CNSNews.com's coverage of the newest unemployment numbers repeated its pattern of the pastfewmonths:
The lead article, by Susan Jones, emphasized the labor force participation rate while omitting the fact that it's an unreliable economic indicator because most people who aren't in the labor force are retired or students.
A sidebar by managing editor Michael W. Chapman once again emphasizes the fact that black unemploymentis "more than double the rate of whites" while omitting the fact that it has historically been so and not a product of President Obama.
This time around, though, there's a bonus in the form of an article by Jones completely devoted to a Republian congressman insisting that the jobs report "seems far better than it actually is." Jones did not seek out a Democratic member of Congress for a balanced view.
In the article, Hollingsworth complains that "A group of voting rights activists is up in arms after the executive director of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) told elections officials in three states that they could require residents to provide documented proof of U.S. citizenship when using federal forms to register to vote." She leaves out some important information because it confllicts with her bias.
She writes that "On January 29, EAC executive director Brian Newby sent letters to the chief election officials in the three states approving their requests, stating that they could start requiring proof of U.S. citizenship - such as a birth certificate, naturalization papers, or a passport - on their national mail voter registration forms." One of those states is Kansas. But she omits the fact that Newby is a former crony of Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state who been a champion of highly restrictive voting rights, and who benefits directly from Newby's ruling.
Hollingsworth completely ignores the possibility that Newby is the real "activist" here, not the voting-rights people who oppose the decision.
Hollingsworth concludes her article with an attempt to boost the rationale behind Newby's action: "A 2014 study by researchers at Virginia’s Old Dominion and George Mason Universities found that 'some non-citizens participate in U.S. elections, and that this participation has been large enough to change meaningful election outcomes including Electoral College votes, and Congressional elections.'"
But Hollingsworth doesn't mention that the study has severe methodological issues. As the Washington Post details, the study uses data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, which was an opt-in Internet survey, and the research are dubiously assuming that non-citizens, who volunteered to take online surveys administered in English about American politics, are somehow be representative of the entire non-citizen population.
Further, the lead researcher himself admits problems with the data and says more research is needed.Yet that data was good enough fort Hollingsworth since it reinforces her pro-voting-restriction agenda.
CNS Serves Up Ridiculous Anti-Hillary Bias As 'News' Topic: CNSNews.com
The mission statement for CNSNews.com states in part that it tires to "cover stories that are subject to the bias of omission and report on other news subject to bias by commission."
And how does it do that? By engaging in a lot of bias by commission.
Take, for example, this Feb. 17 "news" article by Susan Jones on a Hillary Clinton speech:
Repeating the same promises and platitudes that African-Americans have heard for years from the Democrats who claim to represent them, Hillary Clinton on Tuesday went a step further: She mentioned her (white) "privilege"; and she said Democrats need to hold candidates accountable, "not just every two or four years...but every single day."
[...]
She made all the old, familiar promises: expanding pre-school; dismantling the "school-to-prison pipeline"; ending "excessive incarceration"; addressing re-segregation in the nation's schools; making college affordable; ending "gun violence"; ending the "epidemic of African Americans being killed by police or dying in custody"; banning the box on federal job applications; ending income disparities; and creating jobs in America's inner cities.
Again: This is a "news" article from a "news" organization that purports to loathe "bias by commission."
If a reporter for the so-called "liberal media" used a "news" article to dismiss a Republican presidential candidate's speech as nothing but "promises and platitudes," CNS' parent, the Media Research Center, would be screaming bloody murder. But the MRC apparently has no problem with such a heavy political slant as long at its own right-wing agenda is being furthered in the process.
If someone from CNS can explain why such egregious bias is not just permitted but encouraged on its pages when it's run by an organization that attacks media bias, feel free to contact me.
AP Subscriber CNS Criticizes AP Over Cruz Photo, Doesn't Understand How AP Works Topic: CNSNews.com
Susan Jones complains in a Feb. 16 CNSNews.com article:
You have to wonder how long the Associated Press photographer waited for the chance to snap the photograph reprinted here -- the one that shows Republican Ted Cruz standing against the backdrop of a sign that reads "TRUSTED."
Except Cruz is blocking the "T," so the signed reads "RUSTED."
The photograph is one of two that accompanies an AP article about Cruz's experience arguing before the Supreme Court.
[...]
The "RUSTED" photo calls to mind an earlier AP swipe at Cruz.
In June 2015, the Associated Press published two photographs that appeared to show a large gun aimed at Cruz's head. Cruz was at a gun range in Iowa, standing in front of a large poster of a gun, but nevertheless, the image was jarring.
Jones leaves out a couple of important things here.
First, she apparently has no understanding of how the AP works. It's a news cooperative, not a media organization per se. While the AP has a website on which it publishes stories, its main business is making content -- hundreds of articles and photos per day -- available to its subscribers. And the subscribers have the final say on what gets used: The AP does not force any subscriber to use any article or photo.
Which brings us to Jones' second big omission: CNS is an AP subscriber. As we've noted, CNS parent the Media Research Center has long bashed the AP for purported "liberal bias," but still pays it to use AP content on CNS, presumably because it gives CNS the veneer of a real "news" organization.
If CNS really wanted to send a message to the AP for it purported bias -- Jones' unsupported accusation that the AP is deliberately trying to make Cruz look bad aside -- it would stop paying what is believed to be hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars a month for access to AP's content. But it won't -- for all its hand-biting, CNS and the MRC apparently willing to put up with the occasional example of "liberal bias" in exchange for its assistance in masquerading as a real "news" organization.
CNS Censors The Truth About Schumer Remarks About Supreme Court Picks Topic: CNSNews.com
Eric Scheiner rushed to report the big news in a Feb. 14 CNSNews.com article:
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is describing current GOP calls to let the next president make a Supreme Court nomination “obstructionism”, but in 2007 Schumer said, “I will do everything in my power to prevent one more ideological ally from joining (Justices John) Roberts and (Samuel) Alito,” and recommended the Senate, “should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court except in extraordinary circumstances.”
“The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance,” Schumer told the American Constitution Society on July 27, 2007.
“With respect to the Supreme Court at least, I will recommend to my colleagues that we should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court except in extraordinary circumstances.”
“I will do everything in my power to prevent one more ideological ally from joining (John) Roberts and (Samuel) Alito on the court,” Schumer later added.
CNS being a very biased "news" organization, Scheiner left out a couple things. First, he failed to note that Schumer's comments were effectively hypothetical since no further Supreme Court openings occured during the Bush administration.
Second Scheiner failed to mention the Republican response to Schumer's comments. From a July 2007 Politico article:
A White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said Schumer's comments show "a tremendous disrespect for the Constitution" by suggesting that the Senate not confirm nominees.
"This is the kind of blind obstruction that people have come to expect from Sen. Schumer," Perino said. "He has an alarming habit of attacking people whose character and position make them unwilling or unable to respond. That is the sign of a bully. If the past is any indication, I would bet that we would see a Democratic senatorial fundraising appeal in the next few days."
Somehow, we don't think Scheiner will remind Republicans that its current stance on opposing any and every Obama Supreme Court nomination in the next year was called "blind obstruction" and "disrespect for the Constitution" by Republicans.
CNS Oil Industry Stenography Watch Topic: CNSNews.com
The Media Research Center gets a significant amount of money from fossil-fuel interests, so its "news" division CNSNews.com is always happy to serve as stenographers for the industry. Here are the latest examples.
A Feb. 8 CNS article by Barbara Hollingsworth uncritically repeats spin from the American Petroleum Institute that President Obama’s proposal to impose a $10 per barrel tax on oil "increases the hostile campaign the administration is waging against the American consumer." Hollingsworth made no attempt to seek out a point of view in response.
CNS' chief oil industry stenographer, Penny Starr, used a Feb. 9 article to tout a claim by ExxonMobil that "in the 2040 market, oil, natural gas, and coal will meet 80% of the world’s energy needs and that carbon emissions should peak by 2030." Starr failed to disclose that ExxonMobil has donated more than $400,000 to her employer over the years.
This stenography -- press releases, really -- is obviously good for the API and ExxonMobil, but it does CNS' readers a grave disservice.
CNS Reporter Still Touting Iran Propaganda to Attack Obama Topic: CNSNews.com
When we wrote a couple weeks ago about how CNSNews.com reporter Patrick Goodenough appeared to be promoting Iranian propaganda to further right-wing attacks against President Obama, Goodenough objected, tweeting, "Don't be ridiculous. I report on Iran's propaganda to inform readers about the regime's nature, not to 'make Obama look bad.'"
But he didn't stop doing so.
A Jan. 31 article highlights how "More than two weeks after Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) personnel detained 10 U.S. Navy sailors overnight in the Persian Gulf supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday awarded medals to the men involved."
On Feb. 2, Goodenough wrote that "The head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy said Monday that if the U.S. seeks to humiliate Iran, the IRGC would release footage of ten U.S. sailors detained last month that is much more embarrassing than images released earlier."
And the following day, Goodenough touted how "An Iranian state-run television network is highlighting social media postings that mock the U.S. military, juxtaposing images of the Hollywood action character Rambo with one of U.S. Navy sailors kneeling at gunpoint after being apprehended last month by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps."
With the earlier stories, that's a total of five articles Goodenough wrote repeating Iranian propaganda regarding the detention of the sailors.
In the full context of CNS' general anti-Obama agenda and, specifically, its uncriticalreproduction of right-wingattacks on the Obama administration for quickly negotiating a release of those sailors -- indeed, Goodenough wrote one of those pieces, headlined "GOP Senators: Iranians Humiliated Our Sailors; We Thanked Them" -- Goodenough's reproduction of Iranian propaganda can only be seen as an attempt to, yes, make Obama look bad.
Which is too bad, because Goodenough is a better reporter than that. We actually praised him some years back for running CNS like a real news organization when he served as interim editor between the death of David Thibault and the hiring of Terry Jeffrey and Michael W. Chapman. Under the latter two, CNS is a bastion of right-wing bias, and it seems clear that Goodenough has to play along.
How ironic -- the Media Research Center purports to hate media bias, but it apparently won't let one of the few people on its staff actually capable of writing unbiased news actually do that.
Susan Jones' Feb. 5 CNSNews.com article on the monthly unemployment rates reads a lot like her article from last month -- promotion of the labor force participation rate, burying the actual unemployment rate (which dropped) and the number of new jobs created (151,000).
Unlike last month, however, she omitted the explanation of why the labor force participation rate is a poor guide to the nation's economic situation, which CNS' obsession with it clearly wants to suggest otherwise. As we've noted, even the conservative American Enterprise Institute agrees, since most of the people not participiating in the labor force are either retired Baby Boomers or students.
CNS' other unemployment-related article comes from managing editor Michael W. Chapman, who writes yet another article noting that the unemployment rate for blacks is "more than double that" for whites without also mention that it has always been that way.
CNS Hides 'Duck Dynasty' Guy's Threat Against Gay Marriage Supporters Topic: CNSNews.com
Eric Scheiner writes in a Feb. 2 CNSNews.com blog post:
Phil Robertson of ‘Duck Dynasty’ fame called same sex marriage “wicked” and “sinful” over the weekend.
Robertson addressed the crowd at a Ted Cruz rally in Iowa City on Sunday.
“Don’t you understand when a fella like me looks at the landscape and sees the depravity, the perversion – redefining marriage and telling us that marriage is not between a man and a woman, c’mon Iowa, it’s nonsense,” Robertson said.
“It is evil. It’s wicked. It’s sinful,” he continued.
Robertson previously caused controversy in 2013 by telling GQ magazine that homosexuality is a sin and immoral.
Scheiner curiously omits what Robertson says next, even though it's in the video attached to his item: "We have to run this bunch out of Washington, D.C. We have to rid the earth of them."
If a liberal said "we have to rid the earth" of people he or she disagreed with, CNS (and its Media Research Center parent) would be all over it. But if a conservative like Robertson says it, CNS will give him a pass and even helpfully bury the threat.
Dr. Joseph Berger, a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, states that from “a scientific perspective,” being “transgendered” is a psychological issue – “emotional unhappiness” – and “cosmetic surgery” is not the “proper treatment.”
Dr. Berger, who also is a past president of the Ontario District Branch of the American Psychiatric Association, presented his remarks before the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights when it was considering a bill (C-279) in 2013 to “include gender identity as a prohibited ground of discrimination.”
That's right -- the testimony Chapman is citing took place three years ago. Chapman does not explain why he only now finds it to be newsworthy.
Chapman goes on to pump up Berger's psychiatric and medical credentials, but he omits that Berger is affiliated with with the notoriously anti-gay National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, and that Berger actually recommended that transgender youth be bullied.
Chapman has a fondness for old, outdated transphobia. In 2014 he rehashed a two-month-old anti-transgender commentary, which he lazily re-rehashed a year later by slapping a new publication date on it.
As with that old rehashed commentary, Chapman made no attempt whatsoever to reach out to transgender advocvates to provide balance, even though CNS' mission statement insists that the organization "endeavors to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story."
Apparently, hating transgenders is more important to Chapman than following sound journalistic practice.
CNS Reporter Promotes Anti-U.S. Propaganda From Iran Topic: CNSNews.com
How much does CNSNews.com hate President Obama? It's publishing anti-U.S. propaganda from Iran in an attempt to smear him.
In a Jan. 21 CNS article, Patrick Goodenough touted how "The head of the Iranian regime’s notorious Basij militia claimed Wednesday that Iran had received $1.7 billion from the U.S. in exchange for the release of imprisoned Americans, contradicting the Obama administration’s denial that the settling of a decades-old legal claim amounted to a ransom." Goodenough then quoted a Republican member of Congress saying somesthing similar in an apparent attempt to bolster Iran's allegation.
An act of God” was responsible for U.S. Navy sailors entering Iranian waters, leading to their arrest at gunpoint, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday told Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) members who detained the Americans.
“Your job was excellent, interesting and timely and, in fact, we must consider this incident as an act of God, who brought Americans into our waters so they would be arrested through your timely action and in that manner, with their hands held above their heads,” Khamenei told the group in a face-to-face meeting, according to a report on the supreme leader’s office website.
The site said Khamenei had “heaped praise” on the IRGC Navy personnel “who had courageously taken action against the entry of U.S. troops into the Islamic Republic of Iran’s territorial waters by arresting the trespassers.”
We suspect Goodenough wouldn't be credulously repeating Iranian propaganda if there was a Republican president.
Goodenough has also quoted Iranian propaganda in a critical context; on Jan. 27 he noted that "the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's official website posted a video quoting the supreme leader’s questioning of the Holocaust," and on Jan. 29 he reported that "A U.S. Navy warship which Iran claims to have chased away from a naval exercise in the Persian Gulf this week was at the time more than 7,000 miles away – in its home port of Norfolk, Virginia."
It's interesting that Goodenough can be critical of Iran in those contexts, but Iranian propaganda is completely credible when it attempts to make Obama look bad. That's one thing CNS and Iran appear to have in common.
Last week, the Media Research Center joined other anti-abortion groups in demanding that "the media" cover the annual March for Life, even though it offered no evidence that other annual protest marches get the kind of coverage it demands, or that the march itself does anything inherently newsworthy. MRC chief Brent Bozell is quoted as saying:
After last year’s media blackout of the March for Life, the networks owe it to their viewers to meaningfully and accurately cover Friday’s march. The media have covered all manner of protests in our nation’s capital no matter how large or small, but they refuse to cover hundreds of thousands of peaceful marchers advocating for the unborn. We will raise our voices on behalf of these precious children and let the media know that they must cover the march. If the media want to retain any shred of credibility, they will give the March for Life and other life issues the full and fair coverage they deserve.
But does the MRC "news" division, CNSNews.com, demonstrate the kind of "full and fair coverage" of abortion it demands from "the media"?
Nope. CNS' abortion coverage is heavily slanted to the anti-abortion side, with pro-choice views -- when they're not being censored completely -- attacked and given no opportunity to respond to those attacks. CNS' runup to the March for Life was particularly telling. For instance:
In a Jan. 19 article touting a poll climing that "rhe vast majority of Americans, including those who label themselves pro-choice, favor restrictions on abortion," Lauretta Brown not only failed to obtain any pro-choice response to the poll, she failed to disclose that the organization that commissioned the poll, the Knights of Columbus, identifies itself as an anti-abortion group and, thus, has an interest in commissioning polls that reflect its views on the subject.
A Jan. 20 article by Barbara Hollingsworth touted a doctor "who bought out an abortion practitioner 16 years ago is now using the abortionist’s own instruments of death to deliver a pro-life message." Hollingsworth made no apparent effort to contact a pro-choice activist to respond to the claims the doctor made.
A Jan. 22 article by Susan Jones uncritically repeated David Daleiden's claim that his secretly (and possibly illegally) recorded videos of Planned Parenthood officials were not "edited to mislead." Jones ignored extensive evidence that Daleiden's videos were, in fact, deceptively edited.
A Jan. 22 article by Melanie Hunter repeats Carly Fiorina's anti-abortion attacks at the March for Life, including referring th "the horrific truth of the Planned Parenthood videos." Hunter sought no pro-choice response to Fiorina's remarks, and she, like Jones, ignored evidence that the videos are deceptively edited.
A Jan. 25 article by Jones quoted a Republican member of Congress smearing Planned Parenthood as "child abuse incorporated." Jones made no attempt to contact Planned Parenthood for a response.
The only article CNS published amid its March for Life coverage was an unbylined Jan. 22 article noting President Obama's statement on the Roe v. Wade anniversary. It carried the biased headline "58,586,256 Abortions Later--Obama Celebrates Roe v. Wade: It Affirmed Freedom."
If the MRC's own "news" coverage of abortion is so wildly biased -- something it has historically been -- what moral authority does it have to demand that other, more legitimate news outlets fit its coverage to the MRC's whims.
We've written CNS asking these questions. We'll post a response if CNS provides one.
The United States has approved the settlement of 483 Syrian refugees since the Paris terror attacks last November heightened concerns about potential security risks in the refugee admission program – and only one of them (0.2 percent) is a Christian.
One-quarter of the 483 Syrian refugees admitted into the United States since Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) terrorists attacked the French capital on November 13--125 of them--are men between the ages of 14 and 50.
The sole Christian among the 483 is identified in State Department Refugee Processing Center data as an adherent of the Greek Orthodox Church.
As he has previously, Goodenough ignores his own reporting and that of his fellow CNS reporters on why so few Christians have been admitted: the U.S. statistics are based on numbers from the United Nations, and Christian refugees tend to go through other agencies.Also, some Christians are not fleeing Syria because they feel safer under Bashar al-Assad.
Goodenough also waits until the final paragraph of his 19-paragraph to admit one other inconvenient fact: the Muslims are facing religious persecution as well, since ISIS is targeting them.
But in Goodenough's right-wing world, Muslims aren't real people and don't suffer real persecution, while Christians must always be put first.
CNS' Laughably Twisted Coverage of Obama's State of the Union Address Topic: CNSNews.com
In a year-end fundraising email, Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell declared that his "news" division, CNSNews.com "exist[s] to lead by example." It's setting an example, all right -- of how to twist and distort a story for maximum right-wing bias.
Take a look at the two original articles CNS generated on President Obama's State of the Union speech. The first, credited anonymously to "CNSNews.com Staff," requires a full three ellipses to cobble together a supposedly inflammatory quote: "Obama Applauds: ‘Voices That Help Us See Ourselves…Not as Gay or Straight…But…Bound by a Common Creed’."
The apparent point of the article is outrage that Obama would describe gays as anything remotely equal to conservatives, since that's a violation of CNS' anti-gay agenda.
This anonymous writer -- why would CNS hide who the person is, since the entire staff seems to be quite proud of its hatred for gays -- is joined by an on-the-record writer, morning managing editor Susan Jones, who serves up a blog post that portrays things she thinks she heard in Obama's speech -- but weren't actually said -- as fact:
President Obama laid out his liberal vision for America Tuesday night, telling Americans that the state of the union is strong, but hinting it could be a whole lot stronger if everyone would just vote for people who agree with Obama's policies.
"The future we want — opportunity and security for our families; a rising standard of living and a sustainable, peaceful planet for our kids — all that is within our reach. But it will only happen if we work together. It will only happen if we can have rational, constructive debates. It will only happen if we fix our politics," Obama said.
[...]
Obama indicated that when he leaves office next year, he'll return to community organizing on a grand scale:
"I'll be right there with you as a citizen, inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that have helped America travel so far. Voices that help us see ourselves not first and foremost as black or white or Asian or Latino, not as gay or straight, immigrant or native born; not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans first, bound by a common creed. Voices Dr. King believed would have the final word — voices of unarmed truth and unconditional love."
Reminder: Jones, as a managing editor, handles actual news copy. Thus, she is leading by example -- though not the one boss Bozell wants to think she's setting.
CNS' Starr Keeps On Shilling For The Oil Industry Topic: CNSNews.com
We've detailed how fossil-fuel purveyors like ExxonMobil and T. Boone Pickens have donated generously to the Media Research Center, and how Penny Starr, reporter for MRC division CNSNews.com, has served as a loyal stenographer for those interests, paraticularly the American Petroleum Institute.
Starr performs her API stenography duty again in a Jan. 5 article uncritically promoting how, at a press conference, "American Petroleum Institute president and CEO Jack Gerard said Tuesday that federal government data show the United States will continue to rely on fossil fuels as its main source of energy for decades to come, despite efforts by environmentalists to work toward a goal of banning them." Starr went on to highlight how "Gerard said the U.S. was the world’s leader in gas and oil production while also leading the world in carbon reductions – thanks, in part, to increased production of fossil fuels, specifically liquefied natural gas (LNG)."
Despite the fact that the CNS mission statement claims that it "endeavors to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story," Starr quotes nobody else in her article except Gerard.
In other words, Starr's "news" article is no different in content and tone than an API press release. Given how often she fawningly writes about the lobbying organization, Starr may actually be on the API payroll for all we (and her readers) know.
CNSNews.com's coverage of the newest unemployment numbers repeated its pattern of the past few months:
Barbara Hollingsworth is a 
The mission statement for CNSNews.com states in part that it tires to "cover stories that are subject to the bias of omission and report on other news subject to bias by commission." 
Susan Jones complains in a Feb. 16 CNSNews.com 
Eric Scheiner rushed to report the big news in a Feb. 14 CNSNews.com 
When we 
Eric Scheiner writes in a Feb. 2 CNSNews.com 
And now, this 
Last week, the Media Research Center joined other anti-abortion groups in 
We've 
