CNN anchor ignored "political analyst" Amy Holmes's Republican ties, failed to challenge her claim that "many" newly-elected House Dems "are pro-life"
SUMMARY: CNN's T.J. Holmes
identified guest Jenny Backus as a "Democratic strategist" but
introduced fellow guest Amy Holmes only as a "political analyst," ignoring her Republican ties.
T.J. Holmes also failed to challenge Amy Holmes's assertion that
"many of the Democrats who were just elected, especially to the
House," are socially conservative" and "pro-life"; in
fact, only five of the newly elected Democrats who defeated Republican
incumbents or have been elected to open seats previously held by Republicans
have identified themselves as "pro-life."
Introducing a discussion of the political aftermath of the midterm elections during the November 12 edition of CNN Sunday Morning, anchor T.J. Holmes identified guest Jenny Backus as a "Democratic strategist" but ignored the Republican ties of fellow guest Amy Holmes, introducing her only as a "political analyst." During the discussion, the onscreen text also labeled Backus a "Democratic strategist" and Holmes a "political analyst." In fact, just four days prior, during CNN's election coverage in the early morning hours of November 8, CNN anchor Larry King noted that Amy Holmes is a "Republican strategist and former speechwriter for outgoing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist."
Further, T.J. Holmes failed to challenge Amy Holmes's assertion that "many of the Democrats who were just elected, especially to the House," are "socially conservative" and "pro-life." All 435 House seats were up for election, but assuming Holmes was referring to the 28 Democrats who have, to date, defeated Republican incumbents or have been elected to open seats previously held by Republicans, only five of those candidates have identified themselves as "pro-life." A Media Matters for America survey of 27 of those candidates found that they all agree on a core set of issues, including raising the minimum wage, changing course in Iraq, and protecting Social Security. The Media Matters survey examined the policy positions of 27 Democratic House candidates, who as of November 8 had won previously held Republican seats. Later on November 8, Pennsylvania's 8th Congressional District incumbent Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick (R) conceded to his Democratic challenger Patrick Murphy. According to his campaign website, Murphy is pro-choice, supports federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, supports raising the minimum wage, and has vowed to protect Social Security.
From the November 12 edition of CNN Sunday Morning:
T.J. HOLMES: Well, what a heck of a political week we've been having here. The Democrats steamrolled over the Republicans, taking control over of both the House and the Senate in the midterm elections. Then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld became a casualty of the victory. He is going to be stepping down, and President Bush nominated former CIA chief Robert Gates to take over the job and help shape Iraq war policy. Now, the president's future? A Newsweek poll shows a whopping 66 percent of Americans don't think President Bush will be able to get much done during his final two years in office.
So, with all that said, what's next? Joining us this morning, political analyst Amy Holmes, no relation, and Democratic strategist Jenny Backus.
[...]
BACKUS: There's nothing like being out of power that forms unity, and we've been in the wilderness politically for a couple of years now, and we have a great advantage. We have two very good leaders leading our party. Nancy Pelosi really has proven that she is a pragmatic consensus-builder. She has sent strong messages to both wings of the party saying, "Look, we've got to get stuff done." And if you take just a look at the political map, Democrats won some seats in some places like Kansas or North Carolina where you normally wouldn't think Democrats would win. So, we have a mandate to get stuff done. I think the party is unified to work together. From Iraq to the economy, the American people do not like where the Republican Congress have taken us.
T.J. HOLMES: All right, well --
AMY HOLMES: I'd have to say, I think, that's a pretty rosy spin. If you look at the Democrats who were just elected, especially to the House, many of them are socially conservative; they're pro-life, pro-guns, anti-tax. And there was a great quote in the New York Times this week by Harry Mitchell, who's the congressman who defeated J.D. Hayworth in Arizona, and he said that he can't be a rabid partisan Democrat and be able to represent that district. So, you're going to see fracturing on the Democratic side as they try to move forward with what we hope is a moderate agenda.
T.J. HOLMES: All right, just 24 hours, you think, huh? That's all we got left?
BACKUS: Ah, she's too cynical.
From the November 8 edition of CNN's Larry King Live:
KING: Welcome back to our special election night, now election morning, coverage. I'm Larry King in Los Angeles. In a minute, we'll talk with David Gergen of U.S. News & World Report; Amy Holmes, the Republican strategist; and Arianna Huffington, the founder and editor of huffingtonpost.com, a syndicated columnist.
[...]
KING: Amy Holmes is the Republican strategist and former speechwriter for outgoing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.
"Amy Holmes is the Republican strategist and former speechwriter for outgoing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist."
Says it all...
If you've seen my posts here, you know that I generally favor the Democrats, and I don't necessarily disagree with you or anything, but I don't get what you mean. Just curious, how is that sentence propoganda?
THANK YOU. njguy93@yahoo.com
cause some are pro life. I don't mind if they are. I'm not surprised either, these things kinda happen when you're the big tent party.
First off, Holmes is a Republican shill. Secondly, even in the wake of this (what I consider a major) wake-up call to the Republican party...they want it to appear as if the Republicans still won in some way.
Now, regardless of your stance on the abortion issue, etc... to claim that the reason Democrats won is because the country is truly conservative (the new moderate)... I think is a stretch and a bit of a pat on the back to the criminals who ripped us off in the first place (Republicans). You see... the Republicans didn't really lose... they just let the Democrats win. That's the subtle propaganda in my mind.
This is part of the "conservatives didn't lose" TP from Rove. He's got to say something after gettin' a thumpin'.
...and said more succinctly than I rambled about above.
Every article used to have links for contacting the media. I am sick and tired of the lazy media just putting any old jackass up to say wahtever they want with no scrutiny or challenge.
Why isn't this highlighted? King does not identify Huffington as a left wing blogger, only a syndicated columnist. He identified Holmes as a Republican strategist. If the topic of this thread is conservative media bias, then this omission by King is liberal bias.
********************************
KING: Welcome back to our special election night, now election morning, coverage. I'm Larry King in Los Angeles. In a minute, we'll talk with David Gergen of U.S. News & World Report; Amy Holmes, the Republican strategist; and Arianna Huffington, the founder and editor of huffingtonpost.com, a syndicated columnist.
because this site is devoted to identifying conservative bias. Maybe?
If you want a brownie point for identifying some liberal bias by omission, congrats. You win. I guess MM should just pack up their tent and go home.
It doesn't mean that this isn't obviously bias through omission: "Joining us this morning, political analyst Amy Holmes, no relation, and Democratic strategist Jenny Backus."
Holmes is identified as a presumably nuetral "analyst," while Backus is a directly identified as "Democratic," and as a "strategist," which implies a much more actively partisan role than someone who just "analyzes."
That's conservative bias.
Did you have fun trying to deflect this thread?
BTW - nice job never answering Brabantio's dissection of your self-contradiction on the "death tax" thread yesterday: ([link to mediamatters.org] Glad to see when you are caught in contradictory statements you'll just ignore it all and hope it goes away.
But when the liberal bias is included in the thread on topic, it's disingenuous at best to leave it out.
But then I wouldn't expect anything less from you. You live in an ideological bubble only seeing and hearing what reinforces your opinions, and that is fine.
As for the "death tax" thread, I said my piece on that yesterday. If it's so ridiculous and contains so many contradictions, then don't bother yourself with such a waste of time.
Dont take any guff from these liberal wackos on this site tommy. You do the conservative movement proud and I read here all the time but rarely post. Keep it up!!!!!
But some of them are more entertaining than actually taking guff. As in the poster above.
They keep saying how contradictory I am, or what little sense I make, yet they keep responding and arguing. I wouldn't waste my time.
it's the same david gergen, republican, who is only identified as "of u. s. news and world report".
Did you assume everyone amuses themselves the same way? You make VERY little sense most of the time. Sometimes you suprise with pretty good insight. Its all good. Nice that someone appreciates you.
tommy represents the conservative movement? well, ok, if you insist.
but I think you've got a secret admirer!
Sorry, couldn't resist giving you a little "guff"
And billyboy, good for you backing him up. Especially since I'd have to guess that anyone who says "guff" would have to be between 80 and 175 years old.
LOLOLOLOLOL
There is a huge difference between a blogger and columnist with ideological leanings and an analyist with direct partisan ties. She WORKED for a GOP Senator. Not she has conservative leanings. This is a very easy distinction to understand
"But then I wouldn't expect anything less from you. You live in an ideological bubble only seeing and hearing what reinforces your opinions, and that is fine."
Aren't you the one who denied the rather blatant propagandistic re-labeling of the estate tax as the "death tax," then contradicted yourself about the importance of semantic issues, and then finally refused to acknowledge your own contradictions? If anyone was seeing only what reinforced his own opinions, it was you.
Heck, you've asserted here that everyone is "100% responsible" for whether or not they vote, and that you don't buy any of the reports of voter suppression. Talk about an extreme and silly position to take. As I've pointed out before, life is a balance of personal responsibility and factors over which you have no control. Statements like yours deny that anyone is ever faced with circumstances beyond one's control, or that people ever work to oppress, repress, supress, etc. others, which you can only believe by being completely blind to not only history but the modern world. I believe that life is too complex and nuanced to make everyone "100% responsible" for EVERYTHING. Some people have more ABILITY and OPPORTUNITY to be responsible. Plenty of people need to be more responsible, but to deny that environmental, health, economic, educational, etc. factors play a part in determining the level of control a person has over their lives is just ridiculous. That's an ideoogical bubble for you right there - the denial that there is a middle ground between personal responsibility and outside factors. For someone who trumpets the middle ground so often, I don't really understand your extremism on this concept.
And I'm in a bubble? You stopped responding yesterday because you were caught in a web of your own words, that, honestly, I was surprised at, given the level of reasonable-ness you try to maintain here most of the time.
"As for the "death tax" thread, I said my piece on that yesterday. If it's so ridiculous and contains so many contradictions, then don't bother yourself with such a waste of time."
I never said it was "ridiculous" or "a waste of time," did I? Nope, and you know it. Go ahead,read my post again. My point was that your argument ended up eating itself and when it did, instead of being able to own up to it, after having it carefully illustrated, you bailed.
When you can't make the argument, you dismiss people with labels and charged rhetoric, as above, or ignore them, as you did yesterday when your own words were used to dismantle your original point.
As far as the disengenuousness of omitting King's omission, I have no problem with you pointing out to MMFA that they should have included a note that Larry King apparently did the same thing by not identifying Huffington as a "liberal." It doesn't negate the original piece's accuracy.
When you spend half your post's trying to deem MMFA's piece's "irrelevant," you open yourself up to charges of deflecting the discussion or attempting to take us on to silly tangents that obfuscate the actual issue. In my view, that was likely the true purpose of your original post here. If not, I was wrong about that. It happens.
Finally, if I entertain you, you're welcome. You entertain me plenty. If I don't, well, I can't take responsibility for that.
Do we have to post this again?
I guess so... Because you seemed to have forgotten what this site is actually all about.
"Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."
[link to mediamatters.org]
Remember what they're here for?
We have everyone else yelling and screaming about the "liberal media". Is it OK if you have one site that can break down the conservative misinformation?