FNC's Brit Hume Cites New CMI Study on 'Special Report
On Wednesday’s “Special Report,” Fox News anchor Brit Hume cited CMI’s new study, “A Study in Character Assassanation: How the TV Networks Have Portrayed Sarah Palin as Dunce or Demon.” The study found that the media portrayal of Palin has been overwhelmingly negative, smearing the Alaska governor as an unqualified dunce or demonizing her as McCain’s attack dog. Hume stated:
Media Aired Dubious Anti-Israel Video, Not ‘Even-Handed’ to Expose
It was eight years ago this week that France 2 TV introduced the world to Mohammed al-Dura, the Palestinian boy who was allegedly shot and killed during a gunfight between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen, in a video whose authenticity has increasingly been called into question years after it inspired anti-Semitic violence around the world. The American news media not only highlighted the…
Media Report Pelosi's Pre-Bailout Vote Attack on Bush and GOP
Before Monday's House vote on the largest government bailout in American history, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali.), in potentially one of the most poorly-timed displays of partisanship in recent memory, blamed President Bush and Republicans for the turmoil in the financial services industry (video embedded right). Such ill-advised finger pointing seemed to surprise press members of all shapes and…
Fox News Blames Democrats for Financial Crisis, Bill Clinton Agrees
Going very much against the media meme that the current financial crisis is all George W. Bush and the Republicans' fault, Bill Clinton on Thursday told ABC's Chris Cuomo that Democrats for years have been "resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was President to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac" (video available here, relevant…
Weekend 'Treat'? Streisand: 'Lovely Democratic Mem'ries/Of the Way We
At a Tuesday night fundraiser for Barack Obama held at the Regent Beverly Wilshire, donors heard Barbra Streisand sing, but as ABC's Jake Tapper noted in his “Political Punch” blog, “the press was not permitted (inflicted?) with permission to hear her.” So, there's no video of it, which reminded me of how back in 2002 the Fox News Channel played a brief clip from her appearance at a September 29…
Media Report Re-Warmed Obama Campaign Talking Points as Fact
As Culture and Media Institute Director Robert Knight has noted, the media are still presenting Obama campaign spin on the McCain sex ed ad as hard facts. Last week the McCain campaign released an ad charging Senator Obama with supporting sex education for kindergarten children when he was an Illinois state senator. According to the Obama campaign and the media the legislation in question "was…
Hume Credits NewsBusters for Exposing Fake Trig Palin eBay Listing
On Tuesday's "Special Report," Fox News's Brit Hume credited NewsBusters for exposing a fake eBay listing auctioning off Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's baby Trig.As my colleague Warner Todd Huston wrote earlier that morning: Apparently, a poster at the radical nutroot site, DemocraticUnderground, created a fake listing for someone pretending to sell baby Trig on ebay. The faux…
CBS & NBC React to Palin Bounce with Fact Checks to Discredit Her
With fresh media polls showing Sarah Palin causing a sizable percent of women to shift to support John McCain from Barack Obama, CBS and NBC on Tuesday night devoted full stories to fact check examinations to discredit her, specifically on the so-called “Bridge to Nowhere,” even though all the newscasts have already run stories on how she was for the bridge earmark during her 2006 gubernatorial…
On Party Labeling, FNC Credits 'Media Watchdog NewsBusters.org
In the lead item on Friday's “Grapevine” segment on FNC's Special Report, anchor Bret Baier credited NewsBusters for documenting how Thursday night ABC's World News and NBC Nightly News stories, on Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick being sent to jail by a judge, “failed to report Kilpatrick's party affiliation.” Baier first outlined how the AP neglected to mention his party, but “when Alaska Senator…
Kilpatrick Leads Democratic Group, Yet All But CBS & FNC Refuse to ID
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is hardly reticent about touting himself as a Democrat. After all, he's the Vice President of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors and in January was re-elected its representative to the Democratic National Committee. But in ABC and NBC news stories Thursday night about how a Michigan judge ordered him to jail immediately for violating his bond, neither…
Brit Hume: 'Even the AP is Acknowledging' Progress in Iraq
“The progress in Iraq is so undeniable that now even the Associated Press is acknowledging it,” FNC's Brit Hume marveled Tuesday night. Citing a Saturday AP dispatch by Robert Burns, the AP's chief military reporter, and Robert Reid, its Baghdad bureau chief (Saturday NB post by Noel Sheppard on their article), Hume relayed how the story “says insurgents no longer have the clout to threaten the…
Even Salon Says: McClellan Looking 'Worse for Wear
Q. How can Scott McClellan tell he's pushed his turncoat trip a tad too far?A. When even leading media liberals suggest his reputation's in tatters.Say what you will, but I like Joan Walsh, editor of Salon.com. Liberal? No doubt. But also a grownup. On this evening's Hardball, Walsh had the integrity to acknowledge that by accusing Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly of regurgitating Bush White…
