NewsBusters Nonsense
Topic: NewsBusters
-- Scott Whitlock joins in the MRC's long tradition of making dubious accusations about poll bias by claiming that USA Today skewed a poll on the NSA's collection of phone records (which showed public sentiment against it) because, unlike a Washington Post/ABC poll that showed support for the program, it did not state that the NSA didn't eavesdrop on calls. Whitlock failed to note that 1) the Post/ABC poll didn't state that while calls aren't being listened to through that database, it's linked to the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program; and 2) a Newsweek poll on the issue that echoed the Post/ABC question by pointing out that the NSA didn't eavesdrop showed a similar disapproval rate to the USA Today poll.

-- It's not often you see a conservative unquestioningly swallowing something forwarded by NPR, but Greg Sheffield does just that by claiming the following, based on a column by NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin: "Media Matters started an email campaign based on a faulty transcript of Mara Liason's [sic] May 7 appearance on Fox News Sunday." Dvorkin, and thus Sheffield, is wrong; Media Matters (full disclosure: my employer) responds here.

-- Mark Finkelstein finds that ol' debbil liberal bias lurking on ESPN. Apparently, it's liberal bias to point out the indisputable fact that a defendent pushing his case in the media has the potential effect of tainting the jury pool.

-- After making a big deal out of Katie Couric's purported $110,000 fee for speaking at the University of Oklahoma's commencement, Tim Graham backtracks. Turns out Couric donated her speaking fee to charity.