mrclogo.gif (6636 bytes)

America's Media Watchdog

 

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since

 

1. ABC Devotes Almost Six Times More Coverage to Jim Bunning's Non-scandal Than to Charlie Rangel's Actual Scandal
Over the last three days, ABC's World News devoted almost six times as much coverage to Senator Jim Bunning and his temporary hold-up of an unemployment bill as the program did for the ongoing revelations that Democratic Charlie Rangel violated House ethics with his trips to the Caribbean.

2. George Stephanopoulos Frets Over Bart Stupak and His 'Mutiny' Over Health Care
Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos on Thursday put the responsibility for passing health care on the shoulders of the pro-life Bart Stupak, worrying that the Congressman is "now threatening a mutiny over the issue of abortion." The GMA host interviewed Stupak and pressed him three times on voting for the legislation.

3. Tom Brokaw Sniffs: Public is 'Very Confused' About Obamacare
NBC's Tom Brokaw, in searching for a reason as to why Obamacare faced so much opposition, on Thursday's Today show, determined it was because the people can't quite grasp it, as he sniffed: "The public is very confused." The former NBC Nightly News anchor, on to promote his CNBC documentary about the Baby Boom generation, also told Today co-anchor Matt Lauer that the GOP was fighting the current version of the health care bill for merely "political" and not principled reasons and depicted the uninsured as victims to the now powerful tea party.

4. CBS 'Early Show' Touts ObamaCare On 'Fast-Track'
Introducing a story on the latest effort pass health care reform on Thursday's CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez proclaimed: "This morning President Obama is putting health care reform on the fast-track, declaring that it's year-long journey must be completed in Congress quickly." At the top of the show, co-host Harry Smith had similarly declared: "President Obama says the health care debate is over. He wants a reform bill on his desk in the next few weeks." A Headline on screen read: "Health Care Fast-Track."

5. NBC Nightly News Leads with Brush Back Against Rove on Rationale for Iraq War
The night before NBC’s Today show on Friday had an “exclusive” with Karl Rove to plug his new book, ‘Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight’ in which he assured readers President George W. Bush did not “lie us into war,” the NBC Nightly News led by giving him a brush back, regurgitating the arguments the Bush administration went to war in Iraq for illegitimate reasons. Anchor Brian Williams framed his top story: "It will go down in history among the events that shaped our times, the decision by President George W. Bush to go to war in Iraq after the United States had been attacked on 9/11 with no direct connection between the two. The United States has paid a heavy price for the war, which will be seven years old later this month. That's a year longer than all of World War II...."

6. War in Iraq Low on Obama's Agenda; Compliant Media Move On, Too
"Despite persistent violence and a critical election coming up, President Obama hardly ever mentions the war in Iraq," Joseph Curl reports in Thursday’s Washington Times, and the news media are largely aiding in this neglect. Curl discloses that "the last time a White House reporter asked about the Iraq war was June 26," while ABC, CBS and NBC aired just 80 minutes of coverage in all of 2009.






 

ABC Devotes Almost Six Times More Coverage to Jim Bunning's Non-scandal Than to Charlie Rangel's Actual Scandal

 

Over the last three days, ABC's World News devoted almost six times as much coverage to Senator Jim Bunning and his temporary hold-up of an unemployment bill as the program did for the ongoing revelations that Democratic Charlie Rangel violated House ethics with his trips to the Caribbean.





George Stephanopoulos Frets Over Bart Stupak and His 'Mutiny' Over Health Care

 


View the Video Here

Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos on Thursday put the responsibility for passing health care on the shoulders of the pro-life Bart Stupak, worrying that the Congressman is "now threatening a mutiny over the issue of abortion." The GMA host interviewed Stupak and pressed him three times on voting for the legislation. [Audio available here.]





Tom Brokaw Sniffs: Public is 'Very Confused' About Obamacare

 


View the Video Here

NBC's Tom Brokaw, in searching for a reason as to why Obamacare faced so much opposition, on Thursday's Today show, determined it was because the people can't quite grasp it, as he sniffed: "The public is very confused." The former NBC Nightly News anchor, on to promote his CNBC documentary about the Baby Boom generation, also told Today co-anchor Matt Lauer that the GOP was fighting the current version of the health care bill for merely "political" and not principled reasons and depicted the uninsured as victims to the now powerful tea party.[audio available here]

For his part, a bewildered Lauer expressed disbelief at the unpopular state of the Democratic Party right now as he questioned Brokaw: "Could you have imagined that a year later the President's popularity numbers would be dwindling, the Democratic Party would be reeling and they'd be justifiably nervous about the midterm elections?"

The following exchange was aired on the March 4 Today show:

MATT LAUER: Let's move on to health care, another subject that's a lightning rod. The President now says he'll go it alone with the Democrats in the Senate and, and in the House, this reconciliation idea. You only need 51 votes. But it's not clear whether he has those votes.

BROKAW: Well, that's the big issue for him. If he loses this one, this is a, not a fatal blow to his presidency, because he still has three years to go-

LAUER: But if you take this controversial step and miss on it- 

BROKAW: And miss on it. It's a big, big setback in his first year. He's been there just a little more than a year now. Republicans want to keep him mired down, for political reasons, in this health care debate for as long as possible. They know the public is very confused and very anxious about cost. People who have health care coverage say, "You know, I'm okay." And they're not looking at GDP and what percentage of it they're contributing to. They're just saying," I just want to make sure I've got health care." The people who don't have it are in a much smaller number. They don't have the political clout, for example, that the Tea Party now has. A number of people who are very close to the President, as financial advisers, are very anxious about this next two-week period. They think he's got a get a quick, clean bill that concentrates primarily on reducing cost.

LAUER: And gotta get back to dealing with the economy and jobs.

BROKAW: Well, the big thing is, Matt, come the fall, if the job picture is significantly improved and health care has been passed, health care doesn't kick in for a while, people will be responding much more to the job picture than they will be to the health care bill that was passed six months earlier.

LAUER: If we had sat here a year ago, and we probably did, you know, about a month after President Obama was sworn in.

BROKAW: Right.

LAUER: And the Democrats were riding high on this spirit of change. Could you have imagined that a year later the President's popularity numbers would be dwindling, the Democratic Party would be reeling and they'd be justifiably nervous about the midterm elections?

BROKAW: Well you've heard me say this before. I've been covering politics for a long, long time. My favorite theory is the UFO theory, the unforseen will occur. This is the unforseen in terms of it occurring. Once they got bogged down in health care and the unemployment numbers stayed as high as they did, they didn't pivot in a way that a lot of people, including some of their most enthusiastic supporters, felt that they should have. And there is a continuing anxiety about not enough people in the administration who have run big things, who are tied closely enough to successful businesses, not to the businesses that have failed. So they, they think they need to have a shake-up.

LAUER: Alright Tom Brokaw. Tom, good to have you here.

BROKAW: It's always good.

—Geoffrey Dickens is the senior news analyst at the Media Research Center.



 

CBS 'Early Show' Touts ObamaCare On 'Fast-Track'

 

Introducing a story on the latest effort pass health care reform on Thursday's CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez proclaimed: "This morning President Obama is putting health care reform on the fast-track, declaring that it's year-long journey must be completed in Congress quickly."

At the top of the show, co-host Harry Smith had similarly declared: "President Obama says the health care debate is over. He wants a reform bill on his desk in the next few weeks." A Headline on screen read: "Health Care Fast-Track."

White House correspondent Bill Plante reported on the so-called "fast-track" plan: "The President yesterday rejected Republican calls to start over, saying that it is time to make a decision on health care....he made it clear that he's willing to get this done with a legislative maneuver requiring no Republican support." At the end of his report, Plante acknowledged things weren't quite so simple: "this is by no means a done deal....Republicans united in opposition, Democrats wavering because of elections this fall."

Following Plante's report, Rodriguez interviewed Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and challenged the notion that Democrats could pass the massive legislation so quickly: "a lot of people think that the President is dreaming if he thinks he's going to get this done as quickly as he hopes. When do you think we will see a bill on the President's desk?"

Sebelius responded by arguing: "I think the urgency...really deals with what's happening to the American people....We need to move ahead." Rodriguez again questioned the ability to push through the controversial bill: "I understand that you think it's urgent, but the fact remains that 52% of Americans don't support this, according to the latest poll. You have no Republican support. Even some Democrats are wavering on this. How will the President get all of the support that he needs to get this done?"

In part, Sebelius replied by attacking the GOP: "Republicans...are perfectly comfortable to let the practice go along that says insurance companies can lock people out if you have a pre-existing condition, or if your kid has a pre-existing condition, you shouldn't be in the insurance pool. And the President and the health reform measure says that's just wrong. We need to change those rules."

Rodriguez returned to her original question and continued to press the HHS secretary: "Let me go back to the beginning and try to get a quick prediction from you. Can you can give me a date or a time frame when you think this will be on the President's desk?"

Here is a full transcript of Plante's report:

7:00AM TEASE:

HARRY SMITH: President Obama says the health care debate is over. He wants a reform bill on his desk in the next few weeks. Does he have the votes from fellow Democrats?

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Health Care Fast-Track]

7:06AM SEGMENT:

MAGGIE RODRIGUEZ: This morning President Obama is putting health care reform on the fast track, declaring that it's year-long journey must be completed in Congress quickly. CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante has the latest this morning. Good morning, Bill.

BILL PLANTE: Good morning, Maggie. The President yesterday rejected Republican calls to start over, saying that it is time to make a decision on health care.

[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Health Care Battle; President Wants Legislation On Desk In Weeks]

BARACK OBAMA: Not just for the past year, but for decades.

PLANTE: The President's plan includes some Republican ideas like grants for malpractice reform and expansion of health savings accounts. But he made it clear that he's willing to get this done with a legislative maneuver requiring no Republican support.

OBAMA: Reform has already passed the House with a majority. It has already passed the Senate with a supermajority of 60 votes. And now it deserves the same kind of up or down vote that was cast on welfare reform.

PLANTE: Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell promised to make that an issue in November.

MITCH MCCONNELL: The administration and the majority are very arrogant about this.

PLANTE: Political analyst Reid Wilson agrees that the vote could hurt Democrats, but says that what they really need is an end to the health care battle.

REID WILSON [EDITOR, HOTLINE ON CALL]: The bottom line calculation, though, is that they just need to get this thing done and they just need to get it passed and that will be the best possible outcome for this, even though it's still not a very good one.

PLANTE: But this is by no means a done deal. There are a lot of Republicans and Democrats in the House, Republicans united in opposition, Democrats wavering because of elections this fall. The President will go out and start campaigning for this next week. Maggie.

RODRIGUEZ: Bill Plante at the White House this morning. Thank you, Bill.

—Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.





NBC Nightly News Leads with Brush Back Against Rove on Rationale for Iraq War

 

The night before NBC’s Today show on Friday had an “exclusive” with Karl Rove to plug his new book, ‘Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight’ in which he assured readers President George W. Bush did not “lie us into war,” the NBC Nightly News led by giving him a brush back, regurgitating the arguments the Bush administration went to war in Iraq for illegitimate reasons. Anchor Brian Williams framed his top story:

It will go down in history among the events that shaped our times, the decision by President George W. Bush to go to war in Iraq after the United States had been attacked on 9/11 with no direct connection between the two. The United States has paid a heavy price for the war, which will be seven years old later this month. That's a year longer than all of World War II....The Iraq war is back in the news tonight because of new violence there, just like the old days, and because of a new take on the war from an old hand in the Bush operation, Karl Rove.”

Andrea Mitchell recounted how Rove “says if not for the threat of weapons of mass destruction, there probably would have been no Iraq war,” but “since no such weapons existed, Rove asks, ‘So, then, did Bush lie us into war?’ His answer: ‘Absolutely not..”

But, she countered, “others say President Bush had decided to go to war long before the U.N. could evaluate the evidence. As early as July 2002, former State Department official Richard Haass writes, Condoleezza Rice ‘brushed away’ his ‘concerns’ about Iraq, ‘saying the President had made up his mind,’” and then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair was told in a memo: “It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin.”

Then, for an expert assessment, Mitchell went to....David Gergen.

The lead story on the Thursday, March 4 NBC Nightly News, transcript provided by the MRC’s Brad Wilmouth:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Good evening. It will go down in history among the events that shaped our times, the decision by President George W. Bush to go to war in Iraq after the United States had been attacked on 9/11 with no direct connection between the two. The United States has paid a heavy price for the war, which will be seven years old later this month. That's a year longer than all of World War II. 96,000 American service men and women are still stationed in Iraq. More than 4,300 Americans have died there. More than 31,000 have been wounded. The war's financial cost is estimated to be north of $700 billion and growing. The Iraq war is back in the news tonight because of new violence there, just like the old days, and because of a new take on the war from an old hand in the Bush operation, Karl Rove. We begin tonight with our chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell.

FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The architect, Karl Rove.

ANDREA MITCHELL: Now, Karl Rove, the architect of George W. Bush's elections, says if not for the threat of weapons of mass destruction, there probably would have been no Iraq war. In Courage and Consequence, which we bought at a Washington book store before its official release, Rove writes, quote, "Congress was very unlikely to have supported the use of force resolution without the threat of WMD." But since no such weapons existed, Rove asks, "So, then, did Bush lie us into war?" His answer, "Absolutely not." Some other Bush insiders back him up.

STEPHEN HADLEY, FORMER BUSH NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: I think it's not that we did it on a false pretense. We did it on the basis of intelligence that turned out not to be true.

MITCHELL: But others say President Bush had decided to go to war long before the U.N. could evaluate the evidence. As early as July 2002, former State Department official Richard Haass writes, Condoleezza Rice "brushed away" his "concerns" about Iraq, "saying the President had made up his mind." That same month, then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair was told in this memo from his advisors, "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin."

DAVID GERGEN, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR: They wanted to take out the Saddam Hussein regime. The weapons of mass destruction only fueled that drive. I think what really changed things was 9/11, and it made them feel that they could not take the kind of risks after 9/11 that they might have been willing to live with before 9/11.

MITCHELL: Rove also answers critics of the President's infamous flyover of New Orleans on Air Force One after Hurricane Katrina, writing, "Our decision was right for the relief effort, but wrong for President Bush's public standing."

GERGEN: It was clear to, I think, everybody other than people who lived in the cocoon, that he still had to go, to bear witness, to understand the suffering that was going on there.

MITCHELL: In his book, Rove blames local and state officials for the disastrous response to Katrina, which most outside observers say as much as Iraq marked a turning point in the fortunes of the Bush presidency. Brian?

WILLIAMS: Replaying a little history here.

MITCHELL: Indeed.

WILLIAMS: Andrea Mitchell starting us off here in Washington. Andrea, thanks.

—Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.





War in Iraq Low on Obama's Agenda; Compliant Media Move On, Too

 

“Despite persistent violence and a critical election coming up, President Obama hardly ever mentions the war in Iraq,” Joseph Curl reports in Thursday’s Washington Times, and the news media are largely aiding in this neglect. Curl discloses that “the last time a White House reporter asked about the Iraq war was June 26,” while ABC, CBS and NBC aired just 80 minutes of coverage in all of 2009.

The near-media blackout means that the success of President Bush’s “surge” policy in 2007 — a policy opposed by President Obama and Vice President Biden when both were presidential candidates and ridiculed by the networks as a "Lost Cause" — has gone virtually unreported in the past year. This week’s Newsweek is an exception, with a big Iraq War cover story declaring “Victory at Last.”

According to Newsweek’s Babak Dehghanpisheh, John Barry  and Christopher Dickey: “It has to be said and it should be understood – now, almost seven hellish years later -- that something that looks mighty like democracy is emerging in Iraq. And while it may not be a beacon of inspiration to the region, it most certainly is a watershed event that could come to represent a whole new era in the history of the massively undemocratic Middle East."

Curl documents the lack of media interest in a war in which nearly 100,000 U.S. troops continue to serve:

The White House press corps hasn't asked Mr. Obama about the Iraq war in months. The president was last asked about the conflict on Dec. 7, during an Oval Office press availability with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. But the question came from a Turkish reporter - after an Associated Press reporter asked about the economy.

In fact, the last time a White House reporter asked about the Iraq war was June 26, when National Public Radio's Don Gonyea asked an Iraq-related question during a joint news conference of Mr. Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to records kept by CBS Radio reporter Mark Knoller....

The three main broadcast networks - ABC, NBC and CBS - have moved on to other topics as well. In 2008, the Iraq war was the seventh most heavily covered story, with the three networks devoting 288 minutes to reports about the war, according to the Tyndall Report, which monitors the weekday nightly newscasts of the networks. In 2009, the Iraq war dropped off the top 10 list, with just 80 minutes of coverage.

The New York Times wrote 374 "substantial" stories on Iraq in 2008 (meaning the word "Iraq" appears at least 10 times in article), according to the Nexis database. In 2009, that dropped to 208. The same went for The Washington Post - 422 "substantial" stories on Iraq in 2008; 169 in 2009, after Mr. Obama had taken office.

You can find the full article at The Washington Times.

—Rich Noyes is Research Director at the Media Research Center.



 

---