"Media Matters"; by Jamison Foser
| This Week: Media Matters launches ad campaign aimed at Wash. Post editorial board -- on Post website |
In August 2004, we wrote of a pattern common at too many news organizations, such as The Washington Post: the public acknowledgement that they had not been critical enough of the Bush administration's claims in the months leading up to the Iraq war, accompanied by their continued acceptance and repetition of false Bush claims:
On August 12, for example, the Post's Howard Kurtz wrote: "[S]ome critics say the media, including The Washington Post, failed the country by not reporting more skeptically on President Bush's contentions during the run-up to war. An examination of the paper's coverage, and interviews with more than a dozen of the editors and reporters involved, shows that The Post published a number of pieces challenging the White House, but rarely on the front page. ... The result was coverage that, despite flashes of groundbreaking reporting, in hindsight looks strikingly one-sided at times."
Kurtz went on to quote Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr.: "[W]e were so focused on trying to figure out what the administration was doing that we were not giving the same play to people who said it wouldn't be a good idea to go to war and were questioning the administration's rationale. Not enough of those stories were put on the front page. That was a mistake on my part."
Such mea culpas (as well as criticisms of rivals' coverage) are important, but they obscure something just as important: too many in the media are doing it again.
They fell for the Bush Administration's spin about the war. They didn't challenge the questionable statements about the war. Now they tell us they're sorry, but they're doing it again.
Every day, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and their surrogates lie about matters connected to the Iraq war -- and about many other things. And the press -- fresh off a round of self-flagellation for failing to question the Bush camp's claims -- fails to question the Bush camp's claims.
[...]
A plea to our friends in the media: please, stop writing about your past failure to challenge the Bush camp on their lies, and start challenging them on their current lies. We don't want to read another round of apologies in a year.
As Bush himself has said, "There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."
Now, three years after the beginning of the Iraq war, and two years after The Washington Post and The New York Times publicly acknowledged that they had failed their readers and the nation by uncritically reporting the Bush administration's false spin about Iraq -- and by giving scant attention to those who doubted the administration's claims -- the Post and the Times and the rest of the media have a chance at redemption.
With the administration again beginning to plan for war, this time against Iran, and this time considering the use of nuclear weapons, it's time for reporters and editors to apply the lessons they say the learned from their Iraq coverage: to challenge every Bush administration claim, and to give adequate "play" to evidence that undermines the case for war and to those who speak against it.
There is one simple step that news organizations could take to try to ensure that they do not again simply repeat the dubious claims of war advocates: consider their sources. Were they right or wrong about Iraq? Are they making the same types of claims now that they made prior to the Iraq war? Did those claims turn out to be accurate? Certainly, someone who was wrong about Iraq may be right about Iran -- and vice versa. Those who were wrong about Iraq shouldn't be automatically deemed to have no credibility about future events. But, perversely, it often seems that the "experts" and "authorities" who turned out to be so wrong about Iraq are still taken seriously, while those who were right are still dismissed.
Whose opinions do the media seem to take more seriously on questions of foreign policy and military action: John McCain's or Howard Dean's? The conservatives who beat the drums for a trumped-up war against a nation that didn't attack us, or the progressives who questioned their claims?
Of course, you shouldn't expect media conservatives to have learned any lessons from the past three years. They're up to their old tricks again, denouncing anyone who dares speak out against the administration, as Media Matters for America explained:
Since April 17, supporters of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld have asserted that the numerous retired U.S. generals criticizing Rumsfeld and calling for his resignation may, in fact, be aiding the enemies of the United States. This assertion, made in op-eds in The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, in a New York Post editorial, and in a column by Fox News host Cal Thomas, repeated a similar point made by Rumsfeld about the media's coverage of the generals' criticism.
Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley chimed in, warning that retired generals who have criticized Rumsfeld may be "illegally conspiring" against the secretary of defense. By expressing their opinion. As private citizens. No, we aren't making this up.
Syndicated columnist and Fox News host Cal Thomas also joined in, arguing that critics of Rumsfeld "will further embolden America's enemies" and seeming to prefer the approach taken by suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui to that of retired U.S. generals: "Moussaoui isn't retreating or calling for the resignation of Osama bin Laden or any other leader in the terrorist war on America and the West."
Fox News' Brit Hume, meanwhile, took the generals to task, claiming "the only problem I have with the criticism is that there doesn't seem to be anything new about it. Rumsfeld is not being attacked, as far as I can tell, for the recent conduct of the war in Iraq, the recent policies put in place. ... This all seems to be about the decisions that were made when we -- before we went in about the size of force and all that." Hume wasn't telling the truth. The retired generals have criticized the "recent conduct of the war in Iraq," as Media Matters detailed.
Nor is the misinformation limited to Iraq. Conservative media figures are hard at work repeating the same types of arguments they made in favor of that war, this time about Iran.
Wall Street Journal editorial writers Paul A. Gigot and Bret Stephens stressed the "urgency" of the Iranian nuclear threat, just as Journal editorials before the Iraq war warned of the (nonexistent, as it turns out) Iraqi nuclear threat. MSNBC's Monica Crowley went a step further, declaring that Iran may already have nuclear weapons.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan's Wednesday "resignation" announcement prompted CNN senior national correspondent John Roberts to praise McClellan as a "truth-teller." Roberts went on to say that he thought McClellan was the "victim" in one of the most famous examples of McClellan failing to tell the truth: his October 7, 2003 declaration that neither White House senior adviser Karl Rove nor former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were involved in the Valerie Plame leak.
Roberts's claim that McClellan was the "victim" -- that he was not intentionally lying to the nation, but rather that he had been lied to by White House colleagues, causing him to give out false information -- may or may not be true. But even if it is true, that doesn't mean that McClellan is a truth-teller, it just means that he didn't lie. The fact that a senior reporter for one of the nation's most prestigious news organizations equates "might not be lying" with "telling the truth" speaks volumes about the state of the media -- and about how the Bush administration got away with misleading the nation for so long on so many issues.
Roberts's defense of McClellan recalled Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank's October 2003 praise for McClellan, about which we wrote at the time:
Discussing the event on the October 13 edition of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank commented on White House press secretary Scott McClellan's handling of questions about the event:
MILBANK: Scott McClellan, who is a good and decent guy, has to get up there and say, This is not a rehearsed event, even when they've actually released the footage showing that it is a rehearsed event. So when he has to say up is down, and he has to go taking on challenging the motives of the press corps, he's obviously got a problem. I don't know how he could handle this any better, unfortunately.
Milbank calls McClellan a "good and decent guy" -- then, in the very same sentence, says that McClellan lied to Milbank's colleagues and the American people. Then he goes on to indicate that McClellan handled it as well as he could have. When did reporters start taking the position that lying to the American people constitutes handling things as well as possible? Wouldn't telling the truth be a better way to "handle this"? Why is Milbank defending McClellan's "challenging the motives of the press corps" -- Milbank's colleagues -- when he knows McClellan was lying?
Among those rumored to be possible replacements for McClellan is Fox News host Tony Snow. Snow's possible career change -- or, as blogger Joshua Micah Marshall put it, "interdepartmental transfer" -- prompted Media Matters to look back at his record at Fox in an attempt to assess his qualifications.
Media Matters explained: "From his statement that evolutionary theory is a "hypothesis" to his defense of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Media Matters for America has documented numerous false and misleading claims advanced by Snow as a Fox News commentator." Among those false claims:
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Snow falsely asserted that former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV said his wife, Valerie Plame, "wasn't covert for six years" before she was exposed as a CIA operative by syndicated columnist Robert Novak.
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Snow peddled the baseless Republican National Committee talking point that 2004 presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) had blamed U.S. troops for the explosives looted from the Al Qaqaa military installation following the invasion of Iraq. Snow said, "[T]he Kerry campaign is not criticizing the president here. They're criticizing our troops."
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Snow backed Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's attacks on Kerry, falsely claiming, "[T]here has been no documentary contradiction of the Swift Boat stuff."
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Snow falsely defended Bush from probing questions regarding his National Guard service.
The day after Media Matters posted the list of Snow's false claims, he used his radio show to offer a rebuttal. In a strong demonstration of his qualifications to be the primary spokesperson for the Bush administration, Snow responded to criticism about his false claims by repeating those false claims -- and making a new one, as Media Matters explained.
Media Matters launches ad campaign aimed at Wash. Post editorial board -- on Post website
This week, Media Matters began running an ad on The Washington Post's website, asking the question: "Do Washington Post editorial writers read their own newspaper?" The ad directs readers to a special Media Matters page dedicated to claims made by the editorial board -- and The Washington Post news reporting that contradicts those claims.
Visit our web page for more information.
Once again, a Fox News host has picked a fight with a rock 'n' roll legend -- and has once again fallen flat on his face.
You may remember that in 2004, Bill O'Reilly tried to mock Bruce Springsteen's use of the word "oligarchy." O'Reilly condescendingly defined the word, suggesting that Springsteen had misused it when he explained his opposition to President Bush in part by saying: "I don't want to watch the country devolve into an oligarchy." But, true to form, O'Reilly was wrong and Springsteen was right, as we explained.
This week, O'Reilly's Fox News colleague, Neil Cavuto, picked a fight with Canadian rocker Neil Young. Noting that Young's upcoming album features heavy criticism of Bush, Cavuto suggested there was something wrong with a citizen of one country criticizing another: "How would the people of Canada feel if an American artist devoted an entire record to telling the world what a bad place Canada is?" But, as Media Matters explained, Cavuto's attack backfired. Turns out there's an American, also named Neil, who has engaged in his share of Canada-bashing: Cavuto himself.
Bill O'Reilly, April 18: the homeless "will not support themselves, who will not do it, because they want to get drunk, or they want to get high, or they want -- they don't want to work, they're too lazy."
O'Reilly flashback: June 11, 2004: "You gotta look people in the eye and tell 'em they're irresponsible and lazy. And who's gonna wanna do that? Because that's what poverty is, ladies and gentlemen. In this country, you can succeed if you get educated and work hard. Period. Period."
Joe Klein, Time magazine's purportedly liberal columnist: "too often, the default position, especially in the left wing of the Democratic Party, is to not respect the military sufficiently."
washington whispers by kevin whitelaw. whitelaw reports that the senate intelligence committe can't do any proper research on iran because they're too busy, at democrats insistence, investgating the intelligence failures over iraq. [please hold laughter] sen. pat roberts claims he's "hard at work" on the long-promised second phase, which should be done in "several more months". and from the you thought it was always clinton's fault dept...who is responsible for bush surrounding himself with incompetent cronies? according to whitelaw, it was kennedy who first started the trend of bringing in political cronies, or so says a new book by james macgregor burns "running alone". the funny thing is i remember reading about grant and harding both surrounding themselves with pals who looted the public treasury. of course, considering the damage bush has done to the country, harding and grant look good in comparison.
"hard at work on Phase II"
If it were someone who you had contracted to do a job, and they were showing you nothing in terms of results, year after year, and yet they claimed to be "hard at work" doing the job, rather than get ticked off at the lies, you'd just ask for an immediate accounting of all the "hard work" being done; it'd be like asking for an itemized bill, you'd want an accounting of every expense.
In the case of the Senate Intelligence Committee's work on Phase II, how many hearings have they held, any?
How many reports have they issued, any?
Are they meeting at all on the matter of Phase II, and if so, and if that "hard work" generates no hearings and no reports, then what the heck is all this "hard work" resulting in?
OK, so Phase II is dragging on (interminably), I wonder why.
How about someone stepping up to the microphone, and make an accounting of the status of Phase II (the ranking member could do this).
How about an itemized bill for all this "hard work" that's resulted in years of nothing constructive on the matter of why the FALSE or otherwise FALSIFIED 'pre-invasion intelligence' was so FALSE.
This is a stain on every member of Congress who voted to authorize the President to use the Armed Forces against the "continuing threat posed by Iraq" [H.J.Res. 114].
It's a stain on the entire Senate Intelligence Committee (and the House's Intel Committee too) to let the FALSE or otherwise FALSIFIED "threat" continue to go uninvestigated.
... to clean his room.
You tell him in the morning.
You don't see him all day.
Late in the afternoon, you stick your head in the door to remind him tomorrow is garbage day. You note he's playing X-box, and the room looks no better than in the morning.
However, the response you get will be predictable: "Make up your mind!" he will say, since he's an adolescent, "You told me to clean my room! Now you want me to take out the garbage. Do I have to do EVERYTHING??!!"
At this point, dire consequences should ensue. Restrictions, punishment, and a good yelling. "Yes, I told you to clean your room THIS MORNING. You've done NOTHING. Clean your room NOW, and THEN take out the garbage, and this ALL needs to be done before 8 PM, because you're going to bed. I'll help." ... then you grab the X-box and yank out all the plugs, carrying it out the door with you.
Be prepared for a hissy-fit, because this is an adolescent, who can be expected to be as irresponsible and surly and indignant and full of excuses as a GOP congressional leader...
Andrew Jackson was the first president to assign personal friends and big supporters to his cabinet. Appointing cronies to high cabinet positions, unfortunately, is almost as old as this country is. But seriously I don't think any president has perfected like Bush. One cronie leaves, Bush replaces them with another cronie already working in the White House. Talk about no turnover what-so-ever.
Thanks yet again MMFA for the week's work; you guys are like the Postman, making your rounds undeterred by rain, sleet, or snow jobs.
I wish more were as diligent and active in these matters as you guys are (more on that in a bit, for now), great job.
A note on the Washington Post:
The Washington Post is owned by The Washington Post Company, a privately owned (publicly traded) corporation; the company also owns Newsweek magazine, and they're traded on the NYSE , symbol WPO, at $743 dollars a share (yikes! you guys better split before you hit a thousand, else you cause a typesetter's nightmare).
As a privately held corporation, naturally their interests are to their stockholders (743 bucks a share! I could buy a decent car with just twenty shares; a really nice car with just fifty shares), and while I do not know who is their single largest shareholder (or any of their shareholders, large or small; small? at 743 bucks a share?), I do know who is their Board of Directors.
And certainly they're called "Directors" for a reason: They direct the company, and are ultimately responsible for all things the company does, and their interests are with the stockholders, naturally.
On the Board of The Washington Post Company we have two names I recognize, Warren Buffett and Barry Diller (just the names I know, not the guys; but everybody has their "politics" I guess; what are those guy's "politics", and do their "politics" enter into any decisions they make as Directors of the company?)...
Other names on that Board, that I don't recognize, are Christopher Davis and John Dotson (but I'd observe the same thing of them as of the other guys; that maybe they have "politics", and maybe their "politics" play a part of their decisions as Directors; if you know them, then maybe you know their "politics"; I don't know)...
There are two other names on that Board I don't recognize, but their occupations I know: Attorney's George Gillespie and Ronald Olson (now as Attorneys, they either represent their own interests, or the interests of another; which is to say that any "politics" that may enter into their decisions as Directors, is either their own or another's "politics"; an attorney on the Board, that's signal)...
And I guess that's all I mean to point out about the Washington Post, that it's a private corporation, with it's ownership and it's Board of Directors, and that they may or may not have "politics", but they definitely employ all who work at that newspaper; which is to say that as Directors, they direct the company...
...and two them are listed as attorneys, who either represent themselves or another (and it's as likely to be another they represent, or why else be a professional advocate?).
As to advocacy, and speaking for another (another's cause, or "politics", or whatever interests one advocates):
In the interest of Truth in the media, we have MMFA.
I say Truth is an ideal, so I say MMFA advocates an ideal.
But as surely as no one owns an ideal, no one owns the Truth; you need not look to purchase it, when all that's necessary is to speak it. And if you would say you did not know the Truth, then you would be pressed to find it out first, before you could speak it; you would be pressed to listen, and to read; read the Press.
It's not nearly as hard you might think, and actually may not require the services of an advocate (but a good advocate always helps); and to know the Truth, and to have the voice to speak, leaves only the effort to stand (up), and to speak (out).
What MMFA does (they know and speak, or write, the Truth) can be done by any really (especially if you keep active on the internet-wire, visiting websites such as this), and so I'm continually struck by how little is done in these matter by the Democratic Congressional delegation in Washington D.C.
Why can't they form a media monitoring service, that logs and analyzes misinformation (about them, Democrats, but about anything "political"); and more than that, to rebut quickly, and sharply, all things said about them (Democrats).
It's striking how little they do this; and they really don't need an advocate to represent them, they have voices, and the Truth; I'm to think they can speak for themselves (or why else be a professional legislator?)
You guys continue to get the attention of the Republican bobbleheads as they make mention of you on their shows and in their publications more and more.
It's almost entertaining to see them take your 'gotcha' and twist it, misquote it, spin it, deny it, fake it, lie about it, and otherwise make themselves look like the morons they are in order to keep their audiences from becoming curious about MMFA's work.
Keep up the good work.
How about a cable news channel specifically targeted at debunking FOX "news"?? That would be hilarious. Do exactly what they do here - play the lie, expose the truth. Invite conservative guests on, and then tell them to "shut-up" and cut off their mike the minute they start telling lies?? Hmmmm....
If you can't put together a whole network why don't you go to Link TV and propose a weekday show. They already carry Democracy Now!. Maybe an evening show of punditry would get them some ratings.
the latest national enquirer has a picture of chelsea clinton on the front with three words "chelsea cocaine scandal". but the inside story is about a "blind item" on wonkette that asks "which daughter of a high public official" brags about her cocaine habit. and some "commentators" speculate it's chelsea. i can actually think of a couple more likely candidates, but the whole thing is the sleaziest garbage you'll ever read.
Every once in a while, after a "DEBATE", there would be a segment called a "FACT CHECK". I remember it being on CNN, where the various comments by the debators were subjected to scrutiny and the record, and graded as to its truthfulness.
You'd need a guy who knew his stuff about what the various actors have said in the past, with notes and a computer handy to give actual quotes. (I think CNN used Bob Schneider? Not bad, but David Brock would be infinitely better...).
An hour long show that reviewed the week AND the Sunday talk shows would be excellent.
Al Franken does a comedy/contest thing called "Wait, Wait, don't lie to me." which has the right idea.
The Corporate Media would never allow such a program, which specifies WHAT WAS SAID and WHY IT WAS WRONG. FOX NEWS recognizes the desire of the public to KNOW what's going on; their slogan is "WE REPORT, YOU DECIDE." Unfortunately, FOX reports propaganda and talking points, so any decision based on their "reporting" is going to be dishonest and biased and WRONG.
A show with actual TRUTH would be a hit, and MMFA would be great at producing it. But, alas, such a thing could not be allowed.
There's the tale about the traveling liar who brought his prover along. They went from town to town and at each the liar told a lie that his prover explained. As time progressed so did the lies. In the end his prover quit explaining that the lies had become impossible to prove and his attempts to do so had made him into a liar too. McClellan suffered the same fate. Will a more accompolished liar please step forward and pick up where he left off.
From the ancient Egyptian "Book of the Dead" we get a graphic example of what accompolished lying does. It's reflected in Christian/Muslim dogmas as the judgment of soul. Only accompolished liars shall enter into the kingdom of God according to the ancient Egyptians. The present administration is failing the test. Of course those who fail the judgment of soul test are headed straight to hell. In the ancient Egyptian case that amounted to being fed alive to a monster known by the clever name of Eater.
Mr Bush probably feels like he's being eaten alive right now. That's just the teeth of the bear trap of lies about Iraq and elsewhere that has him by the ankle. He's hoping that faith can move his mountain of lies but where is his prover going to put them? There isn't a rug big enough to sweep them under is what McClellan said by his resignation.