NewsBusters Archive

When the New York Times originally broke the story of the NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program, the rest of the media leapt to the bandwagon, and immediately began referring to President Bush's "Domestic Surveillance Program." One of the forums where this has been particularly egregious is CBS' The Early Show. Well, the last 7 months and all of the discussion has done nothing to change the view of the program held by CBS. There were two separate comments in a 30-second news snippet from Tracy Smith that were either inaccurate or incomplete, and, of course, they were inaccurate or incomplete in a manner that made the program sound worse than it is.

The first was the continued mis-labeling. The program is not, despite the mainstream press' continued insistence, a "domestic" surveillance program. The NSA is not monitoring American's domestic calls without warrants, or at least, if they are, that has not been made public. That's not what the program being talked about covers. The NSA is monitoring overseas communications of suspected terrorists and terrorism supporters. If some of those communications are into the United States, they're continuing to monitor. That doesn't make the conversations "domestic."

After devoting two front-page stories this week making a mountain out of the molehill of Sen. George Allen joshing with fellow Republicans about a Democrat opposition researcher's haircut, calling him "Macaca," the Washington Post put the story back on top of the front page Saturday with the headline "Allen Flap May Give A Boost to Webb: Reenergized Va. Democrats Gain Support."

Could we be any more transparent in using our front page as an advertising vehicle for the Democrats? The headline is a little incomplete. It could read: "Allen Flap May Give A Boost to Webb: We're Certainly Trying Hard to Make It So." And the subheadline could be "A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes."

In his Best of the Web column Friday, Opinion Journal's James Taranto had fun with AP writer Dennis Conrad as he committed yet another cuddly piece on Sen. Barack Obama, a favorite media teddy bear:

In his 1995 memoir, "Dreams From My Father," Obama recalled his first trip to Africa, when, in his late 20s, he cried as he sat between the graves of his father and grandfather. Obama hardly knew his father. His parents divorced early in their marriage.

Taranto dead-panned: "That's very unusual. Although many couples get divorced nowadays, the vast majority do not do so until late in the marriage."

From a post of mine at BusinessandMedia.org.

“Food marketing to children is a $10-billion-a-year industry, and some parents’ advocates and lawyers are saying it’s out of control,” noted NBC reporter Stone Phillips as he opened his August 18 story.

To lend scientific authority to these claims, Phillips turned to Harvard psychologist Susan Linn, whom he merely described as “the author of ‘Consuming Kids.’ She says brand names are among toddlers’ first words and logos among the first images they recognize.”

“Kids are requesting brands as soon as they can talk,” Linn told Phillips.

As odd as it sounds that children would say “Cocoa Puffs” before “mommy,” Phillips didn’t question Linn’s assertion. Instead, Phillips went on to show clips of NBC’s Hoda Kotb conducting an experiment with a group of preschoolers and toddlers as she asked them to identify corporate logos.

Even then, Phillips conceded, “they didn’t get” every logo right, even though they “came pretty close.”

But Linn is a dispassionate researcher and neutral scientist, right?

Wrong.

Have you heard the news of the latest celebrity political pronouncement?

For those living in a cave, Bernie Mac, Nicole Kidman, Michael Douglas, Danny De Vito, Bruce Willis, and a host of other celebs recently signed an issue ad taking a stand…against terrorism.

Didn't hear about it? That's no surprise. According to Nexis, not a single American news organization other than Fox News Channel has covered it.

Say what you will about celebs "shutting up and singing," but the fact that this isn't getting nearly the coverage given to anti-Bush and anti-American rants of lesser lights like the Dixie Chicks or Michael Moore is a yet another nail in the coffin that the media in this country is sorely lacking in political diversity. (Full text and signers here.)

Here at NewsBusters, we often bring you irrational rants from paranoid lefties who are certain that Chimpy Bush McHitler is trying to become dictator of America, enslave anyone to the left of Pat Robertson, and personally assasinate Pinch Sulzberger.

Now, for a change of pace, here's Val Prieto on some real journalists who actually are living in a totalitarian government. Here's an excerpt but the entire piece is very well worth reading:

Right now there remain at least two dozen independent journalists incarcerated in Cuba simply because they dared speak the truth. Some have been locked away since 2003, still in the infancy of their 15 or 20 year sentences. Truth has made them suffer beatings, torture and malnutrition. Truth has mocked, ridiculed, and subjected them to abject horrors and indignity.

All because they bear witness to the world around them and dare describe it nakedly and without their government’s official veil.

There are many journalists from around the world in Havana. CNN is there. Reuters, the AP. They live comfortably in hotel rooms and work in comfortable in air-conditioned offices full of amenities. They have the copy machine. They have the faxes and computers and printers and scanners. They have staff and editors. What they don’t have is the security to report the truth.

Sabrina Tavernise reports from a village in Lebanon for Friday's "A Girl's Life Bound Close To Hezbollah," and honors the mantra of the terrorist group as a "social services network," just like her colleague John Kifner did on Wednesday -- and again, without using the word "terrorism."

"Israel's goal of uprooting Hezbollah from southern Lebanon has frequently been questioned by critics who say the group is deeply woven into society and cannot simply be cut out. An afternoon with the Fadlallah family in this southern Lebanese village shows that the group not only is part of society, but also helps form the shape of life itself.

In a travesty of accurate reporting buried within a CNN story on a controversial video emerging in Lebabon, CNN gives us this happy news:

Hezbollah has pledged that its fighters south of the Litani will disarm.

Not only is that utterly untrue, one can check thousands of wire stories to confirm the obviously false nature of the statement; though Hezbollah might want the world to believe it. Below is only one example. Pick one for yourself ... and consider informing CNN while you're at it. Evidently their web editors haven't read around very much regarding current events in the Middle East.

As reported last night by Mark Finkelstein, Chris Matthews interviewed Congressman John Murtha’s Republican opponent, Diana Irey, in Pennsylvania’ 12th district on "Hardball". Part of the interview focused on the Haditha incident in Iraq and Congressman Murtha’s statement of condemnation of American troops surrounding the incident. Matthews challenged Irey, "...if you’re right about Murtha, you must be right about "Time" magazine and all the news publications" and claimed he had no complaints about Murtha’s Haditha comments:

"You know, I think, I think Murtha served in the military as a combat officer in Vietnam. I don't have any complaints, but you have a complaint, that's fine."