Shamelessly Self-Promoting Quote of the Week: "Media Matters ... is, for example, a consistently useful resource, largely because the organization tends to limit its criticisms to specific instances of media malfeasance, and then supports those criticisms with documented facts and clear, transparent reasoning." -- CJR Daily
Week ending March 25, 2005
www.mediamatters.org
action@mediamatters.org
This week:
Savage, Buchanan made Nazi comparisons; O'Reilly remained oddly silent
How the networks learned to stop worrying and ignore the bomb
Shamelessly Self-Promoting Quote of the Week:
"Media Matters ... is, for example, a consistently useful resource, largely because the organization tends to limit its criticisms to specific instances of media malfeasance, and then supports those criticisms with documented facts and clear, transparent reasoning."
-- CJR Daily
Terri Schiavo case coverage
Coverage of the Terri Schiavo case has dominated the media for the past week. To provide but one illustration: A search of the Nexis news database finds 81 articles in the past seven days ... in The New York Times alone. As CJR Daily explained, that coverage has left something to be desired:
[C]overage of the Schiavo case has consistently skewed toward the emotional over the factual. And that has been to the advantage for those who want Schiavo kept alive. ... [T]he harsh truth is that news organizations simply want eyeballs, and the best way to get them is to tug at readers' and viewers' heartstrings. ... [J]ournalists should at least make an effort to cut through the sensationalism and provide some context. ... With its performance to date in the Schiavo case, the press is displaying a tell-tale tendency for tabloid-style exploitation in the guise of serious reporting.
Media Matters has provided extensive documentation of the flawed media coverage of the Schiavo case, which is available on our website.
It's worth focusing on one particular failing -- one that reflects a larger, frequent problem with the media's coverage of politics and policy: While news outlets, particularly the cable “news” channels, have devoted considerable time and energy to the Schiavo case, they haven't been so thorough in explaining to viewers who their guests are, or who the key figures in the matter are. Media Matters has frequently noted the inadequate background and context for guests, interviewees and quoted sources (click here for an example), but the past week has brought several new, and particularly egregious, examples.
Operation Rescue has garnered extensive coverage on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News for its protests against the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube. But that coverage has typically identified the group simply by name, or as “Operation Save America.” At most, viewers were told that Operation Rescue is an “anti-abortion” group. But that's hardly enough information for viewers to understand what Operation Rescue is. Likewise, Randall Terry has appeared frequently on news broadcasts, typically identified as a spokesman for Schiavo's parents or as the founder of Operation Rescue.
A more useful description of Terry -- one that would give viewers a better understanding of who they are watching and listening to -- might note, as Media Matters did, that he has been arrested more than 40 times for his anti-abortion protests; that he and his followers have physically prevented women from entering clinics that perform abortions; that he has referred to the founder of Planned Parenthood as a “whore”; or that one of his “most avid followers” was convicted of murdering a doctor who performed abortions. Or that Terry settled a lawsuit filed by the National Organization for Women seeking to “force anti-abortion leaders to pay for damages caused in clinic attacks”; Terry filed for bankruptcy to avoid paying debts he owed to women's groups and clinics that sued him. Or perhaps they could have noted that Terry once declared, “We have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism. ... Theocracy means God rules.”
Perhaps viewers of CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC, might have been better-served by being told that, as Media Matters noted:
The New York Times reported on August 14, 1993, that "[i]n his radio appearances, Mr. Terry said of [abortion provider] Dr. [Warren] Hern: 'I hope someday he is tried for crimes against humanity, and I hope he is executed.' " The Times added that “Coming just five months after an anti-abortion protester [Michael Griffin] shot and killed the doctor [David Gunn] in Florida, Mr. Terry's words were construed by many abortion rights groups as a call to violence." According to an August 7, 1994, report on CBS' 60 Minutes, Terry entreated his followers “to pray for either the salvation or the death” of Hern.
But viewers weren't told any of that; they were left to wonder who Randall Terry is and what Operation Rescue is.
Likewise, when CNN and Fox News interviewed Carla Sauer Iyer, a former nurse for Terri Schiavo, they didn't bother to tell viewers that a judge had found her claims to be “incredible,” that those claims included the allegation that Michael Schiavo injected his wife with insulin to try to kill her, that “He [Michael] would blurt out 'I'm going to be rich,' ” or that “Michael would say 'When is she going to die?' 'Has she died yet?' and 'When is that bitch gonna die?' ”
The day after CNN broadcast its interview with the nurse, CNN anchor Kyra Phillips wrongly claimed that the nurse had come forward for “the first time” the previous day; in fact, she “came forward” long before. CNN correspondent Bob Franken responded by saying that nobody had responded to the nurse's allegations. In fact, as Media Matters noted, “Florida circuit court judge George W. Greer considered Iyer's claims and, in a September 2003 order
, rejected them as 'incredible.' "
But while viewers weren't given much background on Terry or Operation Rescue or Iyer, anchors on Fox News and MSNBC took things one step further with their treatment of Dr. William Hammesfahr, a Florida neurologist who claims he can help Terri Schiavo.
Rather than simply keeping viewers in the dark about Hammesfahr, his background, and his credibility, Fox News anchors Sean Hannity and Martha MacCallum and MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough actively made misleading claims about Hammesfahr, designed to bolster his credibility.
All three identified Hammesfahr as a nominee for the Nobel Prize in medicine. Yet Hammesfahr's “nomination” consisted of a letter from Rep. Mike Bilirakis (R-FL). But congressmen are not eligible to make nominations for the Nobel Prize in medicine, and Bilirakis's “nomination” letter recommended Hammesfahr for the “Nobel Peace Prize in Medicine” -- an award that does not exist.
Still, Hannity referred to Hammesfahr* as a Nobel Prize nominee no fewer than eight times.
While Fox News featured a fake Nobel Prize nominee, there was nothing fake about John Edward, a real-life "psychic medium" who claims an “uncanny ability to predict future events and communicate with those who have crossed over to the Other Side.” Edward, an occasional Fox News guest, appeared to give his opinion on the Schiavo case; apparently, the network decided that having a professional paranormalist pontificate about matters of life and death isn't all that different from what goes on there every day.
We understand that, having solicited Edward's expert opinion on the Schiavo case, Fox News will next feature The Amazing Kreskin's take on Social Security, followed by Dr. Peter Venkman explaining the pros and cons of medical malpractice reform.
Savage, Buchanan made Nazi comparisons; O'Reilly remained oddly silent
Enhancing their reputations for reasoned discourse, radio host Michael Savage and MSNBC analyst/occasional presidential candidate Pat Buchanan made ugly remarks this week.
Savage compared Democrats to the infamous “doctor” of the Auschwitz concentration camp, Josef Mengele:
The radical Democratic left is an army of soulless ghouls. Being of the living dead, they live in a world of death and try to impose it on we the living. Witness who led the charge: a radical homosexual, Barney Frank. A radical abortion Mafiosa, Barbara Boxer. What is difficult for we the living to comprehend is the reason they can engage in such anti-life abominations is because they have no souls. They have said that the tears of Terri Schiavo are mechanical. They have said that her smile is reflexive. They can rip an emerging child from the womb, murder it, and call this a compassionate act. Like Mengele -- the doctor of death from the Nazi concentration camps -- the radical, soulless Democrats keep referring to “the doctors,” as if a medical degree guaranteed humanity. Therefore, choose life. God bless George W. Bush.
Buchanan, meanwhile, compared the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube to Nazi “crimes against humanity”:
A woman has been sentenced to death not because she committed a grave crime, but because she is severely brain-damaged. And she's been sentenced to death by dehydration and starvation, an innocent person.
When the German doctors committed those crimes in the 1930s, even before World War II, they were put on trial for crimes against humanity.
Of course, given Buchanan's past comments about Nazis, we can't be completely certain that he meant the comparison as an insult, but it does seem likely.
Impressively, Bill O'Reilly managed to resist the temptation to join Savage and Buchanan in making Nazi comparisons.
How the networks learned to stop worrying and ignore the bomb
Media Matters noted this week the extraordinary lack of attention paid by major media outlets to revelations that the United States lied to allies about North Korea's role in the sale of nuclear material to Libya:
With the exception of ABC's This Week, the Sunday morning news talk shows passed up opportunities to question top Bush administration officials about a report published that morning that the United States lied to Asian allies about North Korea's role in the sale of nuclear material to Libya. Except for This Week's George Stephanopoulos, no Sunday morning host brought up the story in The Washington Post, which relied on unnamed officials with knowledge of a U.S. intelligence briefing to allies, with administration officials. The officials appeared on the occasion of the second anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq.
Who needs facts when you have GOP press releases?
Amid mounting evidence indicating possible unethical activity by House Republican leaders, The Hill, a Washington-based newspaper that covers Congress, ran a lengthy, one-sided, and misleading article attacking members of the Congressional Ethics Coalition, a group of ideologically diverse organizations that have been critical of the current Congress' approach to ethics.
As Media Matters detailed, the article in The Hill relied heavily on “GOP research” and painted an incomplete and inaccurate picture of the Congressional Ethics Coalition, ignoring the fact that the coalition includes the ultra-conservative Judicial Watch, while repeating Republican claims that the coalition is in league with Democrats in attacking House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX):
While The Hill described funding for some of the progressive groups in the coalition, it failed to mention that Judicial Watch has received more than $7 million in funding from Richard Mellon Scaife, who is not someone generally considered to be in league with congressional Democrats.
Another member of the Congressional Ethics Coalition -- also not mentioned by The Hill -- is the Campaign Legal Center, whose president, Trevor Potter, is a Republican and was an appointee of the George H.W. Bush administration.
The Hill conducted a “survey” of campaign contributions by members of the board of Democracy 21, one of the members of the Congressional Ethics Coalition. That “survey” found that three board members have contributed to Democrats since 1999. “Republicans received nothing from board members,” The Hill noted.
But why did The Hill look only at contributions from Democracy 21 board members? If the question is whether the Congressional Ethics Coalition is in league with House Democrats (or part of the “syndicate” of “do-gooders” that has DeLay so incensed), why not look at contributions from individuals affiliated with other members of the coalition?
For example, The Hill might have looked into contributions from the Campaign Legal Center's Potter, who has given money to Republican Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and John Warner (R-VA), and Reps. Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), Mark Foley (R-FL), Nick Lampson (R-TX) and James Greenwood (R-PA), as well as to McCain's political action committee, Straight Talk America.
Speaking of DeLay, we wonder why no reporter has yet asked him the obvious question, given his recent attack on “do-gooder organizations”: Is he saying that he prefers “evil-doers”?
Jamison Foser is Executive Vice President at Media Matters for America.