CNN.com

CNN, the most trusted name in - doodling?

In a showcase piece of just how far the network has sunk journalistically speaking, they have produced a segment that could only be described as childishly one-sided. The title of the piece - Palin Fantasies Revealed in Doodles.

The reality is that the analysis of these doodles reveals more about CNN's fantasies than anything else. It is a piece so laden with PDS overtones, so bereft of integrity, that one has to wonder how it can possibly be offered up by CNN as news.

Reporter Jeanne Moos compares two doodles, one done by President-elect Barack Obama, and one by Governor Sarah Palin, back when she was running for mayor. She manages to find some people on the street to comment on the two doodles, and the results are incredibly biased toward one side. And guess who gets the positive coverage...

Link and embedded video below the fold.

How is it that in this time of historic change and euphoria, the media can remain so pessimistic?

The messiah has been elected, ACORN and Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie are stealing an election in Minnesota, conservatives are going to be silenced via the Fair-Less Doctrine, and gay marriage activists are assaulting the elderly. It is a time of hope and optimism in this, our liberal country.

So, why so negative?

The answer of course is, certain news might be perceived as a positive point in the waning days of the Bush Administration.

The bias, after the break…

***Video Linked Below Fold***

What is it about CNN that they have to distort things that Governor Sarah Palin has said in interviews? This time, CNN even distorted what she said in an interview one of its own correspondents conducted. On CNN's Political Ticker Blog on November 11, CNN had this absurd headline:Palin in Obama's administration? And followed that up with a paragraph that materially misstated what she told their own commentator, Wolf Blitzer.

Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said Wednesday she would be honored to help out President-elect Barack Obama in his new administration, even if he did hang around with an "unrepentant domestic terrorist."

Yet, the several paragraphs that follow shows that the header and the into paragraph twist what it is she really said. If one were to read just the headline and that first paragraph of the Political Ticker entry, one would get a very distorted view of what the governor said.

The Los Angeles Times and CNN.com came to different conclusions on Wednesday about the results of the vote in California over Proposition 8, with the Los Angeles Time reporting on Wednesday morning (local time) that "California voters approve Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriages," while CNN stated that the "California ban on same-sex marriage undecided." As of late Wednesday morning, 95% of the precincts had reported their vote tallies, and 52% had voted in favor of the proposition, while 48% voted against it.

Staff writers Jessica Garrison, Cara Mia DiMassa, and Nancy Vogel, who wrote the LA Times article, gave a straight-forward outline of the battle over Proposition 8 during the past months, summarizing who had supported and opposed the proposal. On the other hand, the unsigned CNN story devoted only the first three paragraphs to the California proposition, and spent the rest of the article to ballot initiatives in other states.

In reporting the speech by Gov. Sarah Palin in Ohio today, CNN’s Political Ticker tried to spin her question about Obama’s coal comment as old news when it clearly isn’t. Palin asked why we are just now finding out about the interview where Barack Obama said he had hoped to bankrupt the coal industry but CNN termed this interview and Obama’s startling admission as “months-old coal comments” in an attempt to soften the blow to Ohio and Pennsylvania voters. The Political Ticker said that since the San Francisco Chronicle had these comments on its website for nine months, the news of Obama’s quote was no big deal. But this is a misleading claim.

As we know from P.J. Gladnick’s NewsBusters report, Obama admitted that his intention for new coal plants was to slap so many fees, regulations and taxes on any new venture that it would “bankrupt” the company that tries it.

Blogger Paul Ibrahim found that CNN isn’t doing its homework when it passes along touching stories of lifelong Republicans voting for Obama. On CNN’s Political Ticker blog, under the headline "Republican drives 600 miles to vote for Obama," reporter Mary Snow wrote from Columbus, Ohio with the story of one Aaron Wheeler:

Lines were the last thing on Aaron Wheeler’s mind as he explained why he drove 600 miles back to his old hometown from Virginia, where he moved this month, to vote in what he called "one of the proudest days" of his life.

"My family has been Republican for three generations," he said, but "I knew I had to change and vote Democrat in the first time almost ever."

Wheeler said he was one of about 16 black Republican delegates at the 2004 GOP convention, and was proud to support George W. Bush.

This time, he said, he did not attend the Republican convention –and decided he would go one step further and vote for Democrat Barack Obama.

CNN contributor Roland Martin’s Wednesday column on CNN.com bluntly accused Republicans of exhibiting "fear and desperation" in their criticism of Barack Obama: "McCain's campaign is no longer about issues. He and his supporters want to bring up anything and everything to derail Obama, and nothing is sticking, so they just keep returning to their old bag of tricks." This "bag" apparently includes bringing up issues like Obama’s 20-year relationship with left-wing firebrand Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the socialist labeling of the Democratic presidential candidate, and his associations with terrorist Bill Ayers and ACORN.

Martin first labeled McCain an "old fighter," but not as a compliment: "Watching Sen. John McCain and top Republicans swing wildly in their attempts to slam Sen. Barack Obama, with less than two weeks ago to go before Election Day, is like watching an old fighter -- clearly out of gas, his legs turned to rubber, and all he can do is grab, hold, punch behind the back, just anything to try to win." He then used his "old bag of tricks" line.

CNN's Presidential Debate Report Card echoes most polls offered by the main stream media.  It involves 60% Democrats as a sample group, and if your response doesn't agree with their agenda, then some ‘alterations' are made.  In other words, the results are weighted to provide liberals with an edge. 

The Web site's latest report card allows the viewer to rate the performance of both Presidential candidates in Wednesday's debate.  Seems pretty straight-forward, right?  But things weren't working properly for some readers.

In fact, when visiting the Barack Obama side of the report card first, all is seemingly well. Votes are counted and recorded correctly.  Everything seems just dandy.  However, when one visits the John McCain side first, things can get a little peculiar. 

This peculiarity occurred several times early Thursday afternoon, and will be outlined after the break.

When clicking on a choice of grade for McCain's debate performance, I went with an A, as can be seen here with the highlight:

An unsigned article on CNN.com about Sarah Palin’s rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania on Saturday failed to mention the Alaska governor’s attack on Barack Obama’s votes against the Illinois Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, and quickly tried the change the subject to the recent "Troopergate" finding against her after its first sentence: "Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin charged into the culture wars Saturday in Pennsylvania, painting Sen. Barack Obama as a radical on abortion rights. The stop comes amid news that Palin violated Alaska ethics law by trying to get her former brother-in-law fired from the state police, a state investigator's report for the bipartisan Legislative Council concluded Friday."

The CNN article then continued about the apparent divisiveness of the abortion issue: "Ethics woes aside, Palin focused her attention on abortion -- an issue that rallies the conservative base but some say alienates independent and women voters." After quoting from some of the governor’s comments at the rally, the anonymous writer tried to spin the significance of her bringing up the issue: "Palin has mostly avoided raising her opposition to abortion rights on the campaign trail since she was tapped as Sen. John McCain's running mate, a fact she readily acknowledged in her remarks. But Palin said Obama's record on the matter is too extreme to be ignored, and she spent 10 minutes of her 30-minute speech discussing abortion."

Updated below. Last Monday as the U.S. House of Representatives voted down the initial bailout package, both Fox News and CNN sent e-mail alert subscribers numerous alerts about the Dow's dive. The market recovered some the following day, a development that CNN neglected to mention in the same e-mail alerts.

Yet today, with the bailout package having been passed and signed into law by the president just three days earlier, the market cratered yet again, diving well below 10,000 before finally closing down just a bit shy of 370 points to close down at 9,955.5, the first time the Dow has closed under 10,000 since October 26, 2004.

This time CNN.com didn't care to notice. By way of contrast, here's how Fox News and ABCNews alerted e-mail subscribers today:

The mainstream media is going through another one of their meltdown moments as they rush to defend Barack Obama from his relationship with American terrorists William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. (plural)

John Stephenson of Newsbusters detailed CNN's supposed fact check that came in response to a speech that Sarah Palin gave. In that speech Palin did the job the mainstream media refuses to do by mentioning the words terrorists, relationships and Barack Obama in a single sentence while referring to the former Weather Underground leaders.

In rushing to Barack Obama's defense CNN slipped the following into the end of their fact check: 

The McCain campaign did not respond Saturday to a request for elaboration on Palin's use of the plural "terrorists."

Well excuse me, but why should they? If CNN doesn't know that Bernardine Dohrn was a leader of the Weather Underground while they were bombing federal buildings and police stations why should the McCain campaign give CNN the legitimacy of a real news organization by providing a response?

One of CNN's citizen reporters on their new iReport service caused a bit of panic for Apple's stock prices this week when one of those reports featured a false claim that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack. With rumors swirling the stock price fell until official news from Apple quashing the rumor calmed investors' fears.

Note to all those media members claiming how much more intelligent Joe Biden is than Sarah Palin: the pompous, holier-than-thou Senator from Delaware spoke at about an eighth-grade level during Thursday's vice presidential debate while Gov. Palin communicated her thoughts at almost a tenth-grade level.

Say it isn't so, Joe!

As deliciously reported by CNN.com Friday (photo courtesy AP):

Remember the furor and the comedic punch lines as a result of Sarah Palin’s statement, implying that she needed someone to clarify the role of the Vice President?

Well, brace yourselves for a similarly overwhelming media reaction to Joe Biden’s solution on where one can locate the definition of the Vice President’s role – Article I of the Constitution.

Problem being, it’s actually Article II.

To most, this will simply constitute another famous Biden gaffe. However, Biden was so forceful and patronizing in his argument during last night’s debate that Dick Cheney should realize ‘Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president,’ that it bears pointing out.

The full excerpt from the debate follows (h/t to Michelle Malkin):

While both CNN.com and FoxNews.com sent e-mail alert subscribers "breaking news" alerts on the Dow's steep slide yesterday in reaction to failure of the bailout package in the House of Representatives, CNN didn't think it worthy of a breaking news text to note the gains made today in the market.

Here are the Fox News text messages sent on September 30 regarding the Dow Jones:

• DOW REGAINS NEARLY 500 POINTS ONE DAY AFTER RECORD LOSS (received 4:08 p.m. EDT)
• DOW REBOUNDING, UP MORE THAN 300 POINTS A DAY AFTER 778-POINT FREEFALL (received 1:27 p.m. EDT)

Below, in reverse chronological order are the text message alerts I received from Fox News and CNN.com yesterday tracking the Dow's drop.:

Following up on our item on CNN.com last week, Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Florida) has apologized for his attack on Sarah Palin that strangely smeared hunters and gun owners as racists and anti-Semites: "anybody toting guns and stripping moose don't care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks."

CNN Political Ticker reports it again, but there's no explicit identification of Hastings as a Democrat (plus no mention in either post that Hastings was impeached and removed as a federal judge.) The headline is bland again: "Black Florida congressman apologies [sic] for Palin comments."

CNN's Martina Stewart elides the D label by noting Hastings "spoke at a panel on the shared agenda of Jewish and African-American Democrats during the annual conference of the National Jewish Democratic Council," and was attacked by Jewish  Republicans, so a reader can deduce the point. But it's funny how reporters can just tiptoe around the basics. 

CNN’s Web site this morning tracked a developing story involving the stock market opening, by featuring a photo of an Iran anti-war protest. The photo, provided by our friends at the AP, was simply too perfect to pass up apparently. After all, any photo which includes a man brandishing a banner which reads ‘Jail Bush,’ is something that a biased news organization simply has to take. Pertinence be damned. Seriously, nothing says the economy quite like a placard reading ‘No attack on Iran.’ CNN probably could have found a photo that actually applied to the topic of a sliding stock market. Was a stock photo of a line graph with a red arrow pointing down not available at the most trusted name in news? No picture of someone ringing the opening bell? The story itself was titled ‘Wall Street Drops at Open,’ and to its credit, did not include the photo within the article. Oddly enough however, there was no mention of 'Iran' in the article that the above photo linked to either. Nor was there any mention of the word 'war.' Or 'protest.'

In a refreshingly new look at the “Bridge to Nowhere” on CNN.com, reporters Drew Griffin and Kathleen Johnston of the CNN Special Investigations Unit reported that Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Joe Biden both “voted to keep the project alive twice.”

When deciding between funding for the Bridge to Nowhere and repairing a bridge in Louisana post-Katrina, the two liberal senators chose the Alaskan bridge.

Both Biden and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama voted to kill a Senate amendment that would have diverted federal funding for the bridge to repair a Louisiana span badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina, Senate records show.

It's good to know that Team Obama is up to date on the latest news from Iraq. Since the media are so eager to report the “lies” and gaffes by Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin, will they cover the mistake Democrat Joe Biden, the man known as a “Gaffe Machine," made on Wednesday, September 24?

Biden's tough-talking Cincinatti, Ohio foreign policy speech was designed to boost Obama's credibility on the War on Terror and foster confidence in the Illinois Senator's ability to handle international issues. The Dem veep pick discussed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and attempted to talk down McCain's positions while portraying Obama as the true expert.

In the process, Biden laid the bluster on thick and appeared to either be dishonest or unable to keep up with the news--or both--by claiming “... the surge is over, and the political reconciliation it was supposed to produce has not materialized." (transcript)

Unfortunately for Biden, news broke that same day about Iraq's “major step toward national reconciliation." CNN wrote (all emphasis mine):

CNN's Political Ticker blog didn't bury the lead on Wednesday afternoon:

Rep. Alcee Hastings told an audience of Jewish Democrats Wednesday that they should be wary of Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin because “anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks.”

So not only is Palin a racist and anti-Semite, so is anyone who totes a gun? But CNN's headline was ridiculously bland: "Florida congressman points to Palin to rally Jews to Obama."

CNN's Martina Stewart added that the crowd at the National Jewish Democratic Council roared at this mudslingling line, that "the room erupted in laughter and applause." Another congressman, Jewish Rep. Steven Cohen, announced Jesus was a Democrat:

CNN.com on Tuesday covered for Democrat vice presidential candidate Joe Biden's comment that the Obama campaign ad making fun of John McCain's inability to use a computer "was terrible." 

According to CNN's Alexander Mooney, "Joe Biden can rest easy" for making this remark during his interview Monday with "CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric because the ad "only ran 6 times" (video embedded right, full report on Couric's interview by my colleague Brent Baker available here).

Well, that's six times more than 1964's "Daisy" ad -- which historians believe helped President Lyndon Johnson defeat Barry Goldwater -- initially aired. In fact, even the liberal Wikipedia views it that way:

On PBS's Web site today, ombudsman Michael Getler writes of complaints over an incident during last Sunday's pledge drive.  He describes the cheap shot taken by actor Mike Farrell against vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin:

According to Joseph Campbell, vice president of fundraising programs, here's what happened:

On last night's Election Center, CNN Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin, Senior Political Analyst Gloria Borger and CNN Anchor Campbell Brown continued to promote the Obama talking point that John McCain had lied in an ad about Barack Obama's record on a sex education bill in the Illinois state Senate.

McCain's ad says Barack Obama's "one accomplishment" as a state senator was "legislation to teach ‘comprehensive sex education' to kindergarteners."

Toobin listed it among several "outright falsehoods" from McCain, and Borger claimed the Obama-backed bill was "about teaching children to recognize sexual predators."

The Obama camp and many media have repeated the line that the bill was only about protecting kids from sexual predators. But the McCain ad is correct. The bill, SB 99, is a radical expansion of sex education, ratcheting down the initiation age from sixth grade to kindergarten, and eliminating moral language that supports marriage and abstinence. Only a tiny portion of the bill addresses how kids can be protected from unwanted sexual advances.

So what do you do if you're reporting on an MSNBC interview with McCain adviser Carly Fiorina in which she states that neither of the major party presidential candidates nor their vice presidential running mates qualify to run a major corporation?  If you're the folks at CNNPolitics.com, you headline the story "McCain adviser Fiorina: Palin not ready to run a corporation."

The MSNBC story, "If she can't run a major company..." cites a recent Fiorina radio interview in which she was asked if Sarah Palin has the experience to run a major company like Hewlett-Packard, which Fiorina formerly served as CEO:

Gov. Sarah Palin is so popular that the demand for McCain-Palin paraphernalia has "hijack[ed]" the Web site for Cafepress.com, according to the headline writers at CNN.com.:

Palin 'phenomenon' hijacks online sales

(CNN) -- For the first time since the start of the election, merchandise for John McCain's campaign rivals sales of Barack Obama gear at CafePress, an online store specializing in user-generated T-shirts.

The store saw a huge spike in sales on the day McCain announced Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice presidential pick, and McCain sales have been on the rise ever since.

"It was basically like Black Friday in retail terms," said Amy Maniatis, vice president of marketing for CafePress.

The campaign handlers for Barack Obama have obviously decided that there will be no more failed jokes ala Kerry's "stupid kids get stuck in Iraq" faux pas of the 2006 campaign. Barack apparently blew his chance for ostensible extemporaneous elocution after his failed "lip stick on a pig" joke went over like a lead balloon last week. According to CNN, Obama is suddenly speaking from a teleprompter at outdoor campaign rallies.

One can just imagine how McCain would be eviscerated by the press if he had to start using a teleprompter at the average campaign stop. What sort of "senility" jokes would the press be filled with at that point? One can just guess that this news will be greeted with a yawn even though it seems to be a pretty strong curtailment of Obama's freedom to speak extemporaneously on the stump.

John Stephenson at NewsBusters early this morning asked, “Will (the) Media Report Obama’s Mocking of McCain’s Disability?”

The answer is "I doubt it," at least beyond their blogs. Print edition or televised examples will be rare to non-existent.

Two other pertinent items will also probably be ignored:

• Bill Clinton's acknowledged lack of tech skills and virtual non-use of e-mail.
• More important, the high likelihood that the next President of the United States, like his two predecessors, will rarely, if ever, use e-mail.

NB commenter "mikej" at Stephenson's post did some web searching a falsely giddy Team Obama apparently didn't have the time for (or do they not know how?). "mikej" found the following January 28, 2004 CNN Reuters item carried at CNN.com about Bill Clinton's nearly non-existent e-mailing during his presidency (bolds after title are mine):

 On CNN's American Morning today, White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux reported on Barack Obama's campaigning in Virginia.  Afterwards, anchor Kiran Chetry had a question:

CHETRY: All right. And Suzanne, what's on tap for the campaign today? And please tell me it's not lipstick again.

MALVEAUX: Let's hope not. He's going to be in Norfolk, Virginia. That is in southeast Virginia, and it's home to the world's largest Naval base. It's one of the most competitive areas that the Democrats and Republicans are fighting over. It's a critical piece of property, piece of land there with folks in Virginia, and they want those voters.

[Update, 3:05 pm: Transcript of Toobin's remarks added below.]

For two straight days, CNN repeated liberal rumors about Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s political record – rumors that had already been debunked by their own correspondents, as well as the respected FactCheck.org, a group led by former CNN reporter Brooks Jackson.

During Monday evening’s Election Center program, CNN’s senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin claimed that Palin "wants to ban all abortions," despite a September 2 report by his own network which included a quote from the Alaska governor that she is "pro-life... [w]ith the exception of a doctor's determination that the mother's life would end if the pregnancy continued." Toobin also claimed that Palin "wants to treat -- to have creationism taught in public schools." This isn’t the entire story. A FactCheck.org report released on Monday, which aimed to refute "dubious Internet postings and mass e-mail messages making claims about McCain's running mate," clarified that Palin "supports teaching creationism alongside evolution, though she has not actively pursued such a policy as governor."

The media's ham-handed attempts at grasping and accurately reporting religious belief are have only been magnified recently in light of the MSM's obsession with Gov. Sarah Palin's prior attendance at Pentecostal churches.

From Randi Kaye's September 9 CNN.com article, "Pastor: GOP may be downplaying Palin's religious beliefs":

Some Pentecostals from Assembly of God also believe in "faith healing" and the "end times" -- a violent upheaval that they believe will deliver Jesus Christ's second coming.

"Our basic belief is that God is God and he knows where history is going and he has a purposeful plan and within the middle of that plan we live in an environment in our world where certain events would take place," says McGraw. "Sarah wasn't taught to look for one particular sign -- a cataclysmic sign. She knew as every Christian does ... that God is sovereign and he is in control."

The language above seems to paint Pentecostals as on the fringe of Christianity, and Kaye's use of dismissive quote marks for "faith healing" and "end times" helps to communicate that to the reader. But the concept of the end times is not a wacky, outside-the-mainstream of Christianity belief. It's essential to the eschatology of all orthodox Christian denominations and rooted in Christian Scripture (from Theopedia.com):