann Coulter on MSNBC - so it's not as if it can be completely ignored at this point.
[...]
It is not unprecedented for the press to cover a sex scandal involving a Democratic candidate for presdient. Going way back in time, Senator Gary Hart ruined his presidential chances with an extramarital affair, which received plenty of press coverage at the time.
In this case, though, the question has to be asked: will the mainstream media pursue this allegation at all? If the media is to be consistent in its energized pursuit of sex scandals involving politicians, then it will be beating down doors to either confirm of refute this allegation. But will they? The first thought is that the media would be inclined to ignore the allegation, but the potential boost to the Clinton campaign might give the mainstream media a reason for following this storyline. Time will tell.
In other words, NewsBusters was against tabloid journalism before it was for it.
The more interesting question, though, is this: Will the rest of the ConWeb -- which has either embraced or denounced the tabloids as it suited their agenda -- pick up on the claim? NewsMax in particular has had a flip-floppingrelationship with tabloids.
Jeffrey Misleads on Waterboarding Topic: CNSNews.com
The headline of an Oct. 10 CNSNews.com column by Terry Jeffrey asks, "Is Waterboarding Ever Right?" then scares and misleads to suggest it is.
Jeffrey starts by serving up two hypotheticals to compare. The first is of a soldier who shoots a suicide bomber; the second, which suggests Jeffrey has watched way too much "24" and has worn out his copy of "Black Sunday," offers up that "al-Qaida cell has hidden a bomb inside the stadium where tens of thousands will gather that day for the Super Bowl," learned when "A caller in Pakistan dials a number in the United States. A U.S. spy satellite intercepts the call; an NSA computer records it," though "the computer has no warrant and no probable cause to believe this call will produce evidence of a crime." Jeffrey then tells of "Madame President" receiving purported counsel on the situation from "Attorney General Charles Schumer," who says, "They intercepted this guy's call without a warrant," and "National Security Advisor Sandy Berger," who "nods knowingly."
But Jeffrey doesn't mention that the FISA law under which such calls would be monitored allows the government to receive warrants retroactively.
Jeffrey then writes:
So much for hypotheticals.
Water-boarding is an interrogation technique in which a piece of plastic is placed over a subject's face and water is poured on it. The subject feels as if he is drowning, although he is not. According to a report for ABC News by Brian Ross, Richard Esposito and Martha Raddatz: "Its most effective use, say current and former CIA officials, was in breaking Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, known as KSM, who subsequently confessed to a number of ongoing plots against the United States."
But by focusing only on a single news report on Mohammed that said what Jeffrey wanted to hear, he conveniently ignores questions about the effectiveness of coercive interrogation techniques -- including waterboarding -- used on Mohammed and others. Media Matters noted that an Aug. 13 August New Yorker article on the CIA's interrogation program reported that "even supporters" of the CIA's interrogation and detention program "acknowledge that much of the information that coercion produces is unreliable" and that "[w]hen pressed, one former top agency official estimated that 'ninety per cent of the information was unreliable.' " During Mohammed's interrogation, the article adds, he "claimed responsibility for so many crimes that his testimony became to seem [sic] inherently dubious":
In addition to confessing to the [Daniel] Pearl murder, he said that he had hatched plans to assassinate President Clinton, President Carter, and Pope John Paul II. Bruce Riedel, who was a C.I.A. analyst for twenty-nine years, and who now works at the Brookings Institution, said, "It's difficult to give credence to any particular area of this large a charge sheet that he confessed to, considering the situation he found himself in. K.S.M. has no prospect of ever seeing freedom again, so his only gratification in life is to portray himself as the James Bond of jihadism."
Jeffrey concludes by innocuously describing the waterboarding of Mohammed as "pouring water on Mohammed's head."
New Article: Schmoozing With a Terrorist Whitewasher Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein turns his chatting-up-Muslim-militants gimmick into a book. But there are some terrorists he's not terribly eager to write about. Read more.
NewsBusters Defends Bloggers Who Attacked SCHIP Family Topic: NewsBusters
NewsBusters has responded to its misleading reporting on the Graeme Frost family and its SCHIP coverage -- not by telling the truth, but complaining that conservative bloggers are being "smear[ed]" for peddling misleading information -- er, offering "scrutiny" of the Frost family.
In an Oct. 10 post, Ken Shepherd complained that after the bloggers attacked the Baltimore Sun for running "a gauzy profile on Graeme's mom and dad and their push for the Democratic SCHIP expansion," the Sun "is hitting back by attacking conservatives bloggers as heartless and obsessive." Well, yeah, when you're skulking around someone's house to determine if it looks poor enough to qualify for SCHIP, then yeah, that's a good definition of obsessive.
Shepherd glosses over the fact that those conservative bloggers -- including NewsBusters itself -- have peddled misleading and inaccurate claims about the Frosts:
USA Today reported in its October 10 paper that Graeme is a scholarship student and his sister Gemma's tuition at the Park School iscovered by a state education program. Of course, these are two facts might have been noted in initial coverage by the Sun had it been more diligent and skeptical and less interested in promoting liberal Democratic talking points.
But shouldn't NewsBusters' John Stephenson also have noted that as well when he regurgitated a psedonymous Free Republic blogger's claims that the children "attend the very exclusive Park School, which has a tuition of $20,000 a year, per child." Same with the claim that "they live in a 3,000+ square foot home in a neighborhood with smaller homes that are selling for at least $400,000" without also noting that the family bought the house 16 years ago for $55,000.
Perhaps that would have happened if NewsBusters was more diligent and skeptical and less interested in promoting conservative Republican talking points.
UPDATE: An Oct. 10 NewsBusters post and TimesWatch item by Clay Waters takes a similar tack, bashing the New York Times of taking a "hostile tone" for noting that the Frosts "have been attacked by conservative bloggers." But like Shepherd, Waters doesn't acknowledge that his conservative buddies have forwarded misleading information.
UPDATE 2: Waters, in the TimesWatch version, also notes that "Dan Riehl has some questions the Times didn't answer." But he didn't note that Riehl -- best known around these parts for peddling false claims about S.R. Sidarth at NewsBusters -- also smeared the Frosts, calling them "a couple of mostly spoiled brats who became parents and never felt compelled to take responsibility for themselves." Does this mean that Waters, by endorsing Riehl's reporting, also endorses Riehl's smear of the Frosts?
Bozell Lies About the Competition Topic: Media Research Center
Brent Bozell, in his Oct. 9 column, takes another swipe at the competition, Media Matters (my employer), falsely claiming that it's "George Soros-funded." It's not. Of course, Bozell doesn't have much to say about who pays his salary. (Bonus: Learn how much Bozell and Co. make!)
Bozell attempts to pile on by decrying "the far left at its repugnant worst, perfectly content to destroy a man's reputation through dishonest attacks if it will further its agenda. Josef Stalin would be proud of this movement." No mention, of course, of the MRC's own attempts to destroy reputations through dishonest attacks in order to further its agenda.
CNS Overlooks Full Story of Thompson, Finance Probe Topic: CNSNews.com
An Oct. 10 CNSNews.com article by Fred Lucas quotes conservatives criticizing Fred Thompson for "how the former Tennessee senator handled the 1990s Senate probe into Clinton campaign fundraising corruption." The telling quote comes from Human Events' John Gizzi, who said Thompson "was so passionate about ethics laws that he turned the investigation into a bipartisan investigation for ethics reforms, and in the end had no case."
What does that mean? Lucas doesn't say. But as Media Matters details, Thompson shut down the investigation rather than examine campaign finance violations by Republicans. Not that he didn't try, as Gizzi hints at; The Boston Glob reported in 1997 that "Republican leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, have criticized Thompson for allowing Democrats to spend a week earlier this year examining the dealings of former Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour." But ultimately, Thompson refused to let Democrats hold a hearing on Republican fundraising abuses and instead shut down the probe entirely.
So what Gizzi is trying to say is that he's mad at Thompson for not conducting a partisan witch hunt to pile up more dirt on Clinton. Lucas should have explained that better to his readers.
Will NewsBusters Tell Truth About SCHIP Kid's Family? Topic: NewsBusters
In an Oct. 8 NewsBusters post, John Stephenson asserted that the media weren't telling the truth about Graeme Frost, the 12-year-old who delivered a Democratic radio address promotting the SCHIP children's health program, which President Bush recently vetoed. Stephenson claimed the media "swallowed the story whole" about the Frost family -- that the Baltimore family is raising four children on an income of $45,000 a year and relies on SCHIP -- and that news stories "were missing greatly in one major thing, facts."
As evidence, Stephenson cited a Free Republic poster who claimed:
First, Mr. Halsey Frost, Graeme’s father, owns his own woodworking design studio, Frostworks, so his claim that he can’t get health insurance through work is shockingly deceptive. He chooses not to get health care for his family. Second, Graeme and his sister Gemma attend the very exclusive Park School, which has a tuition of $20,000 a year, per child. Third, they live in a 3,000+ square foot home in a neighborhood with smaller homes that are selling for at least $400,000.
But the Freeper turns out to be fact-challeged as well. Think Progress reports:
1) Graeme has a scholarship to a private school. The school costs $15K a year, but the family only pays $500 a year.
2) His sister Gemma attends another private school to help her with the brain injuries that occurred due to her accident. The school costs $23,000 a year, but the state pays the entire cost.
3) They bought their “lavish house” sixteen years ago for $55,000 at a time when the neighborhood was less than safe.
4) Last year, the Frosts made $45,000 combined. Over the past few years they have made no more than $50,000 combined.
5) The state of Maryland has found them eligible to participate in the CHIP program.
Will Stephenson correct his post and tell the truth about the Frost family? We'll be watching...
Shepherd Repats Claim Matthews Is 'Brazen Cheerleader' for Hillary Topic: NewsBusters
In a Oct. 8 NewsBusters post, Ken Shepherd approvingly repeats Human Events' Jed Babbin's assertion that Chris Matthews "is an over-the-top liberal, a brazen cheerleader for [Hillary] Clinton."
That, of course, is why Matthews has likened Hillary to MadameDefarge, claimed she looked at former Vice President Al Gore with "dead people's eyes," laughed at the suggestion that Clinton would poison Sen. Barack Obama, and said of her, "She has to smile when she puts the knife in."
Also, Shepherd again referred readers to "NewsBusters' comprehensive coverage of Chris Matthews" even though, as we've detailed, it is filled with misleading, out-of-context claims.
NewsBusters: ABC Stands For 'Alerting Bin Laden's Compatriots' Topic: NewsBusters
An Oct. 9 NewsBusters post by Ken Shepherd is headlined, "Alerting Bin Laden's Compatriots (ABC): Al Qaeda Goes Dark Thanks to Network." In it, Shepherd cites an Oct. 9 New York Sun article claiming that a leak of Osama bin Laden's September 11 speech inadvertently disclosed the fact that American intelligence agencies had penetrated the enemy's computer systems, prompting al-Qaeda to shut down its system. Shepherd adds: "You can thank ABC News for that."
But is ABC really to blame? Shepherd gives surprisingly short shrift to the fact that it was leaked information, saying only that "it's not just the leaker but the leakee that has moral culpability for potential lives lost due to the intelligence failures that may result here," but he devotes most of his time to bashing ABC. But neither he nor the Sun offer any evidence that ABC was aware that the leak of the bin Laden video might compromise intelligence methods or that ABC went with the story anyway depite taht.
Shepherd does not mention an Oct. 9 Washington Post article, which clearly demonstrates that it was a leak from within the Bush administration that resulted in news coverage:
A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release.
Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.
Further, the claim suggested by the Sun and repeated by Shepherd that ABC was the first to report on bin Laden's speech is not quite corroborated by the Post article:
By midafternoon, several television news networks reported obtaining copies of the transcript. A copy posted around 3 p.m. on Fox News's Web site referred to SITE [the private intelligence firm that had tapped into the al-Qaeda network and downloaded the bin Laden video] and included page markers identical to those used by the group. "This confirms that the U.S. government was responsible for the leak of this document," Katz wrote in an e-mail to Leiter at 5 p.m.
Yet Shepherd reserves nearly all his opprobrium for a single news outlet for reporting some unquestionably newsworthy -- while offering no evidence whatsoever that it did so maliciously -- and not the government officials who leaked it before intelligence methods could be protected.
It was the Bush administration that was "Alerting Bin Laden's Compatriots." Why is that ABC's fault?
UPDATE: An Oct. 9 NewsMax column by Phil Brennan similarly cites the Sun article as an example of how the media engage in "routine publishing of vital national security secrets" and, thus, are guilty of "treason." But, like Shepherd, Brennan whitewashes the fact that the speech was leaked by the Bush administration and offers no evidence that ABC reported on the speech with the knowledge or intent that it would harm intelligence gathering.
Warner Todd Huston takes his FredThompsonsycophancy to a new level in an Oct. 8 NewsBusters post, complaining that what Thompson's supporters in the "spin room" following tonight's Republican debate are being accused of, uh, spinning:
MSNBC's Chuck Todd posted a blog post today on his First Read blog titled "George Allen, Liz Cheney to Spin for Thompson." So, any takers to wonder if Chuck Todd would have posted a blog post titled "Sandy Berger to Spin for Clinton," or "Oprah to Spin for Obama"? Does anyone think that Chuck Todd would have used such a negative word as "spin" to describe the assistance a high profile supporter would give a Democrat candidate?
[...]
So no candidate's supporter could ever come on to offer post debate commentary without it being "spin"? No one could possibly be honestly supporting their candidate? Is that how Chuck Todd sees the situation?
Now, politics fanatics would know that the post debate media pit is called the "spin room." But the headline doesn't explain that at all and certainly leaves the feel that Chuck Todd is saying "George Allen, Liz Cheney to Lie for Thompson." Leaving off the "room" to spin room materially changes the feel of the headline for most people who are not as plugged into the media and politics.
There's little doubt this could have been an accident.
No wonder the MSM can't report anything right! After all, they think everyone around them are liars, so they must imagine that they can put their "spin" on the news. After all, everyone else is doing it and all that.
Is Huston really saying that Thompson's supporters are so above politics and so sincere in their support that it's inaccurate to describe them as "spinning" for their candidate? Sounds like someone's furiously spinning here.
WND Repeats Misleading Gun-Law Poster Boy Anecdote Topic: WorldNetDaily
An Oct. 6 WorldNetDaily article repeats a misleading anecdote about a man who's being held up by a right-wing gun-rights group as an argument against more restrictive gun laws -- right down to getting the man's name wrong.
As it did in an a Sept. 27 article by Bob Unruh, WND -- in parroting Gun Owners of America's opposition to a law that would create and enforce a mechanism to deny guns for mental health reasons -- once again told the case of "Horatio Miller," who made an "offhanded, tongue-in-cheek remark" that it could be "worse than Virginia Tech" if someone broke into his car because of the guns there, adding: "Miller, with no criminal record and the holder of a concealed carry permit who had passed rigorous background checks, was ordered never to own or possess a gun again."
But as we documented, there's a lot more to this case that WND's not telling. Horasio Miller -- his actual name -- was reported by police to have pointed a gun at a neighbor, was caught inside a college buiding with a 9mm pistol, and discovered to have been tapping phone lines for free service and listening in on phone conversations of other tenants in the building. When authorities investigated Miller's apartment, they found it so dirty that it was deemed unfit for human habitation.
The article also repeats the GOA's objection to the proposed law's prohibition on gun ownership by "any veterans diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder" without explaining why it's a good thing for veterans with PTSD to have access to weapons.
Copying-and-pasting is not exactly stellar journalism. Copying-and-pasting things proven to be distorted and misleading looks especially stupid.
