Van Susteren, Jarrett turn reporting on Chicago Annenberg Challenge over to conservative Stanley Kurtz
SUMMARY: In a Fox News special that host Greta Van Susteren said would examine "ties in Senator [Barack] Obama's past that many, frankly, find unsettling," correspondent Gregg Jarrett cited only the views of conservative journalist Stanley Kurtz in reporting on the activities of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, on whose board Obama and member William Ayers served. Neither Jarrett nor Van Susteren gave any indication that they had sought input from any source other than Kurtz in reporting on CAC's activities. In fact, in contrast with Kurtz's claim that the CAC "reflected Bill Ayers' hard-left views," Education Week reported that the foundation's work actually "reflected ... mainstream thinking among education reformers."
During the October 18 Fox News special, Barack Obama: Ties That Bind?, which host Greta Van Susteren said would examine "ties in Senator [Barack] Obama's past that many, frankly, find unsettling," correspondent Gregg Jarrett cited only the views of conservative journalist Stanley Kurtz in reporting on the activities of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), an education reform foundation on whose board Obama and former Weather Underground member William Ayers served in the late 1990s and early 2000s. During the segment, Jarrett reported that "Kurtz says" that CAC "favored projects that reflected Bill Ayers' hard-left views." Neither Jarrett nor Van Susteren gave any indication that they had sought input from any source other than Kurtz in reporting on CAC's activities. In fact, in an October 15 article (registration required), Education Week reported that while CAC "is being portrayed by John McCain's campaign as an attempt to push radicalism on schools," the foundation's work actually "reflected ... mainstream thinking among education reformers."
Additionally, Jarrett identified Kurtz only as a "senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center" whose "expertise is library research." Kurtz is also a contributing editor at National Review Online, and, according to his bio at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, has also written for "the Weekly Standard, Policy Review, City Journal, and Commentary."
During the special, Jarrett reported that following his election to the Illinois State Senate, Obama "continued running the Annenberg Challenge which Kurtz says favored projects that reflected Bill Ayers' hard-left views," then aired a portion of an interview with Kurtz, during which Kurtz asserted that "Bill Ayers really was focused on building up the loyalty of minority groups to their own ethnic heritage and downplaying traditional American patriotism." Later in the segment, Jarrett aired another portion of the interview in which Kurtz asserted that in his work with CAC, Obama had been "sending hundreds of thousands of dollars over to Bill Ayers and his radical education projects."
In contrast with Kurtz's assertion that CAC's activities "reflected Bill Ayers' hard-left views," Education Week reported:
The Chicago Annenberg Challenge, chaired from 1995 to 1999 by Barack Obama, is being portrayed by John McCain's campaign as an attempt to push radicalism on schools.
The project undertaken in Chicago as part of a high-profile national initiative reflected, however, mainstream thinking among education reformers. The Annenberg Foundation's $49.2 million grant in the city focused on three priorities: encouraging collaboration among teachers and better professional development; reducing the isolation between schools and between schools and their communities; and reducing school size to improve learning.
The other eight urban projects that received money from the foundation under the Annenberg Challenge initiative, launched in 1993 by the philanthropist Walter H. Annenberg, pursued similar aims.
And the creation of small schools has continued as a reform strategy nationwide, most recently with major funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
From the October 18 edition of the Fox News special, Barack Obama: Ties That Bind?:
VAN SUSTEREN: The Republicans, after a hard-fought primary, nominated Senator John McCain, a known quantity to most Americans. The Democrats, after an even tougher fight, rejected their best-known candidate for the freshest face ever to win a major party nomination. Yes, Senator Barack Obama's historic candidacy has made him one of the most recognizable people on Earth, but he is still our least-experienced, least-scrutinized presidential candidate ever, and he's running for the most powerful office on Earth.
Lately, the Republicans have questioned ties in Senator Obama's past that many, frankly, find unsettling. Is that fair? Do they really matter? If so, why has discussion of it begun so late?
A quick note: We repeatedly asked both the Obama and McCain campaigns to grant us interviews for this special program -- both declined. But you will hear plenty from the candidates and their supporters as we investigate over the next hour.
[...]
VAN SUSTEREN: This much we know: Senator Barack Obama knew and worked with Bill Ayers back in his Chicago days. Beyond that, almost everything is in dispute. Now, Gregg Jarrett tries to sort things out.
[begin video clip]
JARRETT: So, in the Bill Ayers saga, where does Barack Obama fit in? Nobody has been digging harder for the answer than Stanley Kurtz, senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His expertise is library research. He found obscure documents buried in university libraries that got him onto the subject of Obama and Ayers, which he has been researching now for several months.
How did William Ayers and Barack Obama come to know one another?
KURTZ: Barack Obama now says he first met Bill Ayers in 1995 when he was introduced to Ayers as part of the process of becoming the chairman of a foundation called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.
JARRETT: A foundation with up to $150 million to fund education proposals in the city. Later that year, Obama decided to run for the Illinois statehouse. William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn hosted a meet-and-greet party in their own home. Obama won, but continued running the Annenberg Challenge, which Kurtz says favored projects that reflected Bill Ayers' hard-left views.
JARRETT: Here's what William Ayers wrote: "Teachers should be community organizers dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression."
KURTZ: Bill Ayers really was focused on building up the loyalty of minority groups to their own ethnic heritage and downplaying traditional American patriotism.
[end video clip]
[...]
McCAIN: We need to know the full extent of that relationship.
JARRETT: As expected, in the last presidential debate, the candidates went nose-to-nose on Bill Ayers.
[begin video clip]
McCAIN: And you launched your political campaign in Mr. Ayers' living room.
OBAMA: That's absolutely not true.
McCAIN: And the facts are facts and records are records.
OBAMA: And that's not the facts.
McCAIN: And it's not the fact -- it's not the fact that Senator Obama choose to associate with a guy who, in 2001, said that he wished he would've bombed more.
[...]
OBAMA: Mr. Ayers has become the centerpiece of Senator McCain's campaign over the last two or three weeks. This has been their primary focus, so let's get the record straight. Bill Ayers is a professor of education in Chicago. Forty years ago, when I was 8 years old, he engaged in despicable acts with a radical domestic group. I have roundly condemned those acts.
Ten years ago, he served and I served on a school board that was funded by one of Ronald Reagan's former ambassadors and close friends, Mr. [Walter] Annenberg. Other members on that board were the presidents of the University of Illinois, the president of Northwestern University, who happens to be a Republican, the president of the Chicago Tribune, a Republican-leaning newspaper.
Mr. Ayers is not involved in my campaign. He has never been involved in this campaign, and he will not advise me in the White House. So that's Mr. Ayers.
[end video clip]
SOL STERN (Manhattan Institute senior fellow): Ayers hasn't said a word, for the first time in his life.
[...]
JARRETT: Is anyone who sat on a board or even socialized with William Ayers disqualified from holding high public office?
KURTZ: Sitting on a board together, not necessarily, but if what you're doing on that board is sending hundreds of thousands of dollars over to Bill Ayers and his radical education projects, then I would raise an eyebrow.
The usual fine journalism we've come to expect from FIXED NEWS.
Maybe they can do a "special report" tomorrow, call it "Walter H. Annenberg: Philanthropist or Turrurist?".
I worked for one of Uncle Walter's companies in the seventies. One friend of mine was fired on trumped up charges. He filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board. He asked me to testify for him. When we showed up, they laughed at us. They said we couldn't even present evidence because Annenberg was a close friend of Richard Nixon's. We were told that since they worked for another appointee of Nixon, they weren't willing to risk their jobs. But the workers agreed with us that Annenberg was a right wing fanatic, just like Dick Nixon.
Eventually, he closed the plant, kept our back pay and our severence pay.
I'm glad to see that his money (some of it mine) is doing good works now.
Every time the right wing smear machine mentions Ayers, Obama & friends should mention Annenberg. It stands to reason that Annenberg should have more "guilt by association" with terrorists, since HE appointed Ayers in the first place.
Tricky Dick is suspect too! He was a pal to lots of terrorists...
In a Fox News special that host Greta Van Susteren said would examine "ties in Senator [Barack] Obama's past that many, frankly, find unsettling,"
It doesn't seem like the rest of the American people feel that way.
Next up. Bill Ayers wears white socks. And Obama wears white socks. Is this proof that Obama is a radical terrorist sympathizer like Ayers?
I wonder, does Greta wake up every morning and say a little silent "thank you" to OJ?
Radical education projects approved by the Annenbergs, the University of Illinois, Northwestern University, and the Chicago Tribune.
Hard left, radical, hard left.
His educational ideas can't be any good because of his history.
Yes, indeed. Anybody who, like myself, was in college, OR in teacher-credentialing school, and who read this Kurtz's column, would know that he's stretching a lot to make a claim that the idea of improving the education of African-American youth by designing a curriculum that culturally reinforced positive perception of Africans and African-Americans was a "radical" idea.
Personally, I find it offensive that Kurtz tried to make "Afrocentric" education look un-American. The whole point of that movement was to provide African-Americans with the same culturally positive orientation about themselves that European-Americans enjoy. It was very much in step with mainstream thinking about race in the 90's, and it was NOT anti-American (unless you think perpetually impoverished black people, and education and culture that reinforce perpetual poverty, are an important part of the American spirit).
Should say, "college, OR in teacher-credentialing school, in the 90's"
Van Sustren's father was Joe McCarthy's campaign manager.
Yep...that one. The former junior Senator from Wisconsin who has been the national embarassment for the last 51 years. Great called him uncle.
I have no idea who warped FOX's Jarret's youth, but only suspect it was one of those commie hunting types.
2 comments: First, what would it cost for a national ad buy for a program of this length with the same coverage? This is esentially "free media" for McCain.
Second, what innuendo looks like - The raised eyebrow replaces valid reasoning. Note that he doesn't answer the question directly. If I was on the jury I would have to dismiss his testimony as evasive and dishonest.
"Radical" education projects. LOL
Yes, Fox gives the ultraconservative opinion as balance.
You may recall the WHCD where Stephen Colbert talked about how Fox News tells both sides of the story. "Fox News gives you botht sides of every story: the President's side ... and the Vice President's side."
I worked for a newspaper in Southern California in the late 70s-early 80s with a Libertarian editorial policy. We would sometimes be assigned to what the staff would euphemistically call "policy stories." The editor had a conclusion and we were to go out and report the facts supporting that conclusion. Greta was simply assigned to do a policy story and reported those "facts" that supported the conclusion.