Russert repeated false Knight Ridder claim that Cindy Sheehan "protested outside [Hillary] Clinton's New York office"
On the September 25 broadcast of NBC's Meet the Press, host Tim Russert suggested that Cindy Sheehan's anti-war activism might negatively affect a potential 2008 presidential campaign by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY). In doing so, Russert read an excerpt of a Knight Ridder article that reported that "anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan protested outside Clinton's New York office" -- despite the fact that the protest in question occurred at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, more than seven miles from Clinton's nearest office.
Sheehan's September 18 protest was widely reported in news outlets including The New York Times, Reuters, and The New York Sun, all of which placed the event in Brooklyn. The New York Sun reported that the protest took place at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church. NY1, a New York-based 24-hour television news channel, also reported that the protest took place at the church -- and aired video of Sheehan speaking there.
But on September 22, four days after Sheehan's comments, Knight Ridder reported that Sheehan had "protested outside Clinton's New York office." The rest of the Knight Ridder account is consistent with other news reports: It used commonly reported quotes by Sheehan, indicated the same audience approval, and contained crowd estimates that were consistent with, if not identical to, other reports -- about 500 people, according the Times and Knight Ridder; roughly 300 according to the Sun.
Though it seems clear that the news service was describing the same event that occurred at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, Knight Ridder inexplicably placed it "outside Clinton's New York office." Clinton's New York office is located on Third Avenue in Manhattan, some 7.5 miles by car from the church.
Looks like Russert and Matthews continue NBC's "I Hate the Clintons" battle royale!! I hear the winner of these two go up against Lisa Myers in the next round!!
Maybe talking heads should have term limits. Russert, Matthews, et al seem to slide slowly, invariably towards non-objectivity. How about two years with your own show, then it's time to move on?
Outside Clinton's office = any spot on the planet that isn't inside Clinton's office? Finally journalists learn about Venn diagrams.
" ...on September 22, four days after Sheehan's comments, Knight Ridder reported that Sheehan had "protested outside Clinton's New York office."
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This has the earmarks of one of those right-wing radio talk show or free republic-like blog rumors that eventually gets picked up on by a lazy reporter (in this case, I suspect at Knight Ridder), and then migrates finally to the MSM (Meet the Press), which doesn't bother to verify it. Pretty soon, the legend becomes fact. Thanks to Media Matters for stopping it in its tracks.
Ever since Lawrence O'Donnel broke the story about Karl Rove's involvement in Plamegate several months ago on the Huffington Post, that website has been targeted by paid Republican troll posters trying to disrupt the message boards. The interesting thing is that the trolls seem to get their talking points before the corporate media does, so that you can predict what nonsense Russert and his ilk will be spewing a week from now by looking at what the HuffPo trolls are spewing this week.
For example last week just about every non-Cindy Sheehan related thread on HuffPo featured posts from trolls claiming that HuffPo was no longer covering Sheehan because she had dared to attack Hilary Clinton. Judging from this it seems that next Sunday Russert will be telling us that the corporate media's failure to report the Frist stock scandal is justified by their past failure to report about some ridiculous 2 year old non-story about Air America and the Boys and Girls club. I kid you not!
This is typical Timmy and it's enlightening to see how he slyly sets up a Dem-slamming discussion:
- click on the " September 25 broadcast " link MMFA provides
- do a search for " The Republicans control both houses "
- read down past the part where Timmy repeats KR's falsehood
Classic Russert slight-of-hand.
Can we please see if RoveHack Russert corrects his LIES in his next edition after playing the video tape of this one...
Respect Not Russert.