Journalistic Issues

The nomination is several weeks away, but the party has its “inevitable” candidate. With hundreds of millions of dollars at his disposal, opponents raise concerns about whether that vast wealth had completely disconnected him from the reality that most Americans face every day.

The year was 2004 and the candidate Sen. John Kerry. But the major networks gave Kerry’s great wealth nowhere near the attention that they have given to Gov. Mitt Romney’s millions in 2012.

As an ever-shrinking number of newspaper readers can attest, most major U.S. papers skew liberal. But its not every day the head of a union representing journalists lays out a list of goals that might have been written by MoveOn.org, and displays a contempt for democracy more at home on the editorial pages of state-run organs in third-world dictatorships.

But there was Larry Cohen, AFL-CIO Organizing Committee chair and President of Communication Workers of America (CWA), of which the Newspaper Guild is part, calling on progressives to “unite in a years-long campaign to restore and reclaim both workers rights and U.S. democracy.” According to report on the Guild’s website, Cohen was addressing the Women’s National Democratic Club in Washington, D.C., when he declared that reclaiming democracy would mean overcoming, well, democracy. “The limits of democracy alone have blocked us,” Cohen said.

It's been several weeks since NBC disgraced itself by repeatedly airing doctored audio of George Zimmerman talking to a 9-1-1 dispatcher but the network has yet to apologize on the air, hoping instead that its paltry efforts of firing a lone producer and conducting an investigation into the matter but not releasing a report to the public would be sufficient.

Incredibly, it was a New York Times columnist, David Carr, who decided to confront the network on how that just isn't enough. NBC News president Steve Capus admitted his efforts have been insufficient but tried to spin away why his network hasn't bothered to tell viewers about its propagation of fraudulent journalism.

The Washington Post's treatment of two different cases of journalistic malpractice make clear how the paper's editors view slandering Republicans. It's not a fireable offense. But plagiarism is.

Here are the basics: Washington Post reporter Elizabeth Flock wrote a web post last year falsely accusing Mitt Romney of using a Ku Klux Klan slogan in his campaign speech. This was not a case of a mistake -- it was clear from the get-go that Romney did not use the KKK slogan, as the video of the speech incontrovertibly showed -- but Flock wrote a web article saying he did. It was a lie, intended to paint Romney as a racist. In doing so, she violated about half a dozen of the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics.

After years of denying he was trying to pursue a hard-left audience, MSNBC president Phil Griffin is now shamelessly trying to justify his actions in continuing to employ infamous race-baiter and tax cheat Al Sharpton, host of the cable network's Politics Daily program. The latest controversy for Sharpton involves his dual involvement in covering the case of slain Florida teenager Trayvon Martin on television while at the same time, away from the anchor desk, acting as a belligerent advocate of arresting Martin's killer, George Zimmerman.

Sharpton's conflict of interest, which he barely bothers to disclose to viewers, doesn't bother Griffin; he proudly told AP television reporter David Bauder that he "didn't hire Al to become a neutered kind of news presenter."

And it gets much worse from there...

I almost hate to draw attention to this incredibly sad example of the intolerant left over at Rolling Stone, but quite frankly, Andrew Breitbart probably would have eaten this up, and tweeted it back out.  

One thing I’ve learned in the year I have spent tracking General Motors cum Government Motors (GM) - and all its Crony Socialist, green non-energy “energy”, flammable absurdities - is the fact that the car media are every bit the Leftist open-channel steno pool as are the political media.  

And with President Barack Obama running for reelection in large part on the utterly failed “success” of the $85 billion auto bailout, the car and political media have by now achieved fully melded fusion.

The examples are myriad.

On yesterday's Rainbow PUSH Saturday Morning Forum, broadcast nationally on the Word Network, Jesse Jackson spoke of Christmas.  The activist, 1984 and 1988 Democratic presidential candidate, and former Clinton spiritual adviser told (video here) of "non-Christian" merchants who "use Jesus to lure you in to Santa Claus's birthday party."  Here's what he said:

Editor's Note: The following is a quote from a letter NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center (MRC) founder Brent Bozell sent to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) earlier today, spurred in part by the recent revelation that NPR host Lisa Simeone served as a spokesperson for the Occupy DC protest.

NPR is out of control, using taxpayer money to lend support to a sometimes violent and lawless mob set on crippling the financial backbone of our country.

The New York Times today has a piece entitled:

Auto Bailout Done, Obama Looks for Payback 

Two problems - with just the headline.  Which the Times either ignorantly doesn’t know - or knows and willfully ignores. The auto bailout isn’t “done.”  

"It’s an outrage that federal money has been an enabler for NPR and PBS since 1967 in their efforts to undermine conservatives and Christians," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell complained in a statement released this morning that accompanies the release of a new Media Research Center (MRC) study detailing a comprehensive compilation of the 20 most memorable leftist excesses of National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System.

"In this current era of huge deficits, surely this is the most non-essential spending. The pattern of bias from PBS hosts and contributors is more than severe. Now is the time for Congress to finally put an end to it," the MRC founder argued.

Some of the 20 instances in the MRC’s report on NPR & PBS include:

New York Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Ethan Bronner took some friendly fire from the paper’s Public Editor Arthur Brisbane in his Sunday column, “Tangled Relationships in Jerusalem.” Brisbane forwarded complaints from a left-wing anti-Israeli blogger about Bronner's business relationship with a conservative Israeli, Charley Levine. But Bronner's history of slanted reporting, especially his hostile coverage of "angry rampag[ing]" Jewish settlers in the West Bank, proves he can hardly be credibly accused of sympathizing with Israeli conservatives.

Conflict of interest, or the appearance of it, is poisonous in journalism. This is particularly so when it relates to reporting on Israel and the Palestinians, a subject that draws a steady stream of skepticism about New York Times coverage from readers and partisans on all sides.

“A Tribute to the Media,” a ten-minute video, honoring television coverage of the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. This was shown at the Media Research Center’s “DisHonors Awards” held in Washington, DC on January 17, 2002 when we took a time-out for a few minutes to pay tribute to the patriotic work of journalists during the national crisis.

On Wednesday's NBC Today, correspondent Stephanie Gosk reported the latest details on the phone hacking scandal in Britain involving a Rupert Murdoch owned tabloid and declared: "Damage to the company [News Corporation] may have already been done. And some say it is about time."

Gosk noted that included, "actor Hugh Grant, who in recent months has led his own campaign against the tabloids." A sound bite was played of Grant: "we're talking about pretty nasty people." Gosk went on to speculate that the scandal may spread and put "pressure on Rupert Murdoch's worldwide media empire," which of course includes Fox News. She also argued that in Britain, Murdoch's "political support...has all but disappeared."

CNN foreign affairs analyst Fareed Zakaria – who has recently had off-the-record conversations with President Obama on foreign issues – noted the president's "restraint" in his dealing with the "Arab Spring" and the conflict in Libya Wednesday. Zakaria previously gave a thumbs-up for Obama's Mideast speech in May and later defended the president's plan for removing American troops from Afghanistan.

The point-of-note is that this is the same analyst whom, according to the New York Times, President Obama "sounded out" while shaping his foreign policy. The two simply had "off-the-record" conversations on foreign issues, according to Zakaria, and the CNN host claimed he was not an advisor to the President.

We really shouldn’t get angry with the media for being obstinately silent and/or willfully ignorant when it comes to - amongst many, MANY other things - Democrats and Leftists breaking the law.

It’s like getting upset with a six-month old for behaving badly in public.  It’s what we get - we should not be vexed when we get it.

NPR host Brooke Gladstone admits that journalists are generally more liberal than regular Americans, but she thinks they overcompensate for their bias by giving too much of a voice to conservatives. For instance, Gladstone believes conservatives do not deserve an equal voice with liberals in the global warming debate.

Gladstone, whose interview appeared on the blog of CNN's In the Arena, has voiced in the past that the media have a "tendency to bend over backwards to prove they aren't liberal." In the interview she clarified the media's over-reaction as "fairness bias."

Isn't Jessica Yellin mocking her own network for incessantly reporting on Sarah Palin's bus tour? The CNN correspondent called the coverage of the tour "a media low-point" on CNN Tuesday, although her own network made mention of tour almost every hour Monday from 6 a.m. EDT through 11 p.m. EDT – and then again Tuesday from 6 a.m. EDT through 1 p.m. EDT.

The continuous coverage included nine live reports from Gettysburg, one of the tour stops, by correspondent Jim Acosta – and a live appearance there by anchor John King Monday afternoon. John King, USA – King's 7 p.m. EDT show – was broadcast from Gettysburg, and then the anchor returned later to guest-host Anderson Cooper 360 from the same site, for two hours.

[Click here for audio. Video below the break.]

Rachel Maddow has engaged in a strange--sinister?--irony.  On her MSNBC show last night, one moment Maddow was condemning the late Senator Joe McCarthy for encouraging people to "turn in their friends" in the entertainment industry. The next moment, Maddow was urging her viewers to . . . turn in someone in the entertainment industry--the animator of Mike Huckabee's history series for kids.

Maddow devoted a sarcastic segment to mocking Huckabee's series of DVDs on American history.  Along the way she accused Huckabee of engaging in revisionist history. Her example was the way a Huckabee DVD described Ronald Reagan's testimony as a friendly witness at a McCarthy hearing, in his role as president of the Screen Actors Guild, as Reagan having "worked against Communism in Hollywood."

Maddow then said this: "We asked [Huckabee's production company] today who had done the animation on these DVDs.  They would not tell us.  If you know who brought this amazing animated sauce to life, please get in touch with us.  We would like to know."

View video after the jump.

Yesterday the Associated Press reported "Maryland gay marriage bill dies with no final vote."  The article begins:

A bill to legalize gay marriage in Maryland fell short Friday after supporters failed to find enough votes to overcome Republican opposition and misgivings by some Democrats in the deeply Catholic state.

Just in case any readers missed the point, seven paragraphs later:

Some predicted that, if passed, the measure would have been petitioned to referendum in the deeply Catholic state.

Message received.  But why does the AP writer characterize Maryland as deeply Catholic?

In 2009, the Gallup Organization produced an analysis of religious identity based on more than 170,000 interviews conducted earlier in the year.  24.3% of adult Americans identified themselves as Catholics.  In Maryland, it was 21.9%, less than the national average.  The Free State's percentage of Protestants and other Christians is 54.9, more than double that of Catholics.  Overall, more than half the states have a greater percentage of Catholics than Maryland does.

It appears the progressive New York Times is running an ugly campaign of character assassination against a real-life American hero who saved lives and helped to safeguard the nation’s sacred democratic process. The man with the bull’s eye on his back is Brandon Darby, formerly a far-left community organizer. The Old Gray Lady has accused Darby of encouraging a plot to firebomb Republicans at the 2008 nominating convention, when in fact he was instrumental in thwarting the conspiracy and saving the lives of Republican delegates and police officers.

Darby stands accused by the New York Times and by angry radical groups of acting as an agent provocateur. In the article Anarchist Ties Seen in ’08 Bombing of Texas Governor’s Mansion published February 23, 2011, the paper said Darby urged two radicals to firebomb the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. According to NYT reporter James C. McKinley Jr.:

On December 18, 2010, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric posted a video on her blog, Couric & Co., calling on Congress to pass tougher legislation to combat underage sex trafficking. However, what she failed to reveal to online viewers was that only two weeks earlier she attended a party at the Manhattan townhouse of Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender accused of trafficking underage girls. (h/t BigJournalism.com)

Couric and other media figures, including ABC Good Morning America host George Stephanopoulos, were apparently at the event to speak with Britain's Prince Andrew about the upcoming royal wedding. As the New York Post reported on December 6: "Andrew regaled a bevy of media heavyweights at billionaire Jeffrey Epstein's Upper East Side townhouse the other night when he told of the royal family's joy over Prince William's upcoming wedding to Kate Middleton – and the glamorous guests asked for invitations."

ABC reporter Bob Woodruff has helped raise money for a liberal environmental advocacy group while reporting on environmental issues for ABC, in direct violation of the network's ethics politcies, according to our friends at Big Journalism (who picked up on an investigation by the Enterprise Report).

Woodruff even reported on the group he helped raise funds for - Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Waterkeeper Alliance - and dubbed one of its advisory board members one of the "six people helping to save our planet," all without disclosing his financial ties to the group.

ABC acknowledged that Woodruff's actions violate its ethics policies, according to the Enterprise Report, and insisted that it will take "appropriate disciplinary action," but neglected to elaborate any further.

Update (5:03 pm): The Times responds. See the full response below.

Below is the full text of an email I sent Friday afternoon to Arthur Brisbane, Public Editor of the New York Times. In it, I detail a serious error made by Times columnist Paul Krugman in his Sunday column - documented at NB - and request that the Times correct the record, in keeping with its own ethics policies. If Mr. Brisbane or another member of the Times's staff responds, I will post the response as an update.

Even if the Times does correct the record, however, Krugman's error has already filtered into and throughout the media echo chamber. Others, such as MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, have repeated Krugman's false claim, illustrating the inevitable consequences of journalistic negligence.

As reported at NB by TimesWatch editor Clay Waters, the New York Times bestowed the honor of "modern day Edward R. Murrow" on "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart for his advocacy for a bill awarding billions for the medical care of 9/11 first responders.

As it would only ever do for a liberal, the Times lauded Stewart as the exemplar of righteous journalistic advocacy - hence the likeness to Murrow, who, according to lore, brought down Sen. Joseph McCarthy during his communist witchhunts during the 1950s.