You how just pointing out a simple fact will set some people off? Aaron Saltzman ("an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia") is the set-offee in a Jan. 29 Accuracy in Media blog post.
Saltzman declares that a Los Angeles Times writer, Janet Hook, is "using literary spin to bolster her personal political message" by noting that the House vote on the stiumulus package "passed on a strict party-line vote" and that President Obama "had worked hard to gain bipartisan support" for the package. Let the intern explosion begin:
So poor President Obama, despite valiant efforts to convince Republicans to abandon the fiscal policies that brought an extraordinarily low 4% unemployment rate through the Bush-43 years, was unable to re-educate a single member of the House minority. What a bummer.
Saltzman also seems to forget that those same policies have resulted in the current economic situation. Nevertheless, he goes on to personally attack the reporter:
Janet Hook is entitled to her opinions. She can talk about her assessment of HR 1 all she wants with her friends, her family, on a blog, etc. If she was an editorialist, or a columnist, or worked for an analytical magazine like Newsweek or Time she would have every right to preach away about her partisan perceptions of Republican ignorance and the Democrat godliness.
But she’s not an editorialist. She is not writing to her friends and family, or on a blog. And she does not work for Newsweek, Time, or any similar publication. She is a reporter—a reporter for the second largest, and fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country. She has a responsibility to give an objective report—not assessment or analysis—of the facts as they happened. It is not in her job description to flower up her phrasing with buzzwords or strategic phrasing, nor should it ever be.
Hook is an irresponsible reporter, and should be called out early and often for her transgressions.
Remember, this is all because Hook told the truth -- that the House stimulus package split down party lines, and Obama tried to recruit Republicans to vote for it.
Saltzman concludes by urging readers to send an email to Hook "and tell her to stop the spin." How about sending an email to Saltzman and tell him to cut back on the caffeine and temper his right-wing rage?
In a Jan. 31 NewsBusters post touting Bernard Goldberg's new anti-liberal, anti-Obama book "A Slobbering Love Affair," Rich Noyes includes a lengthy excerpt from the book -- one that contains a misleading claim.
As Media Matters points out, in the section of the book Noyes excerpted, Goldberg made a big deal that CBS' "The Early Show" aired a segment on "Five Things You Should Know About Barack Obama," but he failed to note that five days later, the show aired a segment listing "Five Things You Should Know" about John McCain.
Noyes fails to note Goldberg's misleading claim, perhaps too enraptured in how "fun" the book is. Indeed, Noyes revels in Goldberg's statement that "you can't make this crap up" while ignoring the fact that Goldberg did actually make up some of that crap. As Media Matters also details, Goldberg included a doctored conversation between Charlie Rose and Tom Brokaw that falsely portrays them asserting that "there's a lot about him [Obama] we don't know."
Obama Hate Central: Farah Peddles ACORN Lie Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah is well-versed in tellinglies about Barack Obama, so it's no shock to learn that the lies have continued.
In his Jan. 31 column, Farah asserts that "there are plans to redistribute up to $5.2 billion of taxpayer money – that's your money – to ACORN."
As we've repeatedlynoted, the stimulus package doesn't even mention ACORN by name, let alone allocate money to the group. Further, according to ACORN's Bertha Lewis, "Since it is set aside for non-profit housing developers to help purchase, rehab, and resell foreclosed properties, we aren't eligible for it in the first place."
NewsBusters Ignores Republican Ties of Philly Papers' Owner Topic: NewsBusters
A Jan. 28 NewsBusters post by Stephen Gutowski is alarmed that the owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News has asked the state of Pennsylvania for a $10 million bailout. In a Jan. 30 follow-up post, Gutowski declared he "was dismayed and angry to learn" about the bailout and repeated criticism of it, including from Media Research Center head Brent Bozell.
Missing from both posts: Any mention of the political leanings of the papers' owner, Brian Tierney.
As a 2007 American Journalism Review profile details, Tierney is a "Republican activist" who has "worked for the Republican National Committee" and was "a Reagan appointee in the U.S. Small Business Administration's public affairs office." He later "anded a regular spot as the conservative voice on 'Inside Story,' a weekly public affairs show on WPVI-TV, the local ABC affiliate," and "chaired the third unsuccessful mayoral bid of local Republican businessman Sam Katz."
If the owner of a newspaper had these kind of liberal ties, the boys at NewsBusters would be howling about liberal bias and socialism. Yet Gutowski appears oblivious to Tierney's political leanings; indeed, he claims that "the bailout request has some pointing out that liberal bias is how the Inquirer got itself into this situation in the first place."
Despite the fact that it has been repeatedlydemonstrated to be a non-story, CNSNews.com is still clinging to the notion that there's something controversial about Barack Obama making a reference to "nonbelievers."
CNS' latest stab at beating this dead horse is a Jan. 30 article by Penny Starr in which she asks Sen. Joe Lieberman "how Obama’s reference to non-believers might be perceived by Islamic extremists who espouse the belief that killing non-believers is justified." Like pretty much everyone else CNS has pushed this story on, Lieberman didn't bite either:
I think what the president was saying is we are a very religious nation,” said Lieberman, who spoke at the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. “We have Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and we have people who don’t believe in anything. They are part of us too.
“Maybe that’s what he was saying,” Lieberman said. “Not to the extremists, but to the people in the Muslim countries that may not be believers themselves, that we represent a totally inclusive form of government.”
Earth to Terry Jeffrey and CNS: This story is dead, in a Monty Python parrot kind of way. Can you please stop wasting your (and your interviewees') time by pretending it isn't?
Gainor Repeats Global Warming Denier Fallacy Topic: CNSNews.com
In a Jan. 29 CNSNews.com column, the MRC's Dan Gainor writes:
[Al] Gore is scheduled to nuzzle his way into a hearing for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday to warn of a warming planet. Temperatures are near freezing. It may even snow.
Gore’s appearance in the dead of bone-chilling winter is almost five years to the day since he came out of hibernation in New York and called President Bush a "moral coward" for his climate change policies. That day was the coldest the Big Apple had seen in 47 years.
Not much has changed – in the weather or Gore’s message. This time around, it might not be so bone-shatteringly cold, but it certainly has been this winter. ABC’s weather man Sam Champion told viewers this season’s weather “feels like the coldest winter in years.” He added, “and a report from NASA climate scientists says 2008 was the coolest year since 2000.”
Gainor is perpetuating the fallacy that short-term changes in weather, let alone an individual winter storm in January, bear any relevance to the global warming debate. Even Patrick Michaels -- a global warming denier like Gainor who is authoritatively quoted as contradicting Gore in another Jan. 29 CNS article -- has warned against portraying short-term extreme weather as indicative of the existence (or not) of global warming.
Sheppard Desperately Spins GDP Drop, Concocts Conspiracy Topic: NewsBusters
In one of the more shameless attempts to spin away bad news for conservatives, Noel Sheppard uses a Jan. 30 NewsBusters post to claim that because the gross domestic product declined slightly less than what was predicted, media reports of a severe recession are overblown.
No, really:
The Gross Domestic Product declined by 3.8 percent in the final quarter of 2008.
It was bad, but nowhere near as bad as expected.
Is it possible that all the hysterical gloom and doom emanating from the media is way overdone, and that things are not close to as apocalyptic as we've been told the past five months?
[...]
After all, this 3.8 percent decline is only the 13th worst since the Commerce Department began doing quarterly reports in 1947. This means that there's been twelve worse quarters since 1946, and none of them signalled the end of the world nor required the kind of government spending now being discussed in Washington.
Sheppard also baselessly asserts that this may very well be the bottom of the recession: "To be sure, the fourth quarter of 2008 might not be the worst of this recession. Nobody knows. However, isn't it just as possible that this will be the low point?"
Um, has Sheppard not been paying attention to the news? Has he not noticed the wholesale slashing of jobs and retail failures in the past couple of weeks alone? Indeed, actual economists not wedded to tarting up right-wing doctrine have pointed out:
Although analysts initially anticipated the economy would take its worst hits in the fourth quarter, they are now predicting the economy will contract even more in the first half of 2009 as the few remaining pillars of growth give way. Exports are expected to remain weak and commercial construction activity, which had been growing until earlier this year, is sputtering and likely to grind to a near halt this year as financing for new projects dries up.
How can Sheppard be so oblivious to such unavoidable warning signs about the economy? It's because he thinks it's a big conspiracy to help Obama, that's how:
Isn't it also possible that Obama-loving media are hyping the hysteria because they want his stimulus package to be passed?
After all, it was indeed the economic gloom and doom that began in September which basically handed this election to Obama as McCain-Palin had briefly taken a lead in the polls after the Republican National Convention and just before Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy on September 15.
Yes, Sheppard is channeling hateful conspiracy-monger Cliff Kincaid. Is channeling Kincaid really how NewsBusters wants to move forward in the Obama era?
Shira Drissman asserted in a Jan. 29 WorldNetDaily column:
It seems that these terrorists we picked up on the battlefield must have missed the action and excitement of shooting at American troops. Sixty-one of those released found a way back to the field of battle in order to pick up where they left off.
That is false. As we've noted, the Pentagon has confirmed that only 18 -- not 61 -- have "returned to the fight." The remainer are merely suspected of having done so.
CNS Changes Tune on Stimulus Spending Topic: CNSNews.com
A Jan. 30 CNSNews.com article by Matt Cover, in attacking a claim by House Majority Speaker Nancy Pelosi that 75 percent of the stimulus "would be doled out in the first 18 months after it becomes law," states that "only about 64 percent of the money in the bill will be spent by the end of fiscal year 2010."
While that's correct (as we've noted), it appears to contradict what Cover was reporting just the day before -- that "only 52 percent of the money in the stimulus bill devoted to new government spending will actually be spent by 2010." In his Jan. 30 article, Cover is too busy shooting down Pelosi's claim to square it with his own previous reporting.
a Jan. 30 CNSNews.com article by Fred Lucas repeats a campaign smear against Barack Obama. In writing about Obama's signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, Lucas adds: "Women who worked on Obama’s Senate staff last year, however, were themselves paid on average 78 cents for every dollar a man was paid, according to data last year from the Report of the Secretary of the Senate."
As we detailed when Lucas first peddled this smear last June (and again in September), there's no evidence provided that women in Obama's Senate office were paid less than men for the exact same job with equivalent experience -- which is what the issue of equal pay, as well as the Ledbetter act, is all about.
Lucas does appear to concede that point this time, adding that the data "are based on gender without regard to job position, experience, or education that could be factors in pay." But of course, that's not in the headline -- nor did he directly make that point in his previous articles.
WND Promotes Mancow, Ignores His Offensive History Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Jan. 29 WorldNetDaily article touts a re-feed of Mancow's morning radio show "for radio stations wanting to fill the time slot being abandoned by Fox News host Bill O'Reilly."
It contains the usual puffery of the guy from his syndicator, Talk Radio Network -- who, as we've detailed, has a synergistic relationship with WND -- and, perhaps in deference to that synergy, fails to to mention details in Mancow's history that would normally be unpalatable to WND readers.
We've noted how how, among other things, Mancow racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in FCC fines over indecency on his radio show (then tried to sue a man who made some of those indecency complaints), regularly makes defamatory remarks about others, and had excerpts from his autobiography published in Hustler.
That fleshes out his syndicator's claim that "Mancow offers the full spectrum of entertainment," doesn't it? And just as with its hire of Matt Sanchez, WND looks like it is once again trampling over the prinicples it claims to hold, ignoring history in the service of today's expedience.
Newsmax's Patten Still Peddling ACORN Falsehood Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax's David Patten has penned yet another article falsely claiming that ACORN is a direct beneficiary of billions of dollars in the stimulus bill. He does make it slightly less of a lie this time around, referring to "the $5.2 billion slated for organizations such as ACORN," though the article's headline falsely refers to "ACORN Money."
As we've repeatedlydocumented regarding Patten's reporting on this issue, the stimulus plan does not even mention ACORN by name, let alone allocate money to the group. Further, according to ACORN's Bertha Lewis, "Since it is set aside for non-profit housing developers to help purchase, rehab, and resell foreclosed properties, we aren't eligible for it in the first place."
When will Patten act like a real reporter and tell the truth instead of being a stenographer for the Republican Party?
CNS Still Pushing 'Nonbeliever' Non-Story Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com still can't let go of trying to build a mountain out of the molehill of President Obama daring to mention "nonbelievers."
Unsuccessful in his previous attempt to find someone critical of Obama's mention of "nonbelievers" in his inaugural speech, Pete Winn finally hits paydirt. In a Jan. 29 article noting Obama's use of the word in an interview with an Arab TV network, Winn digs up right-wing "expert on Islamism" Walid Phares, who claims that "the typical word Arabic translators would use for the term 'non-believer' is 'kaffir' – a word which means 'atheist' or 'infidel.'" Phares then undercut his own argument by noting that the network did not use the word "kaffir" in its translation. Phares then tried to recover by calling that decision "politically correct."
Winn fails to note Phares' background, which includes penning articles for right-wing publications like American Thinker and FrontPageMag, as well as defending President Bush's actions to fight terrorism. Winn does note that Phares is a "senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies," but not that the group is also right-leaning.
Newsmax Again Promoting Minutemen, Hiding Controversies Topic: Newsmax
Dave Eberhart is apparently the appointed press agent for the Minuteman anti-immigration group at Newsmax.
A Jan. 29 Newsmax article by Eberhart touts how "The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps is getting ready to again battle against amnesty for illegal aliens." As he did in a previous Minuteman-promoting article, Eberhart fails to note that his primary Minuteman source, Chris Simcox, has faced questions about the money he raised ostensibly to build a private border fence, and the group's PAC has been criticized for having much of the money it has raised go toward "operating expenses" and not toward Minuteman activities.
Nor does Eberhart make any apparent effort to allow anyone to respond to Simcox's claims.
CNS Misinterprets CBO Analysis of Stimulus? Topic: CNSNews.com
A Jan. 29 CNSNews.com article by Matt Cover states that the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the economic stimulus bill "found that only 52 percent of the money in the stimulus bill devoted to new government spending will actually be spent by 2010."
By contrast, Media Matters reports that the CBO "concluded that 64 percent of the package would be spent by the end of the fiscal year 2010."
CNS might want to show its work and demonstrate how it came up with its lowball number, given that others have reported much different numbers.
