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“Exposing & Combating Liberal Media Bias”
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Tom Blumer's blogBig Hack Attack: Global Warming Exposed as 'Globaloney'?
UPDATE: Also see Noel Sheppard's post on the same topic, where more names are named. Two months ago, there was the "Dog Ate My Global Warming Data" episode. As noted at NewsBusters and at BizzyBlog (original source: National Review Online), we learned that important original information forming the underpinning of global warming alarmists' claims about the earth heating up has vanished. It is longer available and apparently can't be reverse engineered. Today, e-mails hacked from a UK climate research facility appear at a minimum to indicate a willingness by scientists to fudge the data to make alleged warming trends more clear and convincing. At worst, the whole enterprise could be totally discredited. Important and damming passages from certain of the e-mails have been acknowledged as authentic. The Australian Herald Sun's Andrew Bolt claims, as paraphrased by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, that "that those e-mails expose a conspiracy to hide detrimental information from the public that argues against global warming." Here are key paragraphs from Bolt's blog post (presented out of order because of frequent updates at that post): NYT Discovers That Wars Cost Money
Really, who knew? In what appears to be the opening round of a rearguard action against what leftists used to call "the good war" (only because they felt they needed to pretend they had pro-war bona fides to make their anti-Iraq War arguments look stronger to the general populace), the New York Times's Christopher Drew reported last Saturday for the Sunday print edition that sending more troops to Afghanistan as General Stanley A. McChrystal has requested might cost tens of billions of dollars.
Oh, So Now U.S. Soldiers Are 'A Pretty Good Photo-op'; Let's See How This Obamism Gets Covered
I believe that the comment (bolded) could be seen as shining a less than flattering light on the president's mindset:
Does anyone think that a similar comment by Bush 43 would have escaped establishment media criticism? Let's see if this Obamism slides by without criticism. Earlier in the report, Kornblut noted that Obama's Afghan dither continues: Leftist Blood-Curdling Scream Alert: CMPA Reports That Fox IS Fair and Balanced
At Forbes (HT Hot Air Headlines), S. Robert Lichter of George Mason University's Center for Media and Public Affairs, asks the question, "Fox News: Fair And Balanced?" -- and answers in the affirmative. In the process, the GMU Professor of Communications also makes a number of interesting points about Fox's competitors, discusses the convergence of news and analysis, and provides useful historical context. Using a methodology that would be difficult to refute, Lichter's work relating to campaign 2008 is in sync with what CMPA found in late 2007 (noted at the time at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) during the opening stages of the presidential campaign. Here are key paragraphs from Lichter's commentary (bolds are mine): Health Care Poll-Cooking: AP Headlines 'Tax the Rich' Finding, Ignores Opposition to ObamaCare, Other Key Items
But the wire service-commissioned poll on health care, and Erica Warner's report on it (saved here for future reference, fair use, and discussion purposes; HT JammieWearingFool via Instapundit; the full poll report in PDF format is here) plumbs new depths of partisanship while making errors of both omission and commission. Warner and AP want the big takeaway to be that taxing "the rich" is the idea the public overwhelmingly favors to pay for ObamaCare -- never mind that the same public also opposes the plan itself. What follows is a graphic containing selected paragraphs from Werner's report: AP Parrots GM's Comparative Tease of Not Comparable 'Financials' Coming Monday
In the alternative reporting universe known as the Associated Press, you parrot these points without questioning whether they are correct, proper, or even less than fully transparent. Here are key paragraphs from that Wednesday unbylined AP report (bolds after title and footnotes are mine): We Wish: AP Report Falsely Claims National Debt Is 'Accumulation of Annual Budget Deficits'
The pair's work is partially saved here for fair use, discussion and in this case entertainment purposes. The biggest error Raum and Taylor made was publishing the following "we wish it were true" statement:
Well, Tom and Andy, using this readily available tool, if that's the case, why was the national debt on September 30, 2008 $10.02 trillion and then $11.91 trillion on September 30, 2009? That's a difference of $1.89 trillion, a whopping $470 billion more than the past year's $1.42 trillion deficit. The answer is, sadly, that the national debt is NOT the accumulation of annual budget deficits, as shown in the graphic that follows: Big Brother and PC In Holland: A Mileage Tax That Varies on Car Type and Time of Day Driven
The abolition of two other taxes is apparently the mechanism for enticing the Dutch into acquiescing to this intrusive arrangement. Media bias watchers will not be surprised to know that the AP's unbylined Saturday report saved the government's overhyped promises for the report's second-last paragraph, and the tax-detailing punch line for the final one. Here are some excerpts (bolds are mine; I believe that "mike" in the first paragraph refers to "micrometer"): Though Alarming, AP's Report on October Deficit Still Misses the Big, Ugly Picture
After all, AP business writers Martin Crutsinger and Daniel Wagner did give us the facts about Uncle Sam's October Monthly Treasury Statement, put them into historical context, and told us that we face $1 trillion-plus shortfalls in fiscal 2010 and 2011. But the pair missed a couple of receipts-related items that would have hit readers right between the eyes if noted, and would have indicated just how dire the government's financial situation has become. The first omission: Collections of corporate income taxes were negative, as the government paid out an astonishing $4.5 billion more in refunds to corporations than it collected. The second: In a month mostly unaffected by individual estimated payments (these are normally paid in April, June, September, and January), year-over-year collections of individual income taxes were down by 29%. Here are the key paragraphs from Crutsinger's and Wagner's coverage: In 1999, Dobbs Covered Los Alamos Chinese Espionage Story Better Than the 'Nets
That Kaplan was driven to protect Clinton, and to risk journalistic integrity while doing so, is virtually beyond dispute. In 1997, as the Wall Street Journal's Dorothy Rabinowitz noted in a 1999 op-ed whose primary purpose was to comment the significance of "the demolition of CNN and Time's story charging that U.S. forces used the lethal gas sarin to attack American defectors in Laos," U.S. News reported that Kaplan "issued a warning to CNN journalists to limit the use of words like 'scandal' in relation to stories on the president's fund-raising ventures." So you can imagine how beside himself Kaplan must have been when Dobbs, then the host of a business and finance show, went after the Chinese nuclear espionage story in 1999 while his other CNN colleagues and the Big 3 networks were attempting to downplay and ignore it. Brent Baker's CyberAlert from March 12 of that year has the details: CNN-mity: Tensions With Dobbs Were Evident Many Years Ago
That said, this is a good time to recall that Dobbs and his employer were at very visible loggerheads a decade ago. In fact, yesterday's move by Dobbs is not his first resignation from the network. Here is Brent Baker's June 9, 1999 CyberAlert item describing what happened:
Did Gen. David Petreaus Utter the Forbidden Word?
Forget Ford Hood and investigating the so-called "terror" connections of Nidal Hasan. Yours truly has come across something the current crowd running our government might see as even more sinister. The Obama administration, the FBI, the Justice Department, and, most importantly, the White House's speech police simply have to get on this right away. You see, General David Petraeus visited the Air Force Academy last week and may have uttered a word once thought to have been stricken from all speeches and discussions relating to military matters. The word is .... v-v-v-v-vi .... well, I'd better let Tom Roeder of the Colorado Springs Gazette take it from here (bold is mine) in his November 5 report on Petraeus's appearance: Pfizer Leaving New London, CT; Just Don't Mention 'Kelo' While Reporting It
Some "win." In what Ed Morrissey at Hot Air calls "a fitting coda to a chapter of governmental abuse," pharmaceutical manufacturer Pfizer is leaving the global research and development headquarters it built in New London just eight years ago. The significance of the move should resonate nationally, because, as the Washington Examiner explains, Pfizer's original decision to locate in New London was driven by the City's promises to eliminate a nearby neighborhood -- promises which led to the Kelo litigation once residents, including Susette Kelo (pictured above), pushed back:
The New London Day elaborates, while petulantly managing to avoid any mention of what has clearly become the local four-letter word -- "Kelo" (bold is mine): WSJ's Timely Wall-Fall Reminder: In 1987, Rather Said USSR Citizens 'Do Not Yearn For Democracy'
In the debate over who deserves credit for causing the Berlin Wall to collapse on the night of November 9, 1989, many names come to mind, both great and small. [Editor's note: For more on the media's pro-Communist bias in the waning days of the Cold War, read "Better Off Red?", MRC's new study looking back 20 years ago to the fall of the Berlin Wall] In the editorial's second-last paragraph, the Journal reminds us of an alleged journalist who was so blinded by his partisan disdain for any Republican in power that he refused to acknowledge what had become clear years earlier, and of the risk-averse weenies who tried to talk him out of delivering the signature line of what is probably his most famous speech (bold is mine): NYT's Krugman Quotes 1960s Song Proving ObamaCare Opponents' Point
Before he got cute with his title, Krugman should have gone to the song's full lyrics, as they only serve to prove that what he describes as paranoia is, based on what is in HB 3962 (or was, if excised at the last minute), really very justifiable concern and fear. Or maybe he read the lyrics and was too dense to appreciate their meaning in the current circumstances. The song that apparently inspired Krugman's column title is "For What It's Worth," a 1966-1967 mini-hit by Buffalo Springfield. The album containing the song peaked at #80 on the hit charts; my recall is that the single made it to the mid-30s. That band featured Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Richie Furay, Jim Messina, and Dewey Martin. A YouTube of their lip-synching Smothers Brothers appearance is here. Here are a few paragraphs, otherwise known as insults to our intelligence, from Krugman, commenting on the crowd that gathered last Thursday to protest the House's statist health care bill. I'll follow it with the song's final lyrical lament that destroys Krugman's diatribe: AP, Covering ACORN La. Raid, Acts As If Only One Office Was Videotaped by O'Keefe and Giles
Absent prior knowledge, that's the impression you would have upon reading the Associated Press's coverage of the latest development in the ACORN saga, namely the raid on the organization's New Orleans office by Louisiana state investigators. AP writer Cain Burdeau only mentions O'Keefe's and Giles's videotaping efforts in Baltimore. The fact is that the pair have thus far presented the results of their efforts in five other locations, and may have more episodes in inventory for other opportune times. Here are the first five paragraphs of Budreau's coverage (bold is mine): Cash Crunch, Press Silence: As ObamaCare Advances In Congress, Uncle Sam's Collections Continue Steep Drop
Though it won't be official until Tim Geithner's crew releases its Monthly Treasury Statement next week, it's virtually certain that the government's collections will open the year in a deep hole compared to last year, and probably well behind what CBO expects. Take a look at this compilation of key items from October's final Daily Treasury Statement, compared to the actual results from October 2008 and 2007: Wholly Ineffective: Lefty Boycott of Whole Foods Has No Noticeable Financial Impact
Whole Foods (WFMI) announced its financial results for the quarter ended September 30 yesterday. The quarter closed about 50 days after outraged leftists called for a boycott of the grocery chain to retaliate for a Wall Street Journal op-ed written by CEO John Mackey. In that column, Mackey identified "Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit," asserting that:
Well, if there's so much support out there for statist health care, you would think that the Whole Foods boycott dedicated to punishing an opponent would have had a significant impact on the company's most recent quarterly results. It's About Time: AP Admits Ford 'Has Benefited From Customer Goodwill' For Not Taking Govt. $
In the eighth paragraph of their article covering October's auto sales, AP reporters Tom Krisher and Dee-Ann Durbin recognized part of the reason -- and perhaps the most important reason -- why Ford has been cleaning the clocks of General Motors and Chrysler all year long:
Though October seems at first glance to have turned out somewhat differently than the first nine months of the year for Detroit's sort-of Big 3, that really isn't the case: Wait, I Thought It Was Over; AP Blurb Says Recession 'Will Likely Take Years to Abate'
The Associated Press reporter didn't get the memo that recession is supposedly over, and that at a minimum you shouldn't be writing as if it will be with us for a while. She also erred in citing the weak economy as a bad thing for Democrats. The New York Times told us about a week ago that a bad economy is a good thing for Democrats who want to pass state-controlled health care and other freedom-restricting agenda items, because a bad economy increases personal insecurity. They're such pals of the little guy, you see. Both busts against the conventional media wisdom are in Kellman's brief item from late this morning (bolds are mine):
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