ABCNews.com

**WITH UPDATE** If this doesn't take the cake, I don't know what does? On an ABC News Blog called the Political Radar, ABC reports on Rush Limbaugh's $2 million condemnation letter and throughout the piece continually links "Democrats" to the charity donation that Limbaugh and the ebay bidder for the letter are giving the money to. After reading this ABC blog report, one gets the sneaking suspicion that ABC thinks that Harry Reid and the Democrats are the ones that should be hailed as the good guys responsible for raising this monumental sum for charity. It is clear that ABC did their level best to play down Limbaugh's part in the story and play up the supposed positive contribution of Democrats.

Teasing yet another (manufactured) Ann Coulter controversy, ABCNews.com practically suggested that Coulter is an anti-Semite, and when you follow the bread crumbs, you'll find Media Matters the culprit behind the half-baked cake. "The columnist suggested that the U.S. would be a better place without Jews," teased a headline in the rotating news summary on ABC's Web site (see screencap at right).

Yet in context, it's quite logical to conclude Coulter means that, as a Christian, she would like everyone to embrace Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, hence securing them eternal life in Heaven. Grounded in historical Christian teaching, her desire for all to believe in Jesus (and hence be Christians) is not a racist or genocidal point-of-view, but a loving, religious one, however awkwardly stated it may have been in her recent interview.

The front page tease takes readers to a blog entry at Political Punch by ABC reporter Jake Tapper. The Tapper item in turn links to an article and transcript at Editor & Publisher, furnished by, surprise surprise, Media Matters.

To his credit, at no point in his blog did Tapper himself characterize Coulter as a closet anti-Semite or anything of that nature, although he does take a swipe at Coulter as a hypocrite:

The New York Sun's Eli Lake is reporting this morning that "Al Qaeda's Internet communications system has suddenly gone dark to American intelligence" following "the leak of Osama bin Laden's September 11 speech inadvertently disclosed the fact that" American intelligence agencies "had penetrated the enemy's system."

You can thank ABC News for that. According to Lake:

...the disclosure from ABC and later other news organizations tipped off Qaeda's internal security division that the organization's Internet communications system, known among American intelligence analysts as Obelisk, was compromised. This network of Web sites serves not only as the distribution system for the videos produced by Al Qaeda's production company, As-Sahab, but also as the equivalent of a corporate intranet, dealing with such mundane matters as expense reporting and clerical memos to mid- and lower-level Qaeda operatives throughout the world.

The political battle over climate change has clearly taken a dramatic turn for the worse this month, for it now seems media are actually competing to see which outlet can present the most hysterical report concerning imminent planetary doom at the hands of manmade global warming.

*****Critical updates at end of post.

After ABC News published a disgraceful photo essay featuring computer generated pictures of drowned American cities at its website last Friday, followed by NBC News reporting Monday that Greenland's ice sheets are melting so quickly that it "could ignite worldwide disaster," the Associated Press on Saturday cautioned that "In about a century, some of the places that make America what it is may be slowly erased."

Seems almost like they're playing a game of "Can You Top This" doesn't it?

Sadly, as demonstrated by some of the following lowlights from this truly irresponsible piece of detritus, media are clearly putting on a full-court press to scare Americans into believing the world will quickly come to an end if we don't start doing exactly what soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore tells us (emphasis added throughout):

Earlier this month, ABC News's Rick Klein reported on the network's "Political Radar" Web site:

When an Iowa resident asked former senator John Edwards Thursday whether the United States should follow the Cuban healthcare model, the 2004 vice presidential contender deflected the question by saying he didn't know enough to answer the question.

Yes - ABCNews.com actually did title its article "Sex Offender Faces Life in Prison for Being Homeless," giving a convicted sex offender the status of heroic martyr for facing a potenital life sentence under Georgia's sex offender registry laws.

Larry W. Moore, Jr. was convicted of the felony sex offense known as "indecent liberty with a child" in North Carolina in 1994. Moore later moved to Georgia, where he came within the jurisdiction of Georgia's sex offender registry laws. Moore failed to properly register and was convicted for a first violation in 2005. Moore has now been convicted of a second violation, and faces a penalty of life in prison under the Georgia statutes.

As NewsBusters reported Monday, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California) was quoted in an Orange County Register article as saying about a recent trip by Senators to investigate Greenland's glaciers, "I think everyone who has seen this is changed."

On Tuesday, the Washington Post reported:

"There is absolutely no disagreement that the greenhouse gas emissions are adding to climate change and global warming," [Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Maryland)] said. "No one disagrees that it would be a healthy thing for our world to have less greenhouse gas."

Sadly, neither of these articles chose to get opinions from the two Republican senators on the trip. If they had, another picture might have been presented, as reported by the Associated Press Monday (emphasis added):

A week ago, NewsBusters editor and MRC vice president Brent Baker noticed that ABC had a decidedly negative slant on the Dow Jones industrial average closing above 14,000 points, much the same as it did in April, when the DJIA cracked 13,000.

Below is a screen grab from the ABCNews.com Web site that should give you a hint of the slant we're likely to see from the networks tonight, or at least ABC, with teaser headlines such as "Overstimulated Economy, Unprecedented Stresses... Where Does It End?" (picture below jump).

Stay tuned to NewsBusters for more, plus check out the Business & Media Institute.

The recent additions of Justices Jonathan Roberts and Samuel Alito have admittedly changed the balance of power in the Supreme Court. It was inevitable that the Court would take a conservative turn. Equally inevitable was the media's hysterical reaction.

A narrow decision on partial birth abortion was described as reversing the precedent of Roe vs. Wade. A school zoning decision was touted by irresponsible commentators as having overturned Brown v. Board of Education. These decisions, and others, have led to personal attacks upon Roberts and Alito, as well as public pleas from legal analysts to the Court's new swing vote Justice Kennedy to "moderate" his position.

Leave it up to Brian Ross at ABC news to take a report from the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force about the human trafficking of Middle Easterners over the Mexican border and imply that it is a result of the refugee problem stemming from the war in Iraq.

The report was presented at Ross's Blotter Report in an article titled FBI: Iraqis Being Smuggled Across the Rio Grande. (Hat Tip - Debbie Hamilton at Right Truth)

The Left must be afraid of Fred Thompson. The latest attack on the former Tennessee senator: he's violating the "spirit" of campaign finance laws by toying with his candidacy for too long, even as he builds the framework to hit the campaign trail running. Yet unfortunately for her readers, ABCNews.com's Jennifer Rubin leaves out the liberal leanings of the two major critics of the former senator that she cites in her recent story. Indeed, one group's president even has a link to First Amendment breacher, er, campaign finance reformer John McCain, a GOP candidate, while the other group's executive director previously worked for Democratic 2008 candidate Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) as well as liberal pols such as Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)

Here are the offending passages, followed by my commentary (portions in bold are my emphasis):

See below for an update in coverage:

The indicted former Newark Mayor and current NJ state Senator Sharpe James sure is mysterious. According to the New York Times, WNBC and via the AP, the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo, Philadelphia Inquirer and the UK's Guardian, among others, James seemingly does not belong to a political party. Maybe he belongs to the same non-party as Rep. William Jefferson who was indicted on corruption and bribery charges earlier this year (hat tip to a NewsBusters reader):

Strangely, after a little digging, I discovered that James is a Democrat and that according to the prosecution, some of his alleged expenses included costly trips to Jamaica, Rio de Janeiro and Puerto Rico on the taxpayer's dime, as well as letting a girlfriend buy city property at bargain-basement prices.

For some reason, the media seem reluctant to identify that James is a Democrat and even those articles which do, bury his affiliation up to 11 paragraphs down into the text as the AP did on ABCNews.com. Even Wikipedia. minimized James' connection to the Democrats.

Earlier today, Newsbusters' Noel Sheppard pointed out the media's hypocrisy regarding their treatment of Jeri Kehn Thompson, wife of Republican presidential candidate-in-waiting Fred Thompson, and Jackie Clegg Dodd, wife of Democrat presidential candidate Chris Dodd. Both women are considerably younger than their husbands, and both couples have young children together. Yet the media seems to be targeting Mrs. Thompson as a stereotypical trophy wife, a term that has unflattering connotations, while Mrs. Dodd has been treated with courtesy and respect. Of course, part of the reason may be because Chris Dodd's official candidacy has not gained the traction of Fred Thompson's unofficial one, but it's interesting to note the differences that Noel discusses in his post.

In an Associated Press story carried on ABC News' Web site, writer Nedra Pickler reports on Democratic presidential contender John Edwards taking a three-day poverty tour next week, a trip "reminiscent of [Bobby] Kennedy's 1968 trip."

Ms Pickler's article begins:

"The campaign of presidential hopeful John Edwards has a ready answer for all the criticism about his expensive haircuts and expansive home: A man can be wealthy and care about the poor, too.

Just look at a Democratic hero Robert F. Kennedy." [sic]

Bobby Kennedy, of course, is still remembered warmly by much of the mainstream media for his expressed concern for poor people. What isn't so well remembered is that Kennedy himself couldn't explain exactly why this issue was of such importance to him.

In 1968 a Time Magazine piece covered Kennedy's foray into poverty-stricken eastern Kentucky. A pertinent excerpt:

"Why, Kennedy was asked in the township of Pippa Passes, was a man reared to a multimillionaire's comforts concerned with the plight of Kentucky's poor? 'I can't answer that question,' Bobby confessed. 'Sorry.'

On his Political Punch blog, ABC correspondent Jake Tapper is calling out the media who have misquoted Ann Coulter -- but he also suggests Coulter has mischaracterized leftist comedian Bill Maher:

Conservative provocateur Ann Coulter is often unfair, and cruel. But that doesn't mean we in the media are allowed to treat her with equal dishonesty.

Coulter on Monday's Good Morning America, asked about the time she used an anti-gay slur to impugn former Sen. John Edwards, D-NC, said: "I did not call John Edwards the F-word. I said I couldn't talk about him because you could go into rehab for using that word. But about the same time, you know, Bill Maher was not joking and saying he wished Dick Cheney had been killed in a terrorist attack. So, I've learned my lesson. If I'm going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot."

Today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to ban interest groups from running issue ads close to an election. The McCain-Feingold Act bans any issue ads by interest groups that mention a candidate running for reelection from airing within 60 days of a general election (and 30 days before a primary), even if the ad does not expressly advocate voting for or against the named candidate.

The way Ariane de Vogue of ABCNews.com reports it, the ruling is not a victory for free speech and political participation, but a blow to "reform." (emphasis mine):

Reigniting the debate over campaign finance regulation, the Supreme Court struck down a part of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act on Monday.

That legislation, also known as the McCain-Feingold law, restricts corporations and labor unions from broadcasting ads at election time using general funds. Proponents of campaign finance reform fear Monday's ruling will create a major loophole in the legislation and cause an influx of so-called "sham issue" ads that McCain-Feingold was created in part to combat.

ABCNews.com's The Blotter has an update on their exclusive story of the recent Taliban "graduation ceremony":

The Taliban military commander [Mansoor Dadullah] who led the "graduation ceremony" for 300 suicide bombers was one of five men released from an Afghanistan prison earlier this year in exchange for a kidnapped Italian journalist.

[...]

Journalist Daniel Mastrogiacomo was kidnapped along with his interpreter and driver by Taliban fighters in early March.

A hostage trade was negotiated, in part by an Italian-run hospital organization, for his release in exchange for the release of five senior Taliban commanders that were in the custody of the Afghan federal government.

ABC’s Brian Ross broke an exclusive story Monday, first at his blog “The Blotter,” and then on “World News with Charles Gibson,” concerning teams of well-trained al Qaeda suicide bombers supposedly heading to the United States and Europe.

This report included video-clips of a Taliban “graduation” ceremony (video available here), with still-pictures of the event available here.

Yet, despite the seriousness of this report, LexisNexis and Google News searches identified few media outlets covered the story.

As most people likely didn’t hear about this given the paltry amount of coverage, what follows is a full transcript of the segment (h/t NB reader Gil Andrews):

After the Massachusetts Legislature voted to crush the marriage amendment ballot measure yesterday, the networks largely ignored the story. But ABC’s Web site carried this headline:

Gay Marriage Safe in Massachusetts: A Vote to Redefine Marriage as a Union Between a Man and a Woman Was Defeated

To ABCNews.com, defining marriage the traditional way is a radical “redefinition” of the institution. Is it any wonder that a majority of the American people, according to the National Cultural Values Survey, believe the news media are a major factor in America’s moral decline? (hat tip to Matt Barber at Concerned Women for America)

As NewsBusters reported Thursday, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin did an interview with NPR wherein he stated, “I am not sure that it is fair to say that [global warming] is a problem we must wrestle with.”

Friday, ABC News’ Bill Blakemore wrote a piece for that network’s website asserting, “NASA administrator Michael Griffin continues to draw the ire of preeminent climate scientists inside and outside of NASA, as well as members of Congress, after apparently downplaying the need to combat global warming.”

In the article, Blakemore and co-author Clayton Sandell chose not to interview anyone that agreed with Griffin’s views, even as a press release was being distributed by “scientists from around the world who came to Griffin's support”:

It seems almost a metaphysical certitude that the following will not be raised in this evening’s nightly newscasts, or the headlines of tomorrow’s papers.

Regardless, Dr. Michael Griffin, the Administrator of NASA since April 2005, told NPR Thursday morning, “I am not sure that it is fair to say that [global warming] is a problem we must wrestle with” (audio available here).

As ABCNews.com reported Thursday, this has drawn “the ire of his agency's preeminent climate scientists,” in particular, global warming alarmist James Hansen (h/t NBer Sick-n-Tired).

More on that later. First, here are some of Griffin’s remarks as reported by NPR.com (emphasis added throughout):

ABC’s Bill Blakemore wrote an article posted at the network’s website Tuesday citing global warming alarmist and NASA scientist James Hansen as stating that the earth is at a tipping point “with dangerous consequences to the planet” (emphasis added):

With just 10 more years of "business as usual" emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas, says the NASA/Columbia paper, "it becomes impractical" to avoid "disastrous effects."

Unfortunately, Blakemore chose to completely ignore decades of hysterical predictions by Hansen that have already proven wrong, and that this is not the first time the NASA scientist has referred to ten years before disaster strikes.

For instance, here is what the Washington Post reported last January (emphasis added):

Actor and former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson is close to forming a presidential exploratory committee, according to numerous media outlets, citing people close to the TV star. Reporting that news, CBSNews.com ran with a less-than-flattering AP photo of Thompson, pictured at right.

"Former Sen. Fred Thompson attends the Prescott Bush Awards Dinner in Stamford Conn., on May 24, 2007," read the caption.

By contrast, ABCNews.com ran an AP photo that features a stern-looking Thompson. With skyscrapers in the background, it evokes his current TV character incarnation, New York County District Attorney Arthur Branch on NBC's long-running court drama "Law & Order." You can see that screen cap pictured below:

For the past 20 years, every Memorial Day weekend,  tens of thousands of motorcyclists join together as Rolling Thunder to honor the military, particularly the dead and MIA.  The coverage is usually positive and focuses on the patriotic bikers and their interesting-looking bikes.  On May 27, ABC News went a different direction for this year’s ride. Instead of covering Rolling Thunder and their military and veteran-related issues, the way the Washington Post and the Washington Times did in their articles, ABC turned it into advocacy journalism to inform people about the importance of--wearing helmets while riding motorcycles. After four rather bland sentences about the the event, ABC slipped into lecture-mode (emphasis mine thoughout):

At his blog Political Punch, ABC reporter Jake Tapper has been reading Al Gore's new book The Assault on Reason. He has an online analysis going through the "liberal red meat," and perhaps the knee-slapping funniest line -- coming from a man who stood silently in support of  Bill Clinton every day of his scandalous presidency, except when he was honoring him as "one of our greatest presidents" minutes after he was impeached for lying in a sexual harassment lawsuit -- is his claim about the Bush administration: "I cannot remember any administration adopting this kind of persistent, systematic abuse of the truth and the institutionalization of dishonesty as a routine part of the policy process."

This could be the funny Who Are You To Talk? runner-up: "It is love of power for its own sake that is the original sin of this presidency."

But Tapper finds "For me the most surprising part of the book was Gore's implication that if a more competent person had been president during 9/11 -- like, say, him -- 9/11 might not have happened." He underlined:

In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations on Wednesday, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards rejected the “metaphor” of the “war on terror” that America has been fighting since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

But appearing on ABC News on September 11, 2001, just a few hours after the attacks occurred, Edwards left no doubt how he felt the country should respond to al Qaeda’s terrorism, declaring “We should treat it as an act of war.”
Video: Real (398 KB) or Windows (442 KB) plus MP3 (65 KB)

Update at bottom with video link- 18:10 EST:

Why should a country go to the effort of spying on America when all they have to do is follow the US media? USA Today reported a database of phone calls and the New York Times publically exposed the SWIFT banking transaction database; both were used to combat terrorism.  Now on the May 22 edition of ABC News’ the Blotter, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito revealed another national security-related secret (my emphasis throughout):

The CIA has received secret presidential approval to mount a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, current and former officials in the intelligence community tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

ABC News' Web site carries an excerpt from Al Gore's book, "Assault on Reason."  The Internet's inventor writes of what's known as McCarthyism and cites broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, "whose courageous journalism was assaulted by Senator Joseph McCarthy. . . "

But how courageous was Murrow?  Did he save the Republic from a man whose vicious tactics silenced any criticism?

Not hardly.

There was already massive media opposition to the Wisconsin senator.  Edwin Bayley’s 1981 book, “Joe McCarthy and the Press,” catalogs newspaper coverage after Joe launched his anti-Communism crusade in February, 1950.

A new study by my alma mater, the University of Maryland, looked at the online divisions of 19 major traditional print and broadcast media:

... to see which ones gave the users of their RSS feeds the same number of stories, the same range of news sources, in as timely a fashion as could be gotten if those users went to the individual website.

The Los Angeles Times, ABCNews.com, and Foxnews.com fared among the best RSS providers while the New York Times was among the worst. But the bottom line, the study concluded, was that:

... if a user wants specific news on any subject from any of the 19 news outlets the research team looked at, he or she must still track the news down website by website.

The main reason? The paucity of information RSS feeds give the reader: