Tuesday's World News with Charles Gibson highlighted signs of improvement in parts of Baghdad in the aftermath of the U.S. troop surge. ABC's Gibson introduced the story relaying that correspondent Terry McCarthy, after traveling to several Baghdad neighborhoods, "has found definite improvement." Among other developments, McCarthy reported on families feeling safe enough to take their children to the city's largest amusement park: "People feel safe to bring their kids here and have fun on a Friday afternoon. For us, it's really great to see people in Baghdad having fun."

McCarthy introduced his story recounting that although there are still daily bombings in Baghdad, "a small area of relative calm is starting to grow," relaying his visit to several neighborhoods where residents reported that "life is slowly coming back to normal." (Transcript follows)

CBS News, via its "Public Eye" blog, has responded to the National Center for Public Policy Research's critique (covered here yesterday in Newsbusters) of its 60 Minutes show Sunday.

In a nutshell, The National Center's David Hogberg had complained that a recent "60 Minutes" broadcast relied upon unrepresentative, artifically-high data to determine the price seniors are paying for drugs under Medicare. Second, David said "60 Minutes" falsely claimed the Veterans Administration derives its prices by negotiation with drug companies, not telling viewers the VA uses strict price controls.

Viewers were expected to conclude that VA-like negotiations by Medicare would result in lower drug prices for Medicare recipients. The critical phrase "price controls" never came up.

A night after leading with an “exclusive” about the more imminent than thought horrific threat posed by Iran's nuclear weapons capability, ABC's World News began Tuesday with another Brian Ross “exclusive” in which he exposed a clandestine “secret war” inside Iran, a revelation that seemingly could undermine U.S. efforts to prevent Iran's extremist leaders from using those weapons of mass destruction. “Tonight,” anchor Charles Gibson announced at the top of Monday's World News, “an alarming acceleration of Iran's nuclear program. Iran could have material for a bomb in two years. A Brian Ross exclusive.” Ross soon explained how “in the last three months Iran has more than tripled its ability to produce enriched uranium -- meaning, according to weapons experts, that it could have enough material for a nuclear bomb within two years...”

Jump ahead 24 hours, and Gibson teased Tuesday's World News: “Tonight, a secret war going on inside Iran. Deadly stealth attacks in Iran, being conducted with the knowledge of the U.S. government. Brian Ross investigates.” Ross outlined how “U.S. and Pakistani sources tell ABC News that the U.S. has been secretly advising and encouraging a militant group that has carried out a series of guerrilla raids inside Iran, raids that have led to the deaths or capture of Iranian soldiers and officials. The group operates out of the Baluchistan province of Pakistan, just across the border from Iran.” Naturally, ABC managed to make a connection to Dick Cheney as Ross relayed: “Pakistani sources say the secret campaign against Iran was on the agenda when Vice President Cheney met with Pakistani President Musharaff in February.”

Andrea Mitchell and Chris Matthews orchestrated a rather obvious flip-flop Monday of a controversial statement the former made on the “Chris Matthews Show” the day before.

In a nutshell, Matthews’ Sunday panel was discussing the politics of Iraq. During several instances, Mitchell stated that Gen. David Petraeus had recently had a private meeting with the Republican caucus promising progress in the embattled nation by August.

The next day on “Hardball,” Matthews, in the middle of a discussion about presidential candidates, suddenly asked Mitchell about Petraeus. She answered by stating the general had recently addressed both Republicans and Democrats about progress in Iraq, after which the discussion quickly reverted back to presidential candidates (video available here).

Here's what Mitchell said Sunday that apparently needed correcting:

As part of its 44-page epic on how to survive global warming, Time magazine advocated vegetarianism and bashed burgers in the April 9 issue.

"If you switch to vegetarianism, you can shrink your carbon footprint," said the magazine.

Number 22 on the list of 51 things you can do to "make a difference" was "Skip the steak" asking this extreme question: "Which is responsible for more global warming, your BMW or your Big Mac?"

"It's your burger," Time answered.

Following the same train of thought, Time offered number 25 "Support your local farmer," because locally grown fruit and veggies rack up fewer "petroleum miles."

Although ABC overlooked it, MSNBC on April 3 cited Rosie O’Donnell’s September 11 conspiracy theories as well as her Iran British hostage crisis conspiracy theory. Media analyst Steve Adubato weighed in on the issue.

Adubato called on her to "back up" her claims and held ABC and Barbara Walters accountable for allowing Rosie to continue. Host Contessa Brewer sought to make an equivalency when she inquired:

"Take a look at Ann Coulter. She’s known for saying very provocative, outrageous things and, and who cracks down on that? You just sort of let her do it."

Both NBC "Nightly News" and CBS "Evening News" on April 2 reported a new study about the decline of air travel quality, without interviewing industry executives.

It confirmed "what a lot of frequent flyers already know -- it has gotten worse," according to NBC anchor Brian Williams.

But buried in both stories was the admission that airline customer complaints are down. NBC's Trish Regan blamed the lower number of complaints on "passengers getting used to bad service."

Similarly, CBS reporter Nancy Cordes said "the authors of the study say that might just be because passenger expectations have dropped, too."

UPDATE at post's bottom.

Lt. Col. Rick Francona (USAF Retired) is an MSNBC military analyst who also writes for the network's "Hardblogger" blog. But while Francona has plenty of thoughts on how to deal with Iran's hostage-taking and on the notion of setting a withdrawal deadline for U.S. troops in Iraq, a review of Nexis showed zero hits for Francona on MSNBC recently, and only one appearance on NBC's "Nightly News" the day after the British servicement were taken hostage. And even then, he was featured with a sound bite about the Pat Tillman investigation.

Here are the headlines and dates for his three most recent "Hardblogger" entries:

• MEMO TO TEHRAN: GIVE IT UP (March 30)
• WITHDRAWAL DATE FOR IRAQ AIDS THE ENEMY (March 23)
• GULF ARABS DRAW A RED LINE AGAINST IRAN (March 19)

The 15 British sailors and Royal Marines were captured on March 23. Francona has written more on Iran specifically and the Middle East in general, it's just not all been posted to MSNBC's Web site. Francona runs his own Web log, Middle East Perspectives, and has a few additional posts in the same time period, including one dated March 25 explaining the long-disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway in which Iran captured its British hostages.

So given Francona's expertise and his being on the MSNBC payroll, he's been pretty busy appearing on air, right?

Well, a Nexis search for "Rick Francona" among MSNBC documents from March 19-April 3 turned up no hits.

The redesigned Time magazine is lending itself to selling the letters and quotes that are pleasing to liberals. In the Inbox section, letters praising Al Gore and Caroline Kennedy are in bold letters, as is a letter demanding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should have been canned along with Donald Rumsfeld when CBS broke open Abu Ghraib in 2004. In the Verbatim section, only two quotes were in bold type: from Elizabeth Edwards and Bush-bashing Sean Penn.

Next to a picture of Al Gore came the bolded letter: "Whatever Al Gore's electric bill is, he has alerted the public to global warming. Gore doesn't have to live in a cardboard box to be right on this issue." -- Bruce Rider, Grapevine, Texas.

A caption underneath the picture and letter pitches Gore as a "leading light of environmentalism."

When Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton announced she had taken in $26 million in campaign donations on Monday, "Good Morning America" focused on the "historic," "staggering," and record shattering nature of the total. But on Tuesday, April 3, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney received only suspicion over his equally impressive announcement of a $23 million fund-raising total.

GMA host Robin Roberts repeatedly asked Romney questions such as "where is the money coming from, Governor?" Ms. Roberts also wondered how the candidate’s Mormon faith factored into his fund-raising. She even challenged the Republican hopeful to take a page from John Kennedy and address his faith:

Robin Roberts: "Many are wondering if you will do, take a page from former President Kennedy, who had addressed the nation about his Catholic upbringing. Do you anticipate, anticipate doing the same?"

So far the New York Times has apparently yet to do any original reporting on the lawsuit filed by six imams against US Airways and some passengers who reported suspicious behavior by the imams before a flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix last year. The imams were taken off the plane in Minneapolis for behavior that included loud chanting, cursing the United States, and praising Saddam Hussein. Yet even passage by the House of a bill to protect passengers who report suspicious behavior on airlines apparently hasn't motivated the newspaper to actually cover the controversy for itself.

The Times' Muslims-in-America beat reporter Neil MacFarquhar (whose reporting is reliably pro-Muslim) has filed nothing besides a single, amazingly slanted and misleading summary of the case on December 7, 2006, in the context of a review of a Muslim-based sit-com airing in…Canada.

Bill Buckley has a great syndicated column out today on how the global warming crusade is really getting out of hand:

The heavy condemnatory breathing on the subject of global warming outdoes anything since high moments of the Inquisition. A respectable columnist (Thomas Friedman of The New York Times) opened his essay last week by writing, "Sometimes you read something about this administration that's just so shameful it takes your breath away."

What asphyxiated this critic was the discovery that a White House official had edited "government climate reports to play up uncertainty of a human role in global warming." The correspondent advises that the culprit had been an oil-industry lobbyist before joining the administration, and on leaving it he took a job with Exxon Mobil.

The April 3 edition of "The Early Show" reported on the fallout from the Supreme Court decision regarding EPA regulatory policies. Business correspondent Anthony Mason featured auto industry analyst John Casesa who claimed it "will force Detroit auto companies to radically change their business model," but there was no mention of the potential cost to the consumer.

The story also uncritically aired a sound bite from David Hawkins of the left wing Natural Resources Defense Council, but aired nothing from organizations opposed to the ruling. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, for example, issued a press release stating experts are "available to comment" on the decision. CBS must have missed it. The transcript is below.

CHRIS WRAGGE: The Supreme Court ruled Monday that so-called greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide can be considered air pollution. And the federal government has the duty to regulate them. As CBS News business correspondent Anthony Mason reports, it's likely to mean big changes and big problems for the U.S. car industry.

Update: See bottom of post
NBC's Martin Savidge took the prize for unexpected environmental advocacy on this morning's Today show. In a global warming story, disguised as a health report, Savidge went over-the-top as he blamed your car's exhaust for seemingly every problem under the Sun. In what was initially teased as an allergy report Savidge blamed fossil fuel emissions for an increase in the pollen count that is not only leading to exacerbated allergic reactions in humans and their pets but also getting in the way of police officers trying to collect fingerprints.

In the 7am half hour, Today co-host Matt Lauer introduced Savidge's global warming, masquerading as health story, segment this way: "Are you sniffling and sneezing right now? Are your eyes so watery you can barely see the TV? Well it could be your allergies. And guess what? We may only have ourselves to blame. That story now from NBC's Martin Savidge."

UPDATE (14:18 EDT): See bottom of post.

The front-page teaser headline for today's front page Washington Post article on the Supreme Court's CO2 ruling (emphases below are mine):

Court: EPA Violated Clean Air Act

Supreme Court rebukes Bush administration for refusing to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The link takes readers to today's front page article by Robert Barnes and Juliet Eilperin, "High Court Faults EPA Inaction on Emissions."

But both headlines not only skew the issue that was before the Court -- turning a legal matter into a political drama, and making the Supreme Court into a veritable high court of climate science -- they mislead readers about the actual finding of the Court's majority.

I'm no fan of the majority's reasoning or their ruling, but as Barnes and Eilperin themselves report deep in their article, Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, noted that "We need not and do not reach the question" of whether the EPA "must make an endangerment finding." In other words, the ruling is not some stern Al Gore-like command for the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.

Indeed, while the scientific geniuses in the Court majority in Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. EPA did hold that carbon dioxide may be defined as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act and hence may result in future EPA regulation, the ruling is not a rebuke to the Bush, and Clinton, administrations* for years of non-regulation.

On Tuesday’s "Good Morning America," the ABC program featured a segment on the growing feud between "View" host Rosie O’Donnell and FNC anchor Bill O’Reilly. Although reporter Taina Hernandez did highlight some of Ms. O’Donnell’s more extreme statements, the segment mostly portayed the back-and-forth as simply a celebrity squabble.

And one topic that GMA left out? Any reference to Rosie’s recent on-air touting of  9/11 conspiracy theories. Co-host Robin Roberts previewed the segment with a tease that offered moral equivalence between the FNC host and the woman who recently suggested that the kidnapping of British Marines was a modern day Gulf of Tonkin incident. Roberts wondered, "Has Rosie gone too far this time?" But she quickly covered herself by asking, "Maybe O’Reilly’s crossed the line? We’ll let you be the judge and weigh in on that."

An as yet unpublished report from Ottawa, Canada, suggests that there is absolutely no ecological advantage to using ethanol blends in cars versus conventional unleaded gasoline.

Think this will make headlines here in America?

Regardless of the answer, the Canadian Broadcasting Company reported on Friday (video available here, emphasis added throughout):

An unpublished federal report appears to undermine the belief that commercially available ethanol-blended fuel produces cleaner emissions than regular gasoline.

The piece marvelously continued:

Today's starter: What's your take on the satirical Barack-Obama-as-Jesus sculpture?

UPDATE (13:45 EDT): The White House transcript is now available online here.

I'm watching the presidential press conference live and will update it and the coverage of CNN in real time as it rolls along. Stay tuned for more coverage this afternoon and evening.

10:15 EDT

* First question about Nancy Pelosi's Syria trip and if its sends mixed signals about U.S. foreign policy.

10:17 EDT

* Second question on British sailors and marines held hostage in Iran.

10:17 EDT

* question from Peter Baker on the role "loyalty" played in Bush's firing of US attorneys

10:19 EDT

* CBS's Bill Plante asks about a failure of the surge in Iraq. "People question the continued sacrifice of U.S. troops to make it work"

It seems CBS is expanding its search for interns by placing not just ads on its Web site, but sponsored "news feed" items on Facebook, a social networking site popular among college students and recent college graduates:

Attention aspiring journalists. Sponsored

Share

Launch your journalism career with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work directly with Katie Couric and CBS News.

NB's Tim Graham and I have written about this recently. To win an internship, you may either write about global warming, an Iraq war veteran, or a "social entreprenuer."

Speaking of Facebook, yours truly has an account, and I encourage everyone on NB who has a Facebook account to join my group "NewsBusters.org Readers."

As many people know, Rosie O’Donnell has landed herself in another high-profile brouhaha with yet another high-profile media figure.

In December, it was Donald Trump. Now, it’s Bill O’Reilly.

Yet, this time, her statements which precipitated the skirmish – that America may have set up the recent showdown between Iran and the captured British sailors, as well as the Bush administration being involved in bringing down the World Trade Center on 9/11 – appear to have enflamed the American people.

In fact, AOL is currently running an online poll asking the question (h/t Hot Air): "Should ABC fire Rosie, as O'Reilly implies?" The tally as of 10:00 AM EST Tuesday is: