Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center and FrontPageMag bash a report on the Bush administration's false statements about war with Iraq by ignoring the evidence and attacking the messenger. Read more >>
Thursday, March 6, 2008
New Article: The Dishonesty Card
Topic: Media Research Center The Media Research Center and FrontPageMag bash a report on the Bush administration's false statements about war with Iraq by ignoring the evidence and attacking the messenger. Read more >>
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:17 AM EST
MRC Upset That Newsworthy Event Got More Coverage Than Less Newsworthy Event
Topic: NewsBusters From a March 5 NewsBusters post by Scott Whitlock:
Hasn't it been all but clear for weeks that McCain would be the Republican nominee? Accordingly, "McCain's very act of winning the nomination" is an anticlimax, and "the candidate's remarkable rise from the political dead" was covered weeks ago. Curiously, McCain's endorsement by anti-Catholic evangelist John Hagee continues to get even less coverage from the MRC than the networks' coverage of McCain's 'very act of winning the nomination." Why is that? UPDATE: Whitlock's post also appears in the March 6 MRC CyberAlert.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:16 AM EST
Updated: Thursday, March 6, 2008 2:55 PM EST
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Unruh Tells More About Homeschooling Case, But Still Misleads
Topic: WorldNetDaily Gee, that was quick. Six hours after we published what WorldNetDaily's Bob Unruh wouldn't regarding a California family whose homeschooled students were ordered into a real school by a court, Unruh apparently went into panic mode and penned an article that includes more details of the story. But he still tries to spin the issue and whitewash the family. Unruh asserts that the ruling "is alarming because of the way the court opted to order those results." But the ruling is merely following the rule of law, that "enrollment and attendance in a public full-time day school is required by California law for minor children," with certain exceptions, none of which the family met in the eyes of the court. We thought conservatives like Unruh favored the rule of law. Unruh makes a big deal of noting:
But Unruh did not note what preceded that noation in the ruling: a statement that a previous court found "that the home schooling the children were receiving was 'lousy,' 'meager,' and 'bad.'" Unruh then delves into details of what he called "unpublished court documents" in "a dependency case stemming from accusations of abuse that resulted from the parents' decision to impose discipline on their children with spankings." First, the documents in the case have been published, at the AMPS blog, as has the appeals court ruling Unruh writes about. But even though those documents are publcly available, Unruh does not provide a link to them. Second, while Unruh notes that the "unpublished" documents note "allegations that a family acquaintance molested one of the children as well as claims regarding physical punishment relating to one child's decision to disobey household rules about being out at night," which he declared were "disputed by different people involved," he fails to mention numerous other allegations of physical punishment and emotional abuse by the father detailed in the court documents; indeed, the court stated that "Father has a long history of physically abusing the children and mother has a long history of not protecting them from father." Further, the documents state:
Additionally, Unruh fails to address one key issue: the atmosphere and quality of the homeschool education. Unruh also writes that previous court rulings in the case had "affirmed the parents' right to homeschool their children." But Unruh ignores one statement in the dependency court documents, that "The court indicated it believed the parents have the legal right to home school their children assuming the home schooling education is appropriate" [emphasis ours]. Just as Unruh failed to note the court's statement that the education the children received was "lousy," "meager," and "bad," he ignores the description of said education as provided by one of the children:
Is this the kind of "education" Unruh and WND really want to be defending? Unruh noted the claim by the father, Phillip Long, that "the youngest children most recently had been working under an independent study program with Sunland Christian Academy," then added, "The court ruling, however, revealed a judicial dislike of that school, since the judges specifically ordered the children would not be allowed to participate in its programs." Unruh fails to mention that Sunland's supervision of the children's education was minimal, since the school's administrator admitted that "he makes visits to the parents' home about four times a year." Unruh repeats the father's claim that "he objects to the pro-homosexual, pro-bisexual, pro-transgender agenda of California's public schools," even though the court noted that the father has offered varying reasons for keeping his children out of school, including that they "do not believe in the policies of the public school system," "religious beliefs," and because "educating children outside the home exposes them to 'snitches.'" And, apparently because he can't help himself, Unruh unloads the Nazi smear once again, claiming the ruling has "echoes of similar ideas expressed by officials from Germany, where homeschooling has been outlawed since 1938 under a law adopted when Adolf Hitler decided he wanted the state, and no one else, to control the minds of the nation's youth." While Unruh does slightly better this time around, he still offers a biased, whitewashed view of the issue. Will he ever tell the full truth about this case? Don't count on it -- WND is too much of a homeschool cheerleader to ever tell its downside.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:20 PM EST
Unruh Loves Logical Fallacies
Topic: WorldNetDaily First it was the Depiction-Equals-Approval Fallacy. Now WorldNetDaily's Bob Unruh embraces another logical fallacy: that whatever is not prohibited is mandatory. A March 4 article by Unruh about a proposed bill, SB 1322, that would overturn laws that ban communist groups from using school property, permit school employees to be fired if "he or she is a knowing member of the Communist Party," and ban public schools from "teaching communism with the intent to indoctrinate or to inculcate in the mind of any pupil a preference for communism" runs the law through his biased funhouse mirror, claiming that the law would all but demand that schools "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, and let teachers in public district classrooms 'inculcate in the mind of any pupil a preference for communism.' " Unruh, as is his usual reporting M.O., quotes only opponents of the law, who insist the bill is "indoctrination" and that "The socialist members of the legislature are now advocating that communism, one of the most brutal forms of government in history, be taught favorably to government school students. ... California lawmakers are eager to once again begin advancing a political ideology responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people." And just to depict his full deliberate ignorance of facts, Unruh repeated his funhouse-mirror depiction of another California law protecting gay students, insisting that it mandates that "public schools in the state teach nothing but positive messages about homosexuality, transsexuality, bisexuality and other alternative lifestyles."
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:51 AM EST
Corsi, Sheppard Mislead on Biased Climate Confrence
Topic: WorldNetDaily A March 4 WorldNetDaily article by Jerome Corsi touts the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, which he described as featuring "more than 100 internationally prominent environmental scientists" who presented "papers" claiming that "[g]lobal warming is a natural process, not likely the result of human activities." Nowhere does Corsi mention that it's essentially a PR stunt. As RealClimate.org reported, the Heartland Insititute, which is sponsoring the conference, is paying $1,000 to anyone willing to give a talk, which is contrary to what real scientific conferences do (no honorarium, travel expenses paid on occasion). Also, according to RealClimate.org, financial sponsors of the conferences are "input into the program regarding speakers and panel topics," also highly divergent from the scientific way of doing things. As RealClimate notes: "Normal scientific conferences have the goal of discussing ideas and data in order to advance scientific understanding. Not this one. ... So this conference is not aimed at understanding, it is a PR event aimed at generating media reports." Needless to say, global warming denier Noel Sheppard is similarly ignoring all of this. In two posts March 4 onNewsBusters touting the conference, Sheppard is curiously silent about its bought-and-paid-for aspect. One post calls the conference represents "well-renowned scientists from all over the world are meeting to discuss anthropogenic global warming" without mentioning that only one side of the issue is, in fact, being discussed. UPDATE: CNSNews.com has two articles by Kevin Mooney on the confrence, neither of which acknowledge the confrence's bias or mention the bought-and-paid-for aspect (though in one, he does quote Marc Morano and discloses that "Morano is a former investigative reporter for Cybercast News Service").
Posted by Terry K.
at 10:15 AM EST
Updated: Wednesday, March 5, 2008 2:42 PM EST
MRC Likens Obama to 'Duke' Cunningham
Topic: Media Research Center A March 3 MRC "Media Reality Check" by Tim Graham creates its own reality by likening Barack Obama's connection to on-trial businessman Tony Rezko to notoriously corrupt congressman 'Duke' Cunningham's cronyism with lobbyists:
A "political opponent" like, say, Graham? But the Obama-Rezko house controversy is nothing like Cunningham's hidden house kickback. Obama made no profit and, indeed, paid what is considered a fair market rate for his house. None of the charges on which Rezko faces trial involve Obama. And, as TPM Muckraker points out, "no substantial evidence has surfaced" to support the claim that "Obama ever did anything for Rezko in return for his purchase of the side yard or all those contributions" to Obama's political campaigns. That contradicts Graham's snarky aside: "How many lunches would a lobbyist have to buy to equal Rezko’s $625,000 parcel purchase?" Graham claimed that Obama was able to buy the house "only because Rezko’s wife bought an adjoining parcel for $625,000 to complete the deal." But that's not necessarily true; as TPM Muckraker notes:
While TPM Muckraker notes that there are unanswered questions about the purchase of the house and lot, Graham has simply assumed the worst interpretation for Obama without detailing the actual facts involved. Graham also curiously fails to note that Cunningham is a Republican. We can't imagine why...
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:04 AM EST
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
The Rest of the Homeschooling Story, Ignored By WND
Topic: WorldNetDaily We've previously noted how WorldNetDaily's Bob Unruh played the Nazi card in likening a California ruling ordering a family's homeschooled children to attend regular school to "officials from Germany, where homeschooling has been outlawed since 1938 under a law adopted when Adolf Hitler decided he wanted the state, and no one else, to control the minds of the nation's youth." We also presumed that Unruh wasn't telling the full story about this case because, well, that's what Unruh does. Indeed, we were right. The AMPS blog has uncovered what appears to be the complete court ruling about this case and a related case involving the family, and it includes numerous details about the case that Unruh failed to report, presumably because they interfered with his effort to portray homeschoolers as the noble victims of Nazi-like oppression. Unruh had written:
But according to the court ruling, the parents claimed that Sunland Christian School was a "charter school" without any evidence that it was, as defined by state law. The ruling also pointed out that the parents were depriving their children "of an education in a public or private full-time day school setting, or by a credentialed tutor, through the ruse of enrolling them in a private school and then letting them stay home and be taught by a non-credentialed parent." Further, Sunland's "involvement and supervision" appears to have been minimal at best; the school's administrator said "he makes visits to the parents' home about four times a year," and "the children in the family reported to the Department of Children and Family Services social worker that they were given tests at the end of some school years and they took the tests at the Sunland Christian School." Such minimal supervision by Sunland arguably does render it as having "no value." While Unruh stated that the family has homeschooled their children "because of various anti-Christian influences in California's public schools" -- he later adds the father's assertion that "he won't allow the pro-homosexual, pro-bisexual, pro-transgender agenda of California's public schools, on which WND previously has reported, to indoctrinate his children" -- the court ruling states:
The ruling concludes: "Given this history of this family, which we need not discuss here, permitting the parents to educate the children at home by means of a credentialed tutor would likely post too many difficulties for the tutor." What is that history? The related ruling supplied by AMPS, involving the California DCFS' case against the family, details:
These are the people Unruh is painting as victims of state oppression -- whitewashing their real background in the process. If Unruh was turning in slanted, incomplete copy when he worked for the Associated Press, as he does for WorldNetDaily, no wonder he doesn't work there anymore.
Posted by Terry K.
at 4:05 PM EST
Updated: Wednesday, March 5, 2008 12:13 PM EST
Fontova Misleads About Obama, Che
Topic: Newsmax A March 4 Newsmax column by Humberto Fontova, reprinted at FrontPageMag, claimed "Che Guevara posters" were "recently spotted in Obama's Houston campaign offices." But the office in question is not "Obama's Houston campaign offices"; it is, in fact, an independent volunteer operation that is not controlled by the Obama campaign. Fontova then goes on to claim that statements made by Michelle Obama were "paraphrasing" those of Guevara.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:20 PM EST
MRC Finally Mentions Hagee Controversy
Topic: Media Research Center Five days after the fact, the endorsement of John McCain by anti-Catholic evangelist John Hagee finally gets some attention by the Media Research Center. A March 4 CNSNews.com article by Josiah Ryan focused on the endorsement and pointed out other controversial statements. But apparently in an effort to prove that its faux balance is bipartisan, no apparent effort is made to contact McCain's campaign for a response beyond what it stated last week, when it distanced McCain from Hagee's views but did not renounce the endorsement. By contrast, a March 4 NewsBusters post by Brent Baker mentioned it only in passing but was not so eager to discuss the issue, instead complaining that a statement in which Gloria Steinem allegedly "ridiculed John McCain's years as a prisoner of war" did not get more play. Baker also put the word "controversy" in scare quotes to describe Bill Cunningham's attack on Barack Obama last week. As we've noted, the MRC is usually Johnny-on-the-spot to denounce statements it considers anti-Catholic. Its actions here, though -- contradicting its own history of behavior and even Brent Bozell's own Catholicism -- recall its refusal to criticize Ann Coulter even when she wishes death upon her political enemies.
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:25 AM EST
Inaccuracy in Academia
Topic: Accuracy in Media In a Feb. 28 Accuracy in Media article endeavoring to paint Franklin Roosevelt as a racist, Accuracy in Academia (an AIM sister group) executive director Malcolm Kline misleads about Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black's Ku Klux Klan ties:
As we've noted, evidence suggests that Black was a member of the Klan for a couple of years in the 1920s -- when the Klan was undergoing a resurgence by expanding its targets to Catholics, Jews and foreigners -- out of a combination of political expediency and anti-Catholic animus, not out of racist sympathies. Kline curiously fails to mention Black's record of championing civil rights, presumably because it would interfere with his narrative. Kline followed up with a Feb. 29 article -- like the first, regurgitated from Bruce Bartlett's guilt-by-association book "Wrong On Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past" -- branding Woodrow Wilson as a racist. Nowhere does Kline offer evidence that Wilson or Roosevelt (or Black, for that matter) were any more extreme in their racial views than that of the general white population in the United States at the time. Isn't a group called Accuracy in Academia supposed to care about, you know, accuracy in academia instead of rehashing conservative talking points?
Posted by Terry K.
at 8:57 AM EST
Waters Downplays Anti-Immigrant Strain of Anti-Illegal Activism
Topic: NewsBusters A March 3 NewsBusters post (and TimesWatch item) by Clay Waters bashed a New York Times article for "blithely refer[ring] to anti-immigration movements, without bothering to clarify that what most protestors oppose is illegal immigration, not immigration per se," adding, "Get the hint? If you are against illegal immigration today, you are akin to 'nativist,' violent, racist mobs from over a century ago." But Waters ignores that, as we documented, there is a not-insignificant strain of anti-illegal-immigration activists -- prominent enough to be published on the ConWeb -- who also oppose legal immigration and want to return to the time in the 1920s when legal immigration to the U.S. was all but shut down (and racist and eugenicist arguments were made to do so). While such arguments today may not be explicitly racist, they can certainly be described as xenophobic. Waters wants us to believe that all anti-illegal-immigration activists support legal immigration, which is not neccesarily the case, perhaps to an extent Waters may not want to acknowledge.
Posted by Terry K.
at 12:59 AM EST
Monday, March 3, 2008
CNS Channels Drudge
Topic: CNSNews.com The Drudge Report used the headline "Hillary: Obama Not Muslim 'As Far As I Know' ... " to link to a "60 Minutes" clip in which, in fact, Hillary Clinton responds "Of course not" to Steve Kroft's question, "You don't believe that Senator Obama is a Muslim?" adding, "you know, there is no basis for that. You know, I take him on the basis of what he says. And, you know, there isn't any reason to doubt that." Clinton went on to answer "Right. Right" to Kroft's statement, "And you said you'd take Senator Obama at his word that he's not a Muslim." Kroft went on to ask, "You don't believe that he's a Muslim or implying, right?" to which Clinton responded, "No. No. Why would I? No, there is nothing to base that on, as far as I know." So Drudge's headline is wrong; Clinton never questioned Obama's professed Christian faith. So what does the headline on a March 3 CNSNews.com article by Susan Jones on Clinton's "60 Minutes" interview read? You guessed it: "Obama Not Muslim 'As Far As I Know,' Hillary Says." While Jones correctely reported Clinton's answer to Kroft's first question, she falsely suggested that Clinton's "as far as I know" response was to the question about "taking Sen. Obama at his word" rather than to the question "You don't believe that he's a Muslim or implying, right?" Jones does flatly state, "Obama is not Muslim. He is Christian," but then adds that "lately," Obama "is going out of his way to emphasize his Christian faith." She doesn't mention that her own employer has tried to obscure Obama's faith, such as a Feb. 25 article by Fred Lucas on "Muslim supporters of Sen. Barack Obama." Lucas could not bring himself to unequivocably state Obama's faith, saying only, "Obama has professed his Christian faith, although his father is a Muslim." UPDATE: Media Matters has more.
Posted by Terry K.
at 2:53 PM EST
Updated: Monday, March 3, 2008 10:42 PM EST
Vox Plays the Nazi Card
Topic: WorldNetDaily Vox Day must have inhaled Bob Unruh's Nazi smear, for he regurgitates his own version in his Marcy 3 WorldNetDaily column:
Thus is the problem with treating WND as a reliable news source. Day offers no evidence whatsoever -- even Unruh's slanted account -- to support his claim that California has "declare[d] war on the homeschooling families." But what do you expect in a column headlined "Note to parents: Let schools burn"?
Posted by Terry K.
at 9:19 AM EST
Updated: Monday, March 3, 2008 9:25 AM EST
Man Whose Words WND Distorted Fights Back
Topic: WorldNetDaily We weren't the only ones who noticed that WorldNetDaily turned a newspaper's story on the conviction of street preacher Julian Raven into a misleading piece of pro-Christian propaganda: Robert Siglin, who prosecuted the case, is very unhappy. From WND's letters page (letters cycle out after a week):
It's unusual that WND would print such a letter since it typically doesn't acknowledge criticism of its reporting. Perhaps because it is on a streak of its reporting being repeatedly discredited that it decided to address the issue in some form. But the question is, will WND do anything about it? Will WND correct the article to remove the bias, and will it publicly acknowledge those changes? We'll be watching. As we've noted, this episode demonstrates just how untrustworthy WND has become. Will Joseph Farah ever step up and apologize to his readers for such sloppy work?
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:42 AM EST
Graham's Faulty Comparison
Topic: NewsBusters A March 2 NewsBusters post by Tim Graham begins: "The American left claims to hate how Ann Coulter makes a fortune with calculated outrageousness. What will they say about Mark Morford?" Graham's comparison would make more sense (or, actually, any sense at all) if he had offered any evidence that Morford, a San Francisco Chronicle columnist, has amassed a Coulter-like fortune from his "calculated outrageousness" -- which, given that he's a newspaper columnist who hasn't authored a book and hasn't racked up nearly 200 appearances on a single cable channel alone, in all likelihood he has not. Graham goes on to claim that a Chronicle article -- about which he put "news" in scare quotes -- "incorrectly claimed Rush Limbaugh regularly recites Obama’s full name." Not only does Graham offer no evidence to back up his claim, Limbaugh is on record using Obama's middle name as early as January 2007.
Posted by Terry K.
at 1:22 AM EST
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