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Saturday, April 26, 2014
Newsmax A Little Too Eager To Forgive AFP For Inappropriate Image
Topic: Newsmax

In an April 23 Newsmax article, Sandy Fitzgerald seems unusually eager to forgive Americans for Propsperity for using an inappropriate image in an attack ad:

Americans for Prosperity has quickly apologized for a television advertisement for the upcoming Colorado Senate race that mistakenly used a grim photo of Democratic Sen. Mark Udall standing with President Barack Obama after the Aurora cinema shooting.

The television spot cast blame on the incumbent senator for being closely allied with Obama and Obamacare, blaming him for the cancellation of nearly 335,000 health insurance policies in Colorado, reports The Los Angeles Times.

However, the photograph was one that was taken two days after the July 2012 mass killing at a movie theater while Udall and Obama were visiting victims and their families. Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, who was also there visiting, was cropped out of the photo used in the ad.

Victims' families complained about the use of the photo, saying it was an "utter disgrace," and to "insinuate the somber expressions were for anything other than their compassionate response to our heartbreak is beyond unconscionable."

The conservative group, upon hearing of the families' concerns, quickly apologized to the families and replaced the photograph with a different one of Udall and Obama.

Actually, AFP wasn't quite as contrite as Fitzgerald would have you believe. The Denver Post quoted Dustin Zvonek, state director for AFP Colorado, as still in attack mode, "Fortunately, we can and will change the image. ... Sen. Udall can't change his record that led to over 335,000 Coloradans receiving letters indicating that their health care policy had been canceled."


Posted by Terry K. at 11:00 AM EDT
Friday, April 25, 2014
Damage Control: WND Touts Bundy's Minority Outreach
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily is still furiously spinning away Cliven Bundy's racist comments. The latest attempt comes in an April 25 article by Sarah Kupelian -- daughter of WND managing editor David Kupelian who was telling us just a few short days ago that Bundy was "America's newest hero" -- fretting about how Bundy's remarks will affect minority outreach day today at the Bundy Ranch, which was totally previously scheduled before he mouthed off, and gets an opinion on Bundy's racism from the totally unbiased view of his live-in press secretary:

It seems ironic, in light of the media firestorm over his allegedly racist remarks, but Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy started planning early this week for today’s Bundy Ranch party, to which he specifically invited minorities, a close family friend who has become the Bundys’ live-in secretary tells WND.

Talking to Shawna Cox, who spends virtually all of her time at the Bundy Ranch and fields calls for the besieged family, WND jumped to the big question: “Is Cliven Bundy a racist, and what exactly does he think about slavery?”

“Of course not!” she replied strongly, regarding racism, adding, “We believe slavery is horrible!

“Friday night we are actually planning a party and specifically inviting blacks and Latinos,” said Cox. “We started planning this party way before these comments were made.”

Cox told WND that after last Friday’s party, Bundy began asking why it was that not many blacks or Latinos were present. So the controversial rancher met with some of the minorities in the community on Monday or Tuesday, she said, to reach out to them and invite them to today’s party.

“I know the man. He’s a God-fearing man,” she said. “This is a really good man who loves and cares about all people,” she added with conviction.

If you can't trust the conviction of a live-in press secretary, who can you trust?


Posted by Terry K. at 4:21 PM EDT
Newsmax's Dershowitz Still Pushing For Pollard's Release
Topic: Newsmax

Newsmax has published another column by Alan Dershowitz calling for the U.S. to release Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, including this argument:

Sixth, the recent declassification of a 1987 CIA damage assessment concerning Pollard confirms, in the words of Weinberger’s Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb, that “Pollard did not divulge the most sensitive U.S. national security programs” and “provided intelligence only on the Soviet Union’s activities in the Middle East.”
 
The document also reveals that, whereas the sentencing judge overturned the plea agreement because Pollard had spoken to the media in supposed violation of the agreement’s terms, the interview had in fact been authorized by the government.

As we've documented, Pollard did a lot more than what Dershowitz claims. And the partially released damage assessment to which Dershowitz refers reveals that too, according to the National Security Archive:

The documents provided information on PLO headquarters in Tunisia; specific capabilities of Tunisian and Libyan air defense systems; Iraqi and Syrian chemical warfare productions capabilities (including detailed satellite imagery); Soviet arms shipments to Syria and other Arab states; naval forces, port facilities, and lines of communication of various Middle Eastern and North African countries; the MiG-29 fighter; and Pakistan's nuclear program. Also included was a U.S. assessment of Israeli military capabilities.4

Pollard's disclosures were alarming to U.S. officials for several reasons, some of which were noted in their official declarations (Document 7a, Document 10) – some of which were direct responses (Document 9) to claims and analysis made by Pollard in his sentencing memorandums (Document 6, Document 8b). One, despite the fact that both the U.S. and Israeli considered each other legitimate intelligence targets, was Israel's willingness to run a human penetration operation directed at the U.S. government. Another, was the damage to the intelligence sharing arrangement with Israel – since its acquisition of material from Pollard weakened the U.S. position vis-a-vis intelligence exchanges with Israel. In addition, there was no guarantee that such documents, revealing both sources and methods as well as assessments, would not find their way to the Soviet Union via a Soviet penetration of the Israeli intelligence or defense community – as had happened with a number of other allies. Further, since Israel was a target of U.S. intelligence collection – particularly technical collection - operations, the documents could be used by Israeli counterintelligence and security organizations to help Israel neutralize or degrade U.S. collection operations.

Dershowitz is not going to mention this. Will anyone else at Newsmax?


Posted by Terry K. at 2:28 PM EDT
WND's Farah Falsely Claims Bundy Is Victim Of A Sting
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Joseph Farah huffs in his April 24 WorldNetDaily article:

There’s some high-fiving going on over at the New York Times.

A reporter got Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who became a hero to millions for standing up to gun-toting federal authorities, to step in a big cow pie.

In a profile of Bundy, who likely didn’t have the benefit of a slick New York public relations firm to keep him to the script, the Times apparently got him to say some appallingly racist remarks. It’s unclear what the context of those remarks were, if there is a recording or what the circumstances were that prompted them.

[...]

This was a sting operation by the New York Times. The entrapment target wasn’t so much Bundy, but anyone in public life who denounced the Bureau of Land Management’s Gestapo-like tactics in dealing with him.

[...]

Criminal suspects who are entrapped by authorities in sting operations often see their cases dismissed.

Cliven Bundy won’t be so fortunate after been stung by the New York Times.

Farah is lying (which he does a lot). New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney explained to Politico that he did nothing to prompt Bundy to say his racist remarks:

Nagourney, who interviewed Bundy and reported on the statements, said he didn’t ask a question during the press conference, where the only members of the media were himself and a Times photographer.

“The stuff he is in trouble over today was stuff he said on his own unprompted toward the beginning of the event. He said it and I just kept my head down, kept my tape recorder on took notes and that was it,” Nagourney said.

None of Bundy’s supporters seemed to react to the quote and no one from Bundy’s entourage sought to clarify or defend it while he was visiting, Nagourney said, though he immediately knew it was going to be big.

“It’s just one of those things you hear it and you go this is really news, N-E-W-S,” he said.

Nagourney visited Bundy’s ranch on Saturday but said he didn’t publish the piece until Wednesday because there were no other outlets there to compete with, which gave them time to “get the story right.”

[...]

“I’m really into transparency, the key point was I was there and with him, I was holding a tape recorder and a notebook, it wasn’t like sneaking into a meeting, it was a public event he called a press conference,” Nagourney said.

Perhaps Farah assumes there was some dishonesty in Nagourney's reporting because that's how he runs WND. Dishonesty abounds in WND's journalism -- that's Farah style, so it's no wonder he thinks other journalists are as dishonest as the ones he employs.

While Farah concedes that Bundy's remarks were "appallingly racist," he's still giving the guy a pass:

Let me say this: Cliven Bundy may be an old racist, redneck coot. But that’s not why he was targeted and treated like a serial killer. And, yes, even racist, redneck coots grazing their cattle on public land don’t deserve to be surrounded by armed federal agents.

[...]

No one should apologize for defending Bundy. He was never held up as a paragon of virtue or for his intellectual prowess. His case was simply an illustration of what happens when the government is out of control and loses all perspective of right and wrong.

WND sure knows how to pick 'em, don't they?


Posted by Terry K. at 9:17 AM EDT
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Meaningless Article of the Day
Topic: CNSNews.com

Terry Jeffrey writes in an April 23 CNSNews.com article:

The acreage the federal Bureau of Land Management currently owns in the state of Nevada is more than all the land in all of the states of New England combined, according to data published by the Congressional Research Service.

By contrast, the BLM does not own a single acre of land in any New England state.

Meanwhile, as of this writing, CNS has published no original coverage of Cliven Bundy's racist remarks, and it has refused to place wire articles about the remarks on its front page so that readers are aware of them.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:37 PM EDT
Damage Control: WND Tries To Clean Up After Lawless Rancher's Racist Remarks
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Just two days after WorldNetDaily proclaimed scofflaw rancher Cliven Bundy to be "America's newest hero," WND went into full damage-control mode after Bundy proved himself to be less than heroic.

An unbylined April 24 article tried to suggest that Bundy's statement in a press conference that "I want to tell you one more thing I know about the Negro" -- that "I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy?" -- was less than accurate by crediting "the reporting of Adam Nagourney in the New York Times" for the quote. WND added, "Questions or other comments preceding the quotes were not available, leaving unknown the context of Bundy’s response."

When a video surfaced quoting Bundy in all his racially charged glory -- and showing that Bundy was, in fact, accurately quoted -- WND had to change tactics. An article by Bob Unruh features an interview with Bundy's son Ammon in which he baselessly asserts that his father was "taken out of context" and ludicriously claims that he was actually "trying to reach out to the black and Hispanic communities."

Shockingly, Unruh quotes criticism of Bundy's remarks, but they are buried far down in the article.

Meanwhile, in an article posted before Bundy's racist statements were revealed, Richard Viguerie used an April 23 WND column to defend Bundy with a misleading claim:

The BLM claims the Bundys owe the feds more than $1 million in fees and penalties.

Bundy notes that these fees were never authorized by Congress or passed into law. The BLM just started charging them on its own, without congressional statute. According to the U.S. Constitution, Congress makes the laws in America, not the BLM.

In fact, the BLM did just start charging grazing fees willy-nilly; they were authorizedin a 1986 executive order signed by -- wait for it -- President Reagan.

Viguerie goes on to rant that "the GOP so desperately needs new leadership," without mentioning that the sainted Ronald Reagan -- whose style of GOP leadership is what Viguerie would most like to see -- who created the fees that Bundy has refused to pay.

UPDATE: Unruh scrounges up a "prominent black leader" to claim that Bundy's remarks weren't racist, but it turns out it's just Alan Keyes, who's not prominent and isn't leading anyone of note.


Posted by Terry K. at 7:01 PM EDT
Updated: Thursday, April 24, 2014 10:23 PM EDT
Transgender Freakout: NewsBusters Has A Fit That AP Identifies Chelsea Manning By Her Preferred Gender
Topic: NewsBusters

The Media Research Center does love its transgender freakouts, and the case of Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning is particularly vexing.

In that spirit, Ken Shepherd devotes an April 23 NewsBusters post to having a fit over the Associated Press "betraying the news wire's devotion to absurd political correctness over an obligation to report that which is objectively true" by identifying Manning by her preferred gender:

According to the 2013 AP Stylebook, AP reporters are to "[u]se the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth." Of course, "If that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly."

None of those stated conditions is met in Pfc. Manning's case. Bradley Manning may have privately dabbled in cross-dressing, but throughout his military career and court martial he presented himself as a man. It was only after his conviction that he announced his desire for gender reassignment therapy and for a legal name change to Chelsea. Manning has obviously not "acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex" seeing as he's in military custody and the military is not providing hormone therapy nor allowing him to "present" himself as a female by the wearing of female inmate clothing.

The Associated Press has sacrificed its obligation to report the truth in order to not run afoul of the language police on the Left. This is a grave disservice to the average news consumer as well as to the quest for truth that should mark general news journalism.

Shepherd's post claiming Manning only "privately dabbled in cross-dressing" is illustrated with a photo of, yes, Manning dressed as a female. That would seem to take away the "privately dabbled" argument.

And really, who better to call out "the language police on the Left" than the homophobic, transphobic language police on the right?


Posted by Terry K. at 4:04 PM EDT
WND's Corsi Latches Onto Another Crazy Birther Because Of Course He Would
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Apparently, WorldNetDaily sent Jerome Corsi to cover the upcoming trial of a conspiracy theorist who has a new twist on the birther conspiracies Corsi and WND love so much. Corsi writes in an April 20 WND article:

In a nearly empty courtroom at the Southwark Crown Court by the historic London Bridge, a hearing took place in a criminal case that not only has national security implications for the United Kingdom, but, curiously, is woven into the increasingly bizarre fabric of the controversy over Barack Obama’s presidential eligibility.

When it came his time to speak, defendant Michael Shrimpton, a middle-aged London barrister by profession and self-proclaimed intelligence expert, politely issued to the judge a series of interrogatories that made clear he plans to launch a vigorous defense, representing himself before the court.
The criminal charges brought by the British government against Shrimpton under Section 51(2) of the Criminal Law Act 1977 accuse him of falsely notifying the British government to prepare for a terrorist nuclear attack on the 2012 Olympics in London that the British government claims had no basis in reality.

It’s the same Michael Shrimpton who appears in a 2008 video that began re-circulating earlier this year on the Internet in which he claims to have been privy to shocking intelligence information on Obama’s origins. Shrimpton contends to this day that the CIA collected DNA from then-Sen. Obama and a grandparent, establishing that Stanley Ann Dunham was not Obama’s biological mother.

The video naturally has raised questions about Shrimpton’s credibility and his qualifications to make such an extraordinary claim.

Surprisingly, even Corsi doesn't sound terribly convinced by Shrimpton's claims, which makes you wonder why he's even bothering with this when he has never written about the numerous birther debunkings and wouldn't even have to leave the country to do so. Yet Corsi devoted two more articles to Shrimpton.

Richard Bartholomew notes that "Shrimpton has also submitted a defence filing. It’s a remarkable document, in which he lays out his credentials and expounds conspiracies on subjects ranging from the fate of Madeline McCann to the supposed Vatican origins of the Koran." Alrighty then.

Conspiracy theorists are known by the company they keep, so we not only have Corsi devoting three articles to Shrimpton, birther Christopher Monckton comes to Shrimpton's defense in an April 22 WND column that starts off with the grandiose insistence that he's so important that British Prime Minister David Cameron reads it:

No doubt Mr. Cameron reads my WND column avidly every week, as every well-informed and discriminating statesman does. So my advice, Dave, baby, is to watch out before you take on Mr. Shrimpton, who faces perhaps the least well-founded and certainly the most bizarre criminal charge of the century.

[...]

Her Majesty’s Government (not yet a Shrimpton government) now finds itself in a pickle. If Mr. Shrimpton is of unsound mind, as they think he is or they would not have demanded a psychiatric examination, then the prosecution is bound to fail, at colossal cost to taxpayers.

If Mr. Shrimpton is sane, then HMG will find it has has bitten off more than it can chew. For Shrimpton will exercise every right of the defense to call secret intelligence evidence, such as reports from the network of nuclear-monitoring military satellites, and even a report of a supposed DNA test establishing that Mr. Obama was born in Kenya. Don’t ask me what that has to do with a plot to blow up the London Olympics. Mr. Shrimpton may or may not have all his marbles in the right place, but the prosecution is plainly out to lunch.

So, in short: Yes, birtherism -- and censorship of any fact contradicting it -- is alive and well at WND.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:42 AM EDT
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
No, CNS, 'The Ten Commandments' Did Not 'Win Nielsen Ratings'
Topic: CNSNews.com

An April 22 CNSNews.com article by Michael Chapman declares, "'Ten Commandments'--Made in 1956--Wins Nielsen Ratings." But that's not quite what happened, which is clear once you start reading Chapman's story:

“The Ten Commandments,” a movie made 58 years ago starring the conservative Charlton Heston as “Moses,” and which is broadcast by ABC every year at Easter, won the Nielsen ratings for adult viewers ages 18-49 and for total viewers on Saturday, April 19, pulling in 5.87 million viewers and beating NBC, FOX and CBS.

[...]

In 2013, “The Ten Commandments” on ABC drew 5.9 million viewers, and in 2012 it garnered 6.9 million viewers.  This year, with an audience of 5.87 million, the movie easily beat NBC’s Dateline Saturday Mystery (4.49 million viewers), FOX’s UFC: Werdum vs. Browne (1.99 million watchers), and CBS’s Mike & Molly show (2.2 million).

As the evening continued, “The Ten Commandments” still garnered the largest total audience, beating out CBS’s Criminal Minds (2.86 million viewers), CBS’s 48 Hours (5.49 million), and NBC’s Saturday Night Live (2.79 million).

So, no, "The Ten Commandments did not "win" the "Nielsen ratings" -- it won its time slot. As USA Today reports, the film was not even among the top 20 programs of the week, it drew only about one-third the viewers of the top-rated program, "NCIS," and it drew fewer viewers than the latest episode of "Game of Thrones," which does not even air on broadcast TV.

Nevertheless, Chapman goes on to promote how "Ten Commandments" star Charlton Heston "was a liberal early in his career but became more conservative in the 1980s." He doesn't explain the obvious -- that Heston was a liberal at the time "The Ten Commandments" was released in 1956.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:30 PM EDT
WND Proclaims Lawless Rancher 'America's Newest Hero'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Sarah Kupelian lays it on thick in the opening of her April 22 WorldNetDaily article:

Cliven Bundy doesn’t normally do interviews on Sundays. But this Easter Sunday, the 67-year-old Nevada cattle rancher stepped out of his church, leaned up against the side wall and talked to America about what really matters to him deep down, revealing a side to him not normally seen in media interviews.

This appears under the headline "America's newest hero: The real Cliven Bundy."

Because this is a puff piece, you won't see Kupelian contrasting Bundy's statement that “I do respect the United States government. I pledge allegiance to that flag and honor it very much" with his earlier assertions that he doesn't recognize the existence of the federal government.

While the interview with Bundy is identified in the article as being taken from "radio talker Dianne Linderman on Talk Radio Network’s nationally syndicated 'Everything That Matters' show," it's not until the end-of-article bio that Kupelian is a producer on that show.

And even then, the disclosure isn't complete: Nowhere is it mentioned that Sarah Kupelian is the daughter of WND managing editor David Kupelian. So, lots of self-promotion and nepotism to go around.


Posted by Terry K. at 8:18 PM EDT
Newsmax Boosts Dick Morris' Fight Against Electoral College Plan
Topic: Newsmax

Newsmax's on-again, off-again rehabilitation of the perpetually wrong Dick Morris is apparently back on again, with Newsmax devoting attention to Morris' latest outrage.

An April 15 column by Morris attacked a plan to move away from the Electoral College and toward a popular vote to elect the president as a scheme to elect Republicans:

Why are Democrats pushing this plan?

Democrats usually see a smaller percentage of their people go to the polls than Republicans do.

Under the electoral vote system, they figure why beat the drums to get a high turnout in New York City when the state will go Democrat anyway? But, if its the popular vote that matters, the big city machines can do their thing -- with devastating impact.

And think of the chances for voter fraud! Right now, the biggest cities, the ones most firmly in Democratic control (e.g. Washington DC, New York, Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, etc.) are all solidly in blue states. Not only does this make it unnecessary to maximize turnouts there, but it also makes it unnecessary to promote double voting, fraudulent voting, and all the other tricks of the trade at which Democrats excel.

But if the popular vote determines who will be the next president, we can bet that the machines will be out in force lining up voters, real and phony, to pad their statistics.

This was followed by an April 20 article by Todd Beamon touting how "Conservatives and leading liberals slammed the campaign to effectively end the Electoral College's role in presidential elections, saying that the National Popular Vote Compact Law circumvents the Constitution, saying it resembled President Barack Obama's abuse of the law through his extensive use of executive orders." Beamon added that Morris "charged in an exclusive Newsmax column that the effort is ripe for voter fraud and would guarantee that Democrats win the White House every four years."

But we don't recall Morris having anything to say about a Republican attempt to change the Electoral College. Last year, Republicans in Pennsylvania tried to change the electoral vote there from a winner-take-all system to one apportioned by the vote in congressional districts, which would create more Republican electoral votes.

That's vote-rigging at least as egregious as what he claims the popular-vote plan does. What's his position on it?


Posted by Terry K. at 3:19 PM EDT
WND's Unruh Trades Being A Reporter For Being A Scott Lively Fanboy
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Is Bob Unruh even capable of fair and honest reporting anymore? Or has he become so corrupted by WorldNetDaily's shoddy and dishonest journalism that he simply doesn't care?

Unruh writes in an April 19 WND article:

What could be more boring to Americans than the latest news about a lawsuit brought by a group of political activists in Uganda? Especially since the case is currently in the mind-numbingly boring stage of endless interrogatories and depositions?

But this is no ordinary case.

The defendant, Pastor Scott Lively of Abiding Truth Ministries, says Americans need to be paying very close attention, because the outcome could well set a new precedent – that an international agenda based on anti-biblical standards could trump the U.S. Constitution’s freedom of speech and religion.

This article is just another excuse to mislead about the lawsuit against Lively by Sexual Minorities Uganda, or SMUG.

As he did in an August 2013 article, Unruh lies by asserting that "SMUG alleges Lively must be punished for criticizing homosexuality, calling his speech a 'crime against humanity' in violation of 'international law.'" In fact, SMUG has stated that "none of Plaintiff’s claims are predicated on any speech or writing of the Defendant, odious and ignorant as they may be. His speech is merely circumstantial evidence of the discriminatory intent and motive behind his campaign to deprive LGBTI persons of fundamental rights and thus admissible to help prove the elements of the conspiracy to persecute." Unruh doesn't mention that, of course.

Much of the article is devoted to repeating the case according to Lively's defense attorney. Unruh does not allow SMUG to rebut the claims, nor does he mention any of the things SMUG says Lively has said.

If Unruh wants Americans to be "paying very close attention" to this lawsuit, he is doing his readers no favors by telling only one side of the story and implicitly declaring that the other side has no merit by mischaracterizing their case.

Reporters are supposed to tell the full truth without fear or favor. Unruh apparently fears homosexuals and clearly favors Lively. 

Guess that means Unruh really isn't a reporter.


Posted by Terry K. at 8:59 AM EDT
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
CNS Readers Spew Hate At Hillary
Topic: CNSNews.com

It's been a while since we dipped into the cesspool that is the CNSNews.com comment threads. So let's check out the sheer hate and misogyny that CNS commenters spewed on an April 11 article about a shoe thrown at Hillary Clinton:

These are CNS' readers, folks. These are the people CNS want to read their website. Sad, isn't it?

Posted by Terry K. at 10:27 PM EDT
WND Laments Lack of Black Italians To Race-Bait Over
Topic: WorldNetDaily

An unbylined April 17 WorldNetDaily article tells the story of a restaurant waiter of Bangladeshi descent who "died after being punched in the head while walking in the city center in Pisa, not far from the famed Leaning Tower."

After several paragraphs, WND gets around to describing the suspect, "described as Italian with a 'hefty' physique."

That's right -- the suspect is not black. You can almost sense the disappointment at WND in having to admit that. You might have heard Colin Flaherty sigh at the development.

But WND gets back into the race-baiting swing of things by informing us that knockout game-style attacks are perpetrated "mostly by black youth against whites," and fills out the rest of the article with alleged incidents involving "black individuals" or a "black mob."

After all, white criminals don't draw eyeballs to WND.


Posted by Terry K. at 8:09 PM EDT
MRC Loves Sharyl Attkisson, Buries Her History of Shoddy Reporting
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center is unsurprisingly promoting former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson's media tour in which shse claims that she was being too critical of the Obama administration:

Tim Graham promoted Attkisson's appearance on Fox News, in which she and Hhoward Kurtz commisserated about "liberal bias leading to soft coverage of Obama." Graham touted Attkisson's CNN interview as well, in which she discussed how "CBS lost interest in investigative journalism to favor Obama." NewsBusters' Tom Johnson attacked TPM's Josh Marshall for being critical of Attkisson's unsupported claims of being targeted by Media Matters (disclosure: my employer); Johnson didn't mention that Media Matters has denied the claim and pointed out that it targeted Attkisson solely for her shoddy reporting.

What you won't read at the MRC, however, is any new criticism of Attkisson's embrace of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, even though it has criticized other anti-vaxxers like Jenny McCarthy.

As author Seth Mnookin reports, Attkisson has "parroted anti-vaccine rhetoric long past the point that it’s been decisively disproved," repeatedly pushing the discredited idea that vaccines cause autism.

And the MRC certainly won't tell you that it criticized Attkisson's reporting on vaccines in the past:

  • A 2005 item criticized an Attkisson report for lending credence to claims linking vaccines to autism. A 2005 column by Dan Gainor repeated the criticism.
  • A 2008 MRC item criticized how "Attkisson reported on the plight of the parents of an autistic child and their fight to win money from a federal fund for 'vaccine damages.'"
  • Another 2008 item noted that CBS' newfound reporting that there is no link between vaccines and autism contradicts Attkisson's earlier reporting.

In one of his posts, Graham references "people who questioned [Attkisson's] reporting on autism and vaccines," but he didn't mention that one of those critics has been the MRC.

If the MRC didn't trust Attkisson when she peddled faulty reporting on vaccines, why does it trust her now on her victimhood, even though her reporting on Benghazi and other Obama administration issues is just as untrustworthy?

Because Attkisson is now portraying herself as a victim of liberal bias, which aligns perfectly with the MRC's anti-media agenda.


Posted by Terry K. at 3:15 PM EDT
Updated: Tuesday, April 22, 2014 3:33 PM EDT

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