NewsBusters Archive

Al Gore must be a very, very unhappy man.

The New York Times published a piece Monday evening to appear in Tuesday's paper that exposed the really inconvenient truth that despite a rapid rise in carbon dioxide the past fifteen years, global warming has plateaued (emphasis added):

When last seen at NewsBusters in February, the Associated Press's Liz Sidoti was talking down to the public about its "collective obsession with the trivial" less than a week after AP reporter Ken Thomas wasted 500 words of print and bandwidth on how Florida Sen. Marco Rubio took a sip of water during a speech.

Now Sidoti, who is the AP's National Political Editor, is quite worried -- actually, obsessed -- that the public might waking up and contrasting what President Barack Obama is delivering compared to what he has promised at a most inopportune time, and that "controversies" might overtake Dear Leader's second-term agenda (bolds are mine):

As was expected, the liberal media is moving into a new mode concerning the scandal at the Internal Revenue Service: Move along. Nothing to see here.

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews did his part Monday in a lengthy segment teased by the Hardball host saying, “It could be this whole thing was a big nothing burger” (video follows with transcript and commentary):

 Liberal anchor Chris Matthews on Monday suggested that sequester cuts impacting shelter and housing funds could result in "some women" "dying this week." Matthews brought on the former National Organization for Women Chairman Kim Gandy to warn of impending death. (The Hardball host didn't identify Gandy's work for the very liberal NOW. Instead, he described her as the President of the National Network to End Domestic Violence.)

Matthews derided, "How do you get the members of Congress to say, 'Look, some women are going to die this week because these shelters are closing their doors to them?'" The anchor introduced the segment by reminding, "We've put a spotlight on the people and the organizations taking the brunt of this arbitrary, across-the-board, spending cuts known as sequester."

On Monday, CNN ignored a CBS News report that, according to the State Department's Inspector General, the department stymied investigations into allegations of sexual assault by its security employees. Neither NBC nor ABC touched the story either.

As CBS reported, an Inspector General memo detailed specific examples of alleged sexual assault and soliciting of prostitutes by State Department security officials abroad. The department's watchdog tried to investigate the cases but the investigations were "influenced, manipulated, or simply called off." The memo noted that security details engaging prostitutes in foreign countries was an "endemic" problem.

The ABC and NBC morning shows on Monday ignored or downplayed the role the President of the United States played in the unfolding spying scandal that broke last week. The journalists at Good Morning America never once uttered the name Barack Obama. The hosts of NBC's Today left it to their guest to question the implications for the President.

It was CBS This Morning that saw possible damage to Obama. Major Garrett warned, "The White House knows that this is an intelligence crisis that could become a political crisis." The reporter added that the administration "had to admit a politically and tactically startling truth: It conducts more surveillance than the Bush White House." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

On Sunday's CBS Evening News, John Blackstone spotlighted the sob story of fourth graders who are lobbying President Obama to allow the return of their former classmate, Rodrigo Guzman, who was deported with his family back to Mexico. Blackstone sympathized with the schoolchildren who "hope to visit Washington, to personally lobby for Rodrigo's return."

The correspondent trumpeted the children's cause: "The students' activism shouldn't be surprising, perhaps, in a class where they've been studying civil rights leaders." The only soundbites that Blackstone played during the report came from the fourth grade teacher and students at Guzman's former school in the leftist enclave of Berkeley, California [audio available here; video below the jump]

Of late, many left-wing media critics have been ostensibly interested in protecting the independence of journalism from hypothetical conservative media ownership. Unfortunately, as Howard Kurtz pointed out over the weekend, these people are remarkably cavalier when the left-leaning billionaires like Warren Buffett start buying up media outlets.

Another example of how such critics are not very sincere is one George Norcross, a man known within the Philadelphia area as a long-time Democratic donor, activist, and fundraiser. He also happens to be the co-owner of the region’s two largest newspapers, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Philadelphia Daily News.

Updated with video

Appearing on Monday's NBC Today, Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald corrected co-host Savannah Guthrie on her framing of the NSA phone and email surveillance controversy after she inaccurately cited government leaker Edward Snowden: "Snowden makes what I consider to be a rather remarkable claim stating, quote, 'I, sitting at my desk certainly had the authorities to wiretap you'....He didn't say that he had the ability to do it....He said he had the legal authority to do it." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Greenwald responded: "That isn't what he said. He didn't say he had the legal authority. That's a word you included in the statement that he didn't actually include....he said authority, not 'legal authority,' which is what you just quoted him as saying. And what I'm telling you is that is a misquotation..."