CNN

Matt Sheffield's post over at Ace's place ("The Attempted Crucifixion of Frank Luntz") noted the heat PBS had received for having GOP pollster Frank Luntz participate as an analyst at last Thursday's Democrat debate:

The blog left's puppet master, David Brock, sends out an "alert" informing them that someone who might possibly be conservative is going to be allowed to report as a "mainstream" journalist.

..... Thankfully, PBS has not backed down. Luntz, who is a respected pollster and is often quoted in liberal publications is not getting the shaft, making him one of the very few Republicans that has (so far) managed to escape the assault of the conservaphobic left.

Mr. Brock and his Media Matters (MM) organization are being quite selective.

In August 2006, longtime "Friend of Bill" Clinton Vinod Gupta's Info USA, which had spent its entire corporate history in "data collection and distribution," made what should have been seen as an eyebrow-raising acquisition:

CNN contributor Roland Martin jumped on the Elizabeth Edwards bandwagon during an appearance on Thursday's "American Morning," and launched two fronts of attack on Coulter for her recent comments about John Edwards. First, in reply to co-host Kiran Chetry's question on whether Elizabeth Edwards should have even dignified Ann Coulter with a phone call, Martin invoked the schoolyard. "I think she should have, because at some point, you have to punch the bully in the mouth."

Roland Martin, a columnist and talk radio host, makes frequent appearances on "American Morning," which are also broadcast on his Chicago-based radio show. After Martin discussed Coulter's "track record" of "outlandish comments," as he put it, Chetry posed the question that brought out his schoolyard comparison.

The search for missing pregnant Ohio woman Jessie Davis and the ongoing investigation into her murder has been all the rage recently on the twenty-four hour news networks, only surpassed by a few "choice" stories such as the coverage of the imprisonment of Paris Hilton. Not surprisingly, one network, CNN, used the murder of this young woman to forward a left-wing agenda. Two guests on Monday's "Paula Zahn Now" program warned that a "big risk factor" or a "big red flag" in cases of domestic violence and/or homicide against pregnant woman are "men who are gun owners."

Host Paula Zahn had three women guests on to discuss the question, "What is it about pregnancy that seems to increase a woman's risk of being killed by her partner?" The first guest to speak, Dr. Gail Saltz of New York Presbyterian Hospital, focused on the increased stresses on a woman and her "partner" during a pregnancy. The second guest, Jacquelyn Campbell, a nursing professor at John Hopkins University, was asked by Zahn if many of the murders of pregnant woman take place very late in the pregnancy. While answering, Campbell included in her list of risk factors "men who are gun owners as particularly dangerous in these cases."

Just over 12 hours after Monday's NBC Nightly News reported that 50 out of 141 high school seniors visiting the White House presented President Bush with a handwritten letter asking him to "stop the violations of the human rights of... all detainees, including those designated enemy combatants," CNN's "American Morning" had 3 of the 50 students on for an interview. Co-host John Roberts asked the students to recount their experiences writing the letter, obtaining signatures, and handing it to the president, and asked one student, "[I]n response, the president said, ‘we respect human rights,' do you buy that?"

The three students who were interviewed - Mari Oye, Leah Anthony Libresco, and Colin McSwiggen, all recently-graduated high school students, were among the one-third of the Presidential Scholars who signed a letter asking President Bush, among other things, "to do all in your power to stop violations of the human rights of detainees, to cease illegal renditions, and to apply the Geneva Convention to all detainees, including those designated enemy combatants." Roberts emphasized the apparent intelligence of the three. "And you want to talk about brain power, the collective group that you're seeing there. Mari and Leah going to Yale next year, Colin accepted to MIT." None from the remaining two-thirds who didn't sign the letter made an appearance on "American Morning."

“American Morning” provided another forecast of mostly cloudy skies for the housing market on June 26.

“I got to tell you John [Roberts, “American Morning” co-host], this is not good news for people who are out there trying to sell their house and this of course is supposed to be the biggest time of year for sales,” said Gerri Willis to begin her report.

Willis, the personal finance correspondent for CNN and host of “Open House” was reporting new data from the National Association of Realtors that showed lower median home prices and slipping sales.

While the NAR data was downbeat, Willis called it too “upbeat” and “optimistic.” She then labeled a doomsayer with a more negative prediction “respected."

Make a crazy eco-rule that affects thousands and the mainstream media finds critics – who said it doesn’t go far enough.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome banned city departments from purchasing bottled water, even for water coolers. But that wasn’t good enough for Greenpeace Energy Policy analyst Samantha Rogers.

Rogers told CNN’s “American Morning” fill-in host Rob Marciano she wanted to see the mayor do more than just ban plastic bottles, but to sign a plan championed by global warming doomsayers that would force the city to have more than 50 percent of its energy come from renewable resources by the year 2017.

During CNN Newsroom on Saturday, correspondent Veronica de la Cruz showed portions of three recorded questions (out of a total of 197 that were posted so far on Youtube.com) that were submitted for the upcoming CNN/Youtube debates. Two of the clips featured questions that were asked from a liberal point-of-view, while one was asked from a conservative point-of-view, in which a woman cited the plummeting crime rate in Kennesaw, Georgia, after the town enacted mandatory gun ownership. But while both liberal questions were played in their entirety, only the first eight seconds out of one minute of the gun control question were played: "An armed society is a polite society. And indeed, Kennesaw, Georgia got a whole lot more polite after passing a law that every household had to have a gun." (Clip of entire question can be viewed here.) (Transcript follows)

CNN’s Howard Kurtz invited CBS’ Lara Logan on “Reliable Sources” Sunday, and it was difficult to tell what was more disgraceful: the way that Kurtz disingenuously set up Logan to bash Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, or; Logan’s amazingly hypocritical answer regarding journalists’ role during wartime wherein she proudly stated:

“We’re there to be the watchdog for all sides.”

I kid you not. In fact, Logan made it quite clear that in her view, journalism is more important than American lives or the war effort.

To set this up, Kurtz said the following to his guest:

The energy debate on the Hill could help determine policy and prices for decades. Just don’t expect CNN to report it in a fair way.

Instead, you get Ali Velshi, the ‘American Morning’ business reporter, taking swipes at energy companies and the Republican Party. While the GOP stopped plans for a new tax to pay for more Democratic goodies, Velshi said the Republican wasn’t “particularly sound.”

That’s OK, he also complained that the oil companies are “getting off free.” Apparently, Velshi, not always known for math accuracy, needs a tune-up when it comes to taxes. Oil companies paid an estimated $48.36 billion in income taxes in 2004. They also collect a similar number in excise taxes for Uncle Sugar.

Last week, the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas took over Gaza in what was described by many as a bloodbath.

Just days later, CNN’s Ben Wedeman filed a report from the region in which he glowingly praised these terrorists’ efforts to bring “law and order in the new Gaza.”

In a video segment that was aired at various times Thursday, Wedeman exclusively interviewed Gaza residents who seemed thrilled now that Hamas has wrested control of the region.

At the same time, no mention was given to: the killing that preceded his interviews, or the number of injured waiting for medical assistance and/or to be evacuated.

Maybe even worse, not one disgrunted resident was questioned (video available here, h/t NB member Allanf):

When it was announced Tuesday that China surpassed the United States as the world’s leading emitter of carbon dioxide, NewsBusters asked, “Will Media Notice?”

In reality, the answer is a mixed windbag, with most press outlets totally ignoring the revelation, and a few actually blaming the problem on – wait for it! – the United States. I kid you not.

However, before we address that stupidity, it first must be relayed that not one of the television news outlets bothered reporting the Chinese CO2 data at all. It appears that television news divisions only feel CO2 is a problem if it’s emitted by American corporations or citizens.

As for the print media, the few that did cover this story either gave it very little attention, or made some fairly predictable excuses for why it’s okay as the planet nears its seemingly inevitable doom at the hands of greenhouse gases for China to be the leading “polluter.”

For instance, the New York Times devoted a total of 83 words to this story in its “World Briefing Asia” section Thursday on page A12 (no link available):

CNN contributor Roland S. Martin advised Democrats to emulate two of their past presidential candidates - Jesse Jackson Sr. and Bobby Kennedy - and play up the issue of poverty, which is a place that he thinks "where candidates can make some kind of headway in trying to appeal to voters beyond the middle class or the upper income voters."

Martin makes regular appearances on CNN’s "American Morning," and besides being a CNN contributor, he is a syndicated columnist and talk radio host. Co-host Kiran Chetry on Thursday’s "American Morning" asked to comment on a recent column in which he advised the Democrats to reach out to poor whites, and to focus their attention on the issue of poverty, particlarly in rural areas. As he did in his column, he gave the examples of Jesse Jackson Sr.’s campaigns in 1984 and 88, as well as Bobby Kennedy’s trip down to the Mississippi Delta region in order to reach out to poor people.

Have we entered the Twilight Zone? A mainstream media outlet is going after Congress, particularly a Democrat Congress, for not living up to one of their promises?

CNN correspondent Drew Griffin and a team of two staffers and six interns all 435 members of the House of Representatives a simple question - if they get obtain a copy of each representative's earmark request. Even with the Democrats' campaign promise before the last election that they wanted a more "open" government, 330 members of the House never responded to the simple request. Another 67 refused the interns' request. Ultimately, they were only able to obtain the earmark requests from the offices of 31 representatives. Out of the 31, seven said they had no earmark requests in the fiscal year 2008 budget.

CNN aired two different reports about this, one on "Anderson Cooper 360" on June 18, and the other on the June 19 "American Morning." The report on "Anderson Cooper 360" aired the following excerpt from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

DREW GRIFFIN: ...Last week Speaker Nancy Pelosi hailed a new open earmark process saying finally the American people will know where their money is going, and then she said this.

REP. NANCY PELOSI, (D) HOUSE SPEAKER: If I just might direct the record to another place, why don't we just leave this room today forgetting the word earmark? This is legislatively directed spending as opposed to executive spending.

GRIFFIN: And Ms. Pelosi, for the record, a member of your staff told us you would not reveal your "legislatively directed spending requests."

On Tuesday's The Situation Room on CNN, substitute host John King asked a question rarely asked by other journalists as he inquired whether the Democratic presidential candidates are moving too far left as they appeal to the anti-war movement, which King tagged the "juice of the left." During a discussion of the candidates' participation in the liberal Take Back America Conference and in an event for the labor union AFSCME, the CNN host asked Democratic strategist Paul Begala whether the push to withdraw from Iraq could "come back to haunt the party in a general election." King: "Anti-war is the theme, the energy, the juice of the left right now. ...  Any concerns at all on your part that all of this, bring the troops home now, bring the troops home now, turn the page, close the door on Iraq, can come back to haunt the party in a general election?" (Transcript follows)

Brian Fitzpatrick of our Culture and Media Institute passes along the latest nugget of wisdom from CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin (also of The New Yorker magazine), on the Supreme Court and partial birth abortion:

Most notoriously, the Court, for the first time in its history, upheld a categorical ban on an abortion procedure. The case dealt with so-called partial-birth abortion—a procedure performed rarely, often when there are extraordinary risks to the mother, the fetus, or both.

Writes Brian, as he nominates this for stupidest quote of the year: "Oh, sure. As if an abortionist takes risks to the fetus into account!" What genius from the Harvard man (B.A. 1982, J.D., 1986)!

Christiane Amanpour is a leading example of biased mainstream media journalism, particularly with regard to the Iraq war. She appeared on Monday's "American Morning" program on CNN with co-host John Roberts, and repeated the platitude that mainstream media reports "without fear nor favor... giving voice to those who don't have a voice, and just simply trying to tell the truth..." As she continued, she revealed her own bias. "...[W]e must always remember that our job is not to be part of the propaganda campaign, but to report without fear nor favor, because if we don't, we can get really into a big disaster. And I, as you know, feel strongly that that's what happened in the lead-up to the Iraq war."

Video (1:14): Real (2.00 MB) or Windows Media (2.26 MB), plus MP3 audio (346 kB).

On Thursday, Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds was curious how quickly Israel would be blamed for Hamas’ activities in Gaza, with the answer expeditiously coming from the Boston Globe.

Well, CNN’s Jack Cafferty one-upped the Globe Friday by actually blaming Hamas' takeover of Gaza on – wait for it! – President George W. Bush.

Color me unsurprised.

In his normal spot on CNN’s “The Situation Room,” Cafferty exhibited some of the most extraordinary Bush Derangement Syndrome yet as he blamed every problem in the Middle East on the current White House (video available here):

 In yet another example of either Castro-philia or ill-informed gullibility by a member of the press, this time from CNN's Larry King, who fell for the propaganda of Hollywood, leftists and Fidel Castro who portray the oppressive Communist dictator in the media as a Communist--uh, strike that--socialist Sheriff Andy Taylor, who is so beloved by his “constituents,” that he is never challenged and doesn't need to take basic security precautions.

On a June 14 encore of a Glenn Beck show which originally aired May 17, the “Larry King Live” host responded to Beck's question which asked who King wished he could have interviewed. King answered Pope Jon Paul II and Fidel Castro. King didn't seem to want to interview Castro to discuss the brutal hold that he maintained on the island, now supposedly passed on to his brother Raul, or his relationship with Hugo Chavez, another civil rights-crushing dictator, but because he's so popular and, apparently, doesn't need bodyguards (from CNN transcript, bold mine):

KING: And the guy I`d like to do is Castro, because he fascinates me.
BECK: Better hurry on that one.

KING: I know. When you -- we`re getting close. When you can run a country for more years than anybody ever ran a country in this century, the 20th century until now, you`ve got to -- there`s got to -- somebody likes him.

On Thursday's The O'Reilly Factor, during his show's regular "Talking Points Memo," FNC's Bill O'Reilly attacked NBC News/MSNBC for its Iraq war coverage, listing several examples he found worthy of criticism, and defended himself against accusations that some of his recent comments about his show's level of war coverage were insensitive to U.S. troops. O'Reilly: "The latest NBC News indignity is trying to convince their few viewers that Fox News is negligent because we don't cover every terrorist incident in Iraq. Somehow we're insulting military families if we don't run in the explosion du jour."

The FNC host was likely responding to comments MSNBC general manager Dan Abrams made while guest hosting on Tuesday's Scarborough Country in which Abrams took exception with the way O'Reilly worded his rationale for not covering the violence in Iraq more throughly. Abrams: "But today's big loser, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, who insulted our troops and our intelligence today when he said that it does not, quote, 'mean anything,' when a bomb goes off in Iraq. It was part of a horrible effort to undermine a new study that shows Fox covers the Iraq war far less than MSNBC." (Transcripts follow)

The Networks ‘Lame’ Argument

On June 12, all three morning shows parroted DNC talking points and declared President Bush a "lame duck." "Good Morning America" solemnly noted that the phrase would likely follow Bush throughout his trip to Capitol Hill. (Apparently this is the theory that if the networks say something enough, everyone will believe it.)

Please Don’t Be Mad

Speaking of "Good Morning America," co-anchor Chris Cuomo conducted a groveling interview with Michael Moore in which he backtracked from calling the liberal filmmaker’s new movie a stunt. "Look, I like the stunt," he corrected.

Sorry, Jack

Apparently CNN’s Jack Cafferty is having a Vietnam flashback. He recently lemented that anti-war protestors aren’t "tearing up college campuses."

When two mainstream media outlets like CNN and the New York Times converge as they did on Thursday's "American Morning" and discuss Hillary Clinton, you might expect sugar-coated discussion of the leading Democrat presidential contender. But that wasn't the case when "American Morning" co-host Kiran Chetry interviewed New York Times correspondent Don Van Natta Jr., who is the co-author of a new book on Hillary Clinton entitled "Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton."

Here’s something a little more light for a Friday afternoon, but demonstrates the mainstream media’s biased view of the world.

Among the "Quick Hits" on CNN’s "American Morning" on Friday was a brief on how the drought in the Southeast is affecting the production of Jack Daniels Tennessee whiskey in Lynchburg, Tennessee. The water levels in the cave spring that supplies the Jack Daniels distillery are "dangerously low" according to the brief by co-host John Roberts.

After giving the brief, Roberts and substitute weather forecaster Reynolds Wolf began the weather report with the following exchange:

NewsBusters executive editor Matthew Sheffield appeared on the FNC show "Fox and Friends" Thursday morning (7:00am ET hour) to discuss fired CNN correspondent Jeff Koinange and the scandals surrounding his apparent staging of a news story as well as his use of network resources to conduct an affair with a source.

Video (4:02): Real (2.96 MB) or Windows Media (2.48 MB), plus MP3 audio (1.15 MB).

Update 7:50 | Matthew Sheffield. Well that was fun. Unfortunately the prior segment to mine ran a little long so we didn't get a chance to fully discuss the FNC Iraq question. Please see Tim Graham's followup on the subject if you're interested in more.

Talking to our Matt Sheffield on "Fox & Friends" this morning, FNC's Steve Doocy referred to an AP story that his network has noted repeatedly in recent days: that the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that FNC's doing less Iraq coverage than CNN or MSNBC. David Bauder sought out the MRC for balance, and we said the problem we have with the media elite is that they clearly see Fox as pandering to an audience and they don't see CNN as pandering to an audience. Media liberals routinely isolate Fox as a less journalistic, more propagandistic outlier -- they don't see networks inside their liberal bubble as the slightest bit questionable.

A more thorough study of Iraq coverage on cable is the MRC study by Noyes, Whitlock, and McCormack. As for PEJ, I made this breakdown of their campaign analysis on NRO Media Blog:

On his program last night Fox News host Bill O'Reilly blasted his cable competitors for their "delight in showing Iraqi violence," a product of an editorial mindset at CNN and MSNBC that "want[s] Americans to think badly of President Bush."

"And that strategy has succeeded," he added.

O'Reilly's words came in response to remarks made by CNN president Jon Klein who accused FNC of dialing back Iraq coverage as violence in Iraq has increased.

"It illustrates the danger of cheerleading for one particular point or another because they were obviously cheerleaders for the war," He told the AP. "When the war went badly they had to dial back coverage because it didn't fit their preconceived story lines."

“American Morning” today included an interview with the mother of the track athlete who apparently died from an overdose of the well-known muscle cream.

Alice-Lynn Newman called for the regulation of products like BENGAY on the June 12 program:

“I think that it should be given by prescription so limited amounts are given out, limited amounts at a time. So, if someone is using it too much, it is monitored by a physician,” said Newman.

Anchor John Roberts did not mention other possible factors involved in Arielle Newman’s death and only provided a short statement from manufacturer Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies, Inc. Nor did CNN include consult any medical experts on the show.

 

Update Below:

Fox News and Variety have reported that Larry Register, former longtime CNN producer, resigned Friday from Al Hurrah, which is a US government-funded TV station in the Mid-East that is supposed to be a type of Mid-East Voice of America combating the pervasive anti-US and anti-Israel rhetoric in on TV stations like Al Jazeera.

As I noted here at NewsBusters in March, “within weeks” of Register taking over in 2005, the station took a sharp turn toward the radical. Award-winning investigative journalist and columnist Joel Mowbray and the Wall Street Journal have been on top of this story, reporting the problems, which included Register reversing the Al Hurrah policy banning terrorists as guests, that resulted in the broadcast of most of an anti-US/anti-Israel rant by Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hasan Nasrallah and giving other terrorists and extremists air time. Al Hurrah later covered the Iranian conference that denied the Holocaust and hired Yasser Thabet, a well-known Al Jazeera editor who had a habit of “fawning over terrorists,” including broadcasting Osama Bin Ladin's unedited propaganda videos because “[i]t's important to hear [Bin Ladin's] opinions.”

Variety reported Register's resignation June 10 and printed a portion of the letter he submitted (bold mine throughout):

When asked if the scene from “Sicko” where Michael Moore passes by Guantanamo Bay was just a publicity student, CNN’s Lola Ogunnaike got serious.

“I think he was trying to prove a point. The point he was trying to make is you have these detainees at Guantanamo Bay that in his mind are receiving far better care than the people on 9/11 who are sick now as a result of the injury they sustained rescuing people down at the site of 9/11,” said the pop culture and entertainment correspondent.

Ogunnaike should be on Moore’s payroll instead of CNN’s, because she was basically reading his talking points. The nearly two and a half minute segment was practically a commercial for the film which advocates socialized health care, the abolition of the health insurance industry and a government regulated pharmaceutical industry. 

So, what is CNN?

THIS is CNN in 1998; the link is to a story debunking the network's Peter Arnett and April Oliver, who accused Vietnam soldiers of war crimes in Operation Tailwind.

This is from 2003. The network's Eason Jordan confessed that the network twisted the news out of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, thereby giving false impressions of the regime to the world so that it could maintain its access to the country (the article is posted at the author's web host for fair use and discussion purposes).

Then there's this from 2005. Eason Jordan accused the US military in Iraq of targeting journalists, and ultimately resigned in the wake of the outcry. "Somehow" the actual video footage of Jordan's accusations, made at the World Economic Forum in Davos, never surfaced.

Next, there's this incredible episode from 2006, where the network showed videos of enemy snipers killing American soldiers in Iraq. Even more incredibly, the videos were marketed on corporate affiliate Time Warner Cable as an On Demand offering.

Now there's this -- paying to have a story staged (bolds are mine):

In the You-Can’t-Make-This-Up Department, ‘In the Money’ show reporter Polly Labarre complained employees don’t get enough time off. We’ve got it so darn bad, according to the folks at CNN, “we work more than medieval peasants used to work.”

Ordinarily, I’d debunk that June 9 report, pointing out that peasants had to work dawn to dusk eking out a living little better than slaves. But it’s so ridiculous, why bother?

Like so much in the media, this little nugget comes from another goofy group that the media miraculously fail to ignore. It’s called the “Take Back Your Time” movement. The group has a long list of demands of more time off for Americans and Canadians.