Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center is unhappy that the media is accurately reporting on the dishonestly edited anti-Planned Parenthood videos -- and it won't even admit that the dishonesty exists. Read more >>
Thursday, July 23, 2015
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's War Against the Truth
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center is unhappy that the media is accurately reporting on the dishonestly edited anti-Planned Parenthood videos -- and it won't even admit that the dishonesty exists. Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 5:26 PM EDT
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
CNS Pretends Only Liberals Are Criticizing Trump
Topic: CNSNews.com
Jones seems not to be aware that the main host of "Morning Joe," Joe Scarborough, is not a liberal -- he is a former Republican congressman. That's just one of many clueless things about Jones' article. She also seems to be unaware that it's not only "liberal media outlets" that have been covering Trump's latest outrage. The fact that Jones is writing about it means right-wing media outlets are covering it too. Jones appears to be even more clueless about the fact that Trump's comments about McCain have been roundly criticized by Republicans and Democrats alike -- which she would know if she had read the other websites run by her employer, the Media Research Center. (Oh, yeah, she thinks only the "liberal media" is covering Trump.) One NewsBusters article notes that Trump's comments have received "universal condemnation." Another highlights how Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry "has been one of Trump’s harshest critics." A third points out that "most Republicans condemned Donald Trump." And a CNS article by Melanie Hunter published the same day as Jones' quotes Republican pollster Frank Luntz as saying that Trump does not appreciate the “significance” of being a prisoner of war. (Trump had bashed McCain's former POW status as a sign he wasn't a war hero.) Is Jones suddenly working for a "liberal media outlet" now? Nope -- she's just so desperate to crank out a tired attack on the "liberal media" that the facts simply don't matter to her.
Posted by Terry K.
at 2:16 PM EDT
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
WND Columnist Mercer Sneers At Race-Mixing
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Mercer also expounds on other reasons Dolezal might want to be black:
Mercer's racism is showing again.
Posted by Terry K.
at 3:40 PM EDT
Monday, July 20, 2015
CNS' Climate Denier Fail
Topic: CNSNews.com
Um, not so much. As Slate points out:
Unsurprisingly, Richards contacts nobody to respond to the study. Also unsurprisingly, CNS published an July 20 op-ed by H. Sterling Burnett, one of the climate deniers at the right-wing Heartland Institute, to reinforce the bogus claim:
Slate notes that climate deniers like Burnett "have a particular fascination with sunspot cycles," but that the correlation between sunspot activity and global temperatures is weak at best. Slate adds: "In reality, sunspots fluctuate in an 11-year cycle, and the current cycle is the weakest in 100 years—yet 2014 was the planet’s hottest year in recorded history." Betcha Burnett and CNS won't bring that up. It seems the deniers have failed again by deliberately ignoring information that undermines their case. Burnett is a paid flack, of course, but what's the excuse for CNS, which purports to be a news organization? Oh, yeah, they get paid to do that as well.
Posted by Terry K.
at 3:43 PM EDT
Sunday, July 19, 2015
CNS Censors Fact That Congressman's Outrage Is Hypocritical
Topic: CNSNews.com
But Starr has omitted one key fact: Franks knew about the dishonestly edited video that prompted his comments weeks ago. Roll Call reports that Franks is among several members of Congress who were shown the video made by anti-abortion extremists weeks ago, but they said nothing until now. Franks spun wildly when called on it, insisting that “The hope was to have as much information as possible so that the authorities could be notified effectively before the media.” While the Roll Call article was posted a few hours after Starr's, CNS made no effort to update the article with this important information suggesting that Franks' concern is nothing but politically motivated hypocrisy. Then again, that kind of politically motivated hypocrisy is what fuels CNS, isn't it?
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:56 PM EDT
Saturday, July 18, 2015
WND Repeats Discredited ISIS Link to Chattanooga Shooting
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Hohmann's article prominently features the alleged ISIS tweet (at right), though it's curiously not captioned as such, identified only later in the article. In fact, Hohmann is making a false claim. As Media Matters documents, the right-wing activists who initially promoted the false claim that the ISIS tweet came just before the Chattanooga shootings misread the Twitter timestamp by not accounting for time zones. The tweet actually was issued a few hours after the shooting, not shortly before. There's also no purported "pattern" of ISIS warning of shootings in the U.S. The issuer of the "similar Twitter message" before the Garland shooting was actually issued by one of the gunmen, Elton Simpson, not by someone higher up in ISIS. Despite this tweet having no actual link to the Chattanooga shooting, Hohmann's boss, WND editor Joseph Farah uses it to illustrate his July 17 column ranting that the shooting was Muslim terrorism despite authorities having yet to even definitively establish that the shooter, Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, was a Muslim: "Hello? Since when do Christian or non-Muslim Arabs name their kids Mohammad?" Farah then goes on to repeat the false claim his writer made, stealing it word-for-word: "An ISIS-affiliated Twitter account tweeted 15 minutes before the attack started a 'warning' to America with the #Chattanooga hashtag (see screenshot above article). Could this have been the signal that started the attack?" If Farah had done even a modicum of research before writing his column, he would have known that the answer is no. And that is yet another reason why nobody believes WND.
Posted by Terry K.
at 4:02 PM EDT
Updated: Saturday, July 18, 2015 4:10 PM EDT
Friday, July 17, 2015
MRC Still Complaining About Accurate Reporting
Topic: Media Research Center
A July 15 NewsBusters item by Curtis Houck complained that TV newscasts accurately identified the Center for Medical Progress, which released the dishonestly edited video, as “anti-abortion activists," whining about "the media’s long-standing refusal to use the 'pro-life' label for conservatives." But the CMP is unquestionably anti-abortion and they're activists, so it's absolutely accurate to describe them as "anti-abortion activists." Houck even seemed put out that the media is reporting Planned Parenthood's side of the story at all, huffing that one newscast included "more points from Planned Parenthood about how they are 'only trying to help women who want to donate fetal tissue after abortions.'" Funny, we thought the MRC wanted the news fairly reported. Houck didn't mention the fact that the original video the CMP released was dishonestly edited and did not portray the full context of what actually happened. Ken Shepherd follows that up with a July 16 post complaining that the Dailiy Beast accurately identified CMP leader David Daleiden as an "extremist":
At no point does Shepherd dispute the accuracy of anything the Daily Beast reported about Daleiden, including the "extremist" descriptor, nor does he explain how reporting indisputably accurate information about Daleiden equates to "trashing" or character assassination. One could say the real character assassin here is Daleiden himself with his deceptive video dishonestly attacking Planned Parenthood -- a deception Shepherd, like fellow MRC employee Houck, does not acknowledge.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:52 PM EDT
Thursday, July 16, 2015
CNS Goes Into Race-Baiting Mode on Obama
Topic: CNSNews.com
In a July 13 CNS article, Susan Jones complained that President Obama used his weekly media address to promote his faie-housing initiative. She expressed particular concern that white suburbs might become less white, fretting that communities "must spend the [federal fair-housing] money in ways that move inner-city minorities, for example, into subsidized housing in wealthier, whiter suburbs." Apparently, Jones doesn't think minorties have any place in those "whiter suburbs." Since CNS has given up reporting actual news and instead has embraced its role as one more propaganda arm of the MRC, Jones engages in some trolling of Obama. After noting Obama's statement that children living just a few blocks apart may "lead incredibly different lives," Jones sneered: "President Obama could have used his own daughters as examples. They attend an elite private school in Washington, in a city where many poor blacks struggle in failing public schools." Jones might look to her employer as an example of how her fellow conservatives are handling the issue. A couple years back, the MRC moved its headquaters from Alexandria, Va., a town with a 66.8 percent white population and a 22.4 percent black population, to Reston, Va., a town with a 70.1 percent white population and just a 9.7 percent black population. The move also put the MRC in one of those "wealthier, whiter suburbs" Jones fears will be overrun by poor brown people; the median income of Alexandria is $85,706, while in Reston it's $107,962. Yeah, we can see why Jones would be freaking out.
Posted by Terry K.
at 6:45 PM EDT
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
MRC Is Mad That AP Is Accurately Reporting On A Story
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Ken Shepherd does a terrible job of playing media cop, ignoring the deceptive, sensational reporting of his ConWeb peers and instead devoting a July 15 NewsBusters post to bashing the Associated Press for reporting the story accurately:
Yes, Shepherd is attacking the AP for using a medically accurate term instead of the emotionally charged one he would prefer. Of course, he can't claim his preferred term is an accurate one, medically or otherwise; if you have to qualify the word "children," that means it's inaccurate to use "children" in this context. But that's what the MRC's "media research" is down to these days. Interesting that Shepherd is mad about accurate reporting but not about the deceptively edited video first released by the anti-abortion activists who secretly taped the Planned Parenthood official, or the ConWeb outlets who ignore that fact in their reporting of the story. UPDATE: Shepherd might want to look a little closer to home to vent his outrage over accurate reporting -- say, across the hall at MRC headquarters. At MRC division CNSNews.com, its lead article on the story is an AP article that references "fetuses" instead of his preferred (and inaccurate) phrase. But as in CNS tradition of putting biased headlines on AP articles, it rewrote the headline to refer to "baby body parts," which is just as inaccurate as Shepherd's insistence that the AP refer to "unborn children."
Posted by Terry K.
at 3:57 PM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, July 15, 2015 4:10 PM EDT
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
WND Columnist: Multiculturalism Is Just Like Having AIDS
Topic: WorldNetDaily
-- Ted Baehr, July 12 WorldNetDaily column
Posted by Terry K.
at 8:00 PM EDT
Monday, July 13, 2015
CNS Gives A Platform to Anti-Gay Kenyans
Topic: CNSNews.com
Despite the fact that CNS' mission statement claims that it "endeavors to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story" Goodenough made no apparent effort to contact any Kenyan official who would not engage in gay-bashing. Goodenough is apparently so concerned with giving Kenyan gay-bashers a voice that he can't be bothered to tell us what the laws on homosexuality in Kenya are. He obliquoely refers to the situation by noting that "Homosexuality is frowned on in many African countries" and that "same-sex sexual acts are illegal in 76 countries around the world, 36 of them in Africa." But curiously, Goodenough never explains the situation in Kenya. Homosexuality is illegal in Kenya, punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Tthe Kenya National Commission on Human Rights states that gays "are discriminated, stigmatised and subjected to violence because of their sexual orientation." Additionally, gays "often face arbitrary arrest, are often detained at the police stations, subjected to torture and unnecessary harassment by the police who extort money from them and are only released after bribing their way out." Goodenough and CNS, it seems, are totally down with all of that Kenyan anti-gay hate.
Posted by Terry K.
at 4:52 PM EDT
Sunday, July 12, 2015
CNS Publishes Birther Lawyer Again
Topic: CNSNews.com
Well, apparently CNS can't get enough of Titus' legally suspect opinions, so he's back in a July 6 column declaring that the Supreme court's ruling on same-sex marriage is "illegitimate and unlawful" and "Worthy only to be disobeyed." Titus concludes his article by he will "will continue to release articles" on how Americans can breakt the law -- a strange position for a so-called legal expert to take. Well, Titus' view on Obama's eligibility and the definition of "natural born citizen" can be found nowhere in U.S. jurisprudence, which makes anything he has to say on any legal issue rather suspect. We also don't see Titus running around enforcing his extremely narrow definition of "natural born citizen" on Ted Cruz the way he was on Obama, so that makes him a hypocrite as well. Those flaws, apparently, make him the perfect person to write op-eds for CNS, apparently.
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:53 PM EDT
Saturday, July 11, 2015
WND Can't Stop Stringing The Birthers Along
Topic: WorldNetDaily
Following Aaron Klein's interview with Joe Arpaio -- in which Klein failed to ask Arpaio any meaningful birther-related questions -- Art Moore interviews cold case posse chief Mike Zullo for a July 9 article. Under the pretense of explaining away Zullo's claim of forthcoming "universe-shattering" evidence he made in late 2013, Moore uncritically lets Zullo declare that "there is no credible evidence of where Obama was born" and doesn't bother to challenge Zullo's claims that the unnamed thing that's keeping his purported investigation "under lock and key"could "prevent me from ever disclosing what this is." As his fellow WNDer Klein did, Moore fails to ask Zullo about important revelations that have surfced that discredit his investigation: The documentation that what Arpaio, posse leader Mike Zullo and other birthers have claimed as evidence that the online version of Obama's birth certificate released by the White House is a manufactured fraud -- the various layers in the PDF document -- are easily reproduced by using a common Xerox scanner to scan in the document. Arpaio's admission in the documentary "The Joe Show" that the only reason he latched onto the birther movement was to generate donations to his own re-election campaigns. The statement by former posse member Reilly that Hawaii's verification of Obama's birth certificate constitutes sufficient proof that Obama is a "natural born citizen" -- and puts the lie to any claim by Arpaio that the investigation is fair and designed to clear Obama. Moore also curiously fails to make any mention in his article of another fellow WNDer, Jerome Corsi, even though Corsi not only was (and may still be) a member of the cold case posse, it was his presentation to the Surprise Tea Party that, as Moorepoints out in his article, spurred Arpaio to set up the cold case posse in the first place. Corsi's books on the issue aren't even promoted in Moore's article -- just a category list of "the resources you need to understand the critical constitutional issue ignored by Washington and establishment media — the essential qualifications for the person responsible for the nation’s security." And, yes, WND is still trying to desperately unload copies of Corsi's "Where's the Birth Certificate?" for 99 cents. It's almost as if Corsi and WND now ashamed of their role in forwarding the birth certificate issue or something. Nevertheless, Moore tries to demonstrate his own birther bona fides:
Of course, given that the Naturalization Act of 1790 was repealed in 1795, it does not have the force of law. Moore avoids mentioning another inconvenient fact WND doesn't want to talk about: WND's favorite presidential candidate, Ted Cruz, would also fail Moore's test. We've written Moore to ask for an explanation of his omissions. We'll let you know if he responds.
Posted by Terry K.
at 6:39 PM EDT
Updated: Saturday, July 11, 2015 6:44 PM EDT
Friday, July 10, 2015
More Bad And Misleading Reporting, Courtesy of CNS
Topic: CNSNews.com
It was clear from the start that a July 1 CNS article by Lauretta Brown would not be a fair take on high school health clinics that offer contraception, what with the headline blaring, "Seattle 6th Graders Can’t Get a Coke at School, But Can Get an IUD." In the third paragraph of her article, Brown makes this declaration about long-acting reversible contraception such as IUDs:
Brown is falsely potraying IUDs as being unsafe by highlighting only the "serious side effects." In fact, a 2013 study found that less than 1 percent of users developed complications or serious side effects, and even the fact sheet Brown uses to fearmonger about IUDs admits that "Serious complications from use of an IUD are rare." Brown's claim that IUDs are an abortifacient because it can "prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg" is a false reading of medical science. The medical definition of an abortion is removal of an implanted egg from the uterus; therefore, if it's not implanted, it's not an abortion. Further, 50 percent of a woman's fertilized eggs never naturally implant into the uterus, so it seems that under Brown's definition, nature (or God, if you will) is the biggest abortionist of all. Oh, and Brown never establishes in her article that any sixth-grader in Seattle has ever asked for an IUD -- only that it's theoretically possible -- so that further shoots down her biased attack. Barbara Hollingsworth serves up her own chunk of bad reporting in a July 7 article:
Hollingsworth fails to mention, as she usually does, that the NCPPR is a right-wing organization that has long attacked Obamacare, so its analysis can't exactly be trusted. At no point does Hollingsworth make an effort to seek anyone to counter NCPPR's "death spiral" fearmongering, making her article completely unbalanced. Because of that, readers will never know that anti-Obamacare forces like the NCPPR have been howling about a "death spiral" for years, only to be consistently proven wrong. Further, large rate increase requests mean nothing, let alone a "death spiral." As Mother Jones' Kevin Drum notes, insurance companies always request large rate increases, and they will in the end be more reasonable. Further, Drum notes, more people are likely to continue paying their subsidized premiums in the future because the penalty for not having insurance will increase this year. But Hollingsworth doesn't bother to tell you that either. That's the standard of reporting CNS has these days.
Posted by Terry K.
at 3:11 PM EDT
Updated: Friday, July 10, 2015 3:13 PM EDT
Thursday, July 9, 2015
NEW ARTICLE: Silence Equals Assent
Topic: WorldNetDaily WorldNetDaily has so far refused to respond to our documentation of how its racially charged rhetoric may have influenced Charleston shooter Dylann Roof. Is that an admission that we're right? Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 8:12 PM EDT
|
![]() ![]() Find more neat stuff at the ConWebWatch store! ![]() Buy through this Amazon link and support ConWebWatch! ![]()
Entries by Topic
All topics « Accuracy in Media Capital Research Center CNSNews.com Free Congress Foundation Free Republic Horowitz Media Research Center NewsBusters Newsmax The ConWeb The Daily Les Washington Examiner Western Journalism Center WorldNetDaily ![]()
Watchers
Media Matters for America County Fair The Daily Howler LGF Watch SullyWatch Fact-esque Malkin(s)Watch Reading A1 (NYT) John Gorenfeld (Moonies) NewsHounds (Fox News) Media Watch CJR Daily The Counterpoint (Sinclair) BlatherWatch (Seattle Radio) Watching OlbermannWatch
Blogs
Talking Points Memo Eschaton Suburban Guerrilla World O'Crap Sadly, No! Oliver Willis Angry Single Mom Orcinus Bartholomew's Notes on Religion PFAW's Right Wing Watch Altercation Max Blumenthal
![]() ![]() Support Bloggers' Rights! ![]() ![]() ![]() |