ABC New’s Jake Tapper reports: The White House is putting on a full court press on social media next week to get out the president’s message on its own terms. 1) On Tuesday at 9 pm ET, Whitehouse.gov will live-stream…
Political Punch
The attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords could have been averted if America had government-run health care, according to left-wing comedian Bill Maher.
That's just the first instance of liberal media advocacy that NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center president Brent Bozell touched in the January 20 "Media Mash" segment on FNC's "Hannity" program.
"This is the desperation that they're in to sell ObamaCare, that they know the American people don't want," Bozell argued.
Video embedded after page break.
Maher should know that the the problem lies more with liberal groups like the ACLU who have made it near "impossible, in some cases for the state to treat mentally sick people" like Jared Loughner, the MRC president added.
Bozell also addressed the ABC's defense of ObamaCare, painting the repeal that conservatives want as a "disaster":
Why is it that after two years of [the media's] non-stop selling [ObamaCare], this is not selling? Six out of ten Americans want this thing repealed. Eight out of ten were happy with their own insurance. Why is it that they cannot simply say the reason this was repealed was because the American people don't want to pay huge billions of dollars in new taxes, they don't want their freedoms taken, they don't want to see something that's blatantly unconstitutional. Why not report on the reason why it was repealed instead of a shameless press release for Nancy Pelosi?
Hannity and Bozell also addressed the media hyping Ron Reagan's claim in a new book that his father the late president may have suffered the earliest onset of Alzheimer's disease while in office:
SEAN HANNITY: You know, I've got to give credit to one person in the media, and this was Barbara Walters, and she said she spent more time with the president than he did and she didn't believe him.
BRENT BOZELL: Have you noticed something? At the start of that interview where Wolf Blitzer said, rather interesting, he said, first he said "revelations," and then he said "claims." That's two different words, two different meanings. A revelation implies that there's a fact. A claim implies there's a suggestion. In fact, this is the opinion of Ron Reagan. Had he put Michael Reagan on, Michael Reagan would have said the exact opposite of Ron Reagan.
Let me tell you something here, this is Ron Reagan Jr., pathetic, a pathetic human being. Saying look at me, look at me, on the 100th anniversary of my dad's [birth]…. And the only way he can get on television is if he throws mud on the memory of his own father. He knew what he was doing. He knew what they would come out with, and this is the kind of thing he's done for years!
There is a reason the “mainstream” media relentlessly bashes Sarah Palin, even blaming her for a tragic event that had absolutely no connection with her whatsoever — it works:
After days of relentless attacks by media across the fruited plain, Sarah Palin’s unfavorable rating hit an all-time high this week. …
From January 8 [the day of the Tucson Massacre] through January 16, CNN ran 80 stories that included the name of the former Alaska governor.
That’s roughly nine pieces per day, during which her name was mentioned approximately 664 times or over 70 times every 24 hours!
As few if any of these mentions were positive, is there any wonder a new CNN/Opinion Research poll found 56 percent of all Americans now have an unfavorable view of Sarah Palin — an all-time high?
Not many people watch CNN anymore. But adding in the numbers for NPR, ABC, CBS, and NBC, plus the prime time weekday numbers for MSNBC, there were 179 reports on Palin in 16 days, mentioning her name 1,485 times. Screaming her name over and over again in the aftermath of a tragedy will inevitably form a link in people’s minds, even if no rational connection has been proven or even suggested.
As moonbat congresscritter Steve Cohen might say, “repeat a lie often enough…”
When news of the shootings first broke, I warned, “Keep your eyes open; this will be exploited.” But I had no idea it would be this shameless. There truly is nothing beneath the vermin running the liberal media establishment.
On a tip from SR.
Editor's Note: In the wake of the CNSNews.com interview with potential presidential hopeful Rick Santorum and his criticism of President Obama’s support for abortion rights, numerous major news outlets including Politico, National Journal, the Wall Street Journal, and the Daily Beast have accused Santorum of playing the “race card” while discussing human life and personhood protected by the Constitution.
Santorum said this: "The question is, and this is what Barack Obama didn’t want to answer: Is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no. Well, if that human life is not a person, then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.’”
What follows is NewsBusters publisher/Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell's reaction to the media attacks on the former Pennsylvania senator.
This has nothing to do with a supposed "race card." This isn’t even just about Rick Santorum. The media whirlwind whipped up on these accusations are nothing more than the continuation of an ugly and dishonest attempt to distort, delegitimize and damn conservative principles and conservative leaders.
Anyone who actually watched this interview can see that Santorum paralleled what many pro-life leaders have compared in the past. Just ask Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Day Gardner, Rev. Childress or any number of other black leaders who have also called abortion the civil rights issue of our day.
It’s sad that many of these same outlets also failed to report news yesterday of the Philadelphia abortionist charged with the murder of 1 woman and 7 babies born alive and then killed with scissors. It doesn't get more gruesome than that. But that story doesn’t threaten liberal ideology, so I guess it’s just not news.
Santorum does threaten liberal ideology, so they create a false controversy — and call it news.
You can watch the complete CNSNews.com interview here: http://cnsnews.com/cnsnewstv/v/80258
I don’t know how Peter Weir’s latest movie, The Way Back, managed to survive the Hollywood machine without being turned into a complete POS, but it did. It opens tomorrow nationwide. If you have a chance to see it in a theater, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. It’s too bad the studio marketeers are doing nothing to promote this extraordinary movie. Maybe they’ve forgotten how to sell a film that’s actually about something. Anyway, it’s based on the non-fiction book The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz , which is impossible to put down.
In an interview with CNSNews.com last week, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (R) referenced President Obama's African-American heritage last week and "found it remarkable" that he could be pro-abortion. Santorum, later clarifying his comments under media scrutiny, said he meant he is dismayed that a President who "rightfully" fights for civil rights ignores the civil rights of the unborn in America.
Santorum, speaking of President Obama's position on abortion, said in the interview "the question is-and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer-is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no. Well, if that person, human life, is not a person, then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, no, we are going to decide who are people and who are not people."
The media picked up on the comment and, without publishing what Santorum said leading up to the segment, questioned if he had racial motivations. Jennifer Epstein's Politico piece was headlined "Rick Santorum plays race card on President Obama." Epstein labeled Santorum's remark "eyebrow-raising."
USA Today reported "Ex-Senator Ties Obama's Race to Abortion Rights." New York Magazine's piece was titled "Rick Santorum Can't Believe Obama Doesn't Know Exactly When Life Begins, Because He's Black."
Other sources picked up the piece, such as Slate, the Washington Post, the Daily Caller, the Huffington Post, National Journal, MSNBC.com, and ABCNews.com. NBC correspondent Norah O'Donnell ran the clip of Santorum's comment on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports" and asked her guests to comment.
The former senator was being interviewed by Terry Jeffrey, who edits CNSNews.com, a division of NewsBusters's parent company the Media Research Center.
Jeffrey quoted Dr. Martin Luther King's "Letter From the Birmingham Jail," that just laws are those in conformity with natural law. He asked Santorum if he agreed.
"Absolutely," Santorum replied. "I quoted it in my speech."
Jeffrey then asked if natural law principles apply to the controversy over when an unborn child should receive the right to life. "Every person, every child conceived in the womb has a right to life from the moment of conception," Santorum answered. He pointed to the absurdity of President Obama being unable to answer the basic question because it is "above [his] pay grade."
Bob Parks, senior video producer at the Media Research Center, produced and edited the interview between Santorum and Jeffrey. Parks responded on his blog "Black and Right" that President Obama should be able to address the issue of abortion.
"Maybe [Epstein] should do a little research and look up the Negro Project, how liberal icon Margaret Sanger targeted blacks for extermination with Planned Parenthood, and how wonderful it was that almost 60% of black babies were aborted last year in New York City alone," Parks wrote.
"Barack Obama should be able to say something about this specifically," he added.
A transcript of the segment of the interview between Santorum and Jeffrey is as follows:
TERRY JEFFREY, Editor-in-Chief, CNSNews: Dr. Martin Luther King, when he was thrown in the Birmingham jail-
Fmr. Pennsylvania Sen. RICK SANTORUM: I quoted it in my speech! Yeah.
JEFFREY: In 1963, on Good Friday, wrote his “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.” And in that he cited two Roman Catholic saints, Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas, saying that a just law is a law that comports with the natural law or the law of God and an unjust law is one that doesn't, and the reason that the segregation laws of the South were unjust is because they violated the natural God-given law. Do you agree with Martin Luther King?
SANTORUM: Absolutely. I quoted it in my speech. In fact, I read the entire quote. And I believe-the call in my speech was for what Madison referred to as the perfect remedy. In essence what freedom of conscience is all about, what you are talking about is all about, is how do we live with our differences? If you think about it, America is unique in the sense that we have people coming from very disparate backgrounds, very different points of view, and yet we have a equanimity here in America. We always figure out a way to sort of work things out in America. Why? Why does someone from Serbia and someone from Croatia-that if they lived in the Balkans would be at each others throats-move next door to each other in Cleveland and are on the PTA together and get along. How does that work? Well it works because America is different. It's Madison perfect remedy, which is a vibrant, active, inclusive public square. Everybody's allowed in. People of faith, people of non-faith, and you can make your claims, you can argue your point, and then you can let the discourse decide. You don't have the elite, the planners, the smart people saying, no, this is how we are going to do things. And if the sacred law and secular the law don't match up-as the Supreme Court has done now on numerous occasions, whether its marriage or abortion, or a whole host of other issues-they've sort of pulled that discussion, that perfect remedy, and pulled the plug on it, and said, no, we're going to impose our remedy, an imperfect one, based upon the elites of our culture.
JEFFREY: All right, let's talk in specific terms about how this natural God-given law that is at the foundation of our country plays into current concrete issues. We asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi-I think I mentioned it to you earlier-this past summer whether she believed Jesus had a right to life from the moment of conception. What's your-Did Jesus have a right to life from the moment of conception?
SANTORUM: Every person, every child conceived in the womb has a right to life from the moment of conception. Why? Because they are human, genetically human, at the moment of conception. They have the same genetic composition as you and I do from that moment on. And it's alive. So it is human, by genetic, and it is alive, so it's a human life. So the question is, not whether this is a human life. When Barack Obama is asked, you know, is a child in the womb a human life? 'Oh, well, that's above my pay grade.' Just about everything else in the world he's willing to do, to have the government do, but he can't answer that basic question, which is not a debatable issue at all. I don't think you'll find a biologist in the world who will say that that is not a human life. The question is-and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer-is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no. Well, if that person, human life, is not a person, then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, no, we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.
Editor's Note: In the wake of the CNSNews.com interview with potential presidential hopeful Rick Santorum and his criticism of President Obama’s support for abortion rights, numerous major news outlets including Politico, National Journal, the Wall Street Journal, and the Daily Beast have accused Santorum of playing the “race card” while discussing human life and personhood protected by the Constitution.
Santorum said this: "The question is, and this is what Barack Obama didn’t want to answer: Is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no. Well, if that human life is not a person, then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.’”
What follows is NewsBusters publisher/Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell's reaction to the media attacks on the former Pennsylvania senator.
This has nothing to do with a supposed "race card." This isn’t even just about Rick Santorum. The media whirlwind whipped up on these accusations are nothing more than the continuation of an ugly and dishonest attempt to distort, delegitimize and damn conservative principles and conservative leaders.
Anyone who actually watched this interview can see that Santorum paralleled what many pro-life leaders have compared in the past. Just ask Dr. Alveda King, niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Day Gardner, Rev. Childress or any number of other black leaders who have also called abortion the civil rights issue of our day.
It’s sad that many of these same outlets also failed to report news yesterday of the Philadelphia abortionist charged with the murder of 1 woman and 7 babies born alive and then killed with scissors. It doesn't get more gruesome than that. But that story doesn’t threaten liberal ideology, so I guess it’s just not news.
Santorum does threaten liberal ideology, so they create a false controversy — and call it news.
You can watch the complete CNSNews.com interview here: http://cnsnews.com/cnsnewstv/v/80258
"Bipartisanship" is one of those buzzwords that proponents of a policy will invoke whenever possible. But a rush to demonstrate that the policy appeals across party lines can often obscure partisans' real motives in endorsing it.
Since former Senate Majority Leaders Bill Frist and Tom Daschle teamed up to endorse ObamaCare this week, plenty of media outlets have touted the "bipartisan" backing of the law.
Daschle is of course a Democrat so his support isn't as newsy as Frist's. But when a credentialed Republican, a former Senate GOP leader comes out in favor of a piece of landmark liberal legislation, the keen observer is a bit suspicious. Why the ideological shift? In Frist's case – and this fact has amazingly gone unmentioned in reports by MSNBC, NPR, and Politico – it's due to the handsome profit he stands to make from the preservation of ObamaCare.
As reported by Washington Examiner columnist Tim Carney last year (who also spotted the media omissions):
Frist is a partner in a private investment firm that bets on health care companies — and on regulation…. So Frist gets rich by helping pick the health care companies that will get rich. Now he's backing Obamacare — and winning praise for it.
Carney followed up with a column on Frist's vested interest in the health care debate on Wednesday. He wrote:
Look at some of the language on [Frist employer] Cressey & Co's webpage. "The Cressey & Company strategy applies unique insights and experience to produce extraordinary results" [emphasis added]. What "unique insights" do you think Frist provides? Another page on the site gives us a hint: "With deep expertise in the healthcare reimbursement and regulatory environments, the Cressey & Company team has invested in almost every for-profit niche of healthcare."
Daschle, for his part, is a lobbying "consultant" for a number of clients with skin in the health care game.
Yet somehow, both Daschle's and Frist's clear conflicts of interest – indeed, even their employers – escaped mention in reports from MSNBC, NPR, and Politico. Clearly the mainstream press is a sucker for "bipartisanship" – when it's supporting a law popular in liberal circles, anyway.
But for journalists who love to "follow the money," they're awfully silent on these two partisans' financial interests in seeing ObamaCare preserved.
In a New Atlanticist piece titled “Hungary’s Media Law Draws EU Protests,” I point to an interesting controversy across the Pond that has gotten little to no attention here:
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán recently assumed the rotating presidency of the European Council. He’s under siege for his government’s draconian new “media laws” which allow state censorship in the guise of fairness.
The bottom line, as I see it:
Presumably, this is the price for rapid expansion. Either the EU can limit its membership to fully modern states who have long internalized the principles of democratic governance or it can offer membership to emerging countries in hopes of enticing them down the right path.
In choosing the latter, Europe has doubtless hastened the pace of reform in Poland, Latvia, and other states formerly under the Communist thumb. But that means accepting growing pains among members of the club.
Much more at the link.
Photo credit: DPA/Spiegel.
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What grade [A, B, C, D or F] would you give Republicans in their transition to the majority in the House? |
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|
Democrats (91 votes) |
Republicans
(91 votes) |
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| AVERAGE GRADE | C+ | B+ |
| A | 10% | 64% |
| B | 46% | 34% |
| C | 34% | 2% |
| D | 8% | 0% |
| F | 1% | 0% |
| Incomplete (volunteered) | 1% | 0% |
Insiders in both parties give Republicans relatively high marks for the GOP transition to power in the House of Representatives, according to this week’s National Journal Political Insiders Poll. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) earned unusual bipartisan credit for deftly managing his new majority and the tone he set. And while some also criticized him for not attending the Tucson memorial for the victims in the Arizona shooting, his personal style overall won praise.
“Boehner kept it real, got his troops in line, calmly spoke to everyday people about being a ‘regular guy with a big job,’ and put forth some symbolically effective measures,” said a Democratic Insider. “Even the tears were appealing to a lot of people.”
Republicans also focused on the contrast between Boehner’s transition and those of two of his predecessors, Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.). “Unlike the start of the Gingrich and Pelosi eras, John Boehner has made the start of the new session of Congress about the success of the institution rather than a personal coronation,” said a GOP Insider. Echoed another, “Boehner and [Majority Leader Eric] Cantor (R-Va.) avoid overexposure; no one hates them-sharp contrast to Gingrich and company.”
The marks were not dissimilar to those that Democrats earned for their transition after they took over the House and the Senate following the 2006 midterm elections. At that time Democratic Insiders gave the Democratic transition an average grade of ‘B’ and Republican Insiders gave it an average grade of ‘C+.’ Ironically, back in January 2007, Republican Insiders criticized Democrats for not allowing congressional Republicans the chance to offer alternatives on the initial legislation that the new Democratic majority moved. That was also a complaint from Democratic Insiders this week on the House Republican move to repeal healthcare reform. What goes around comes around.
GLAAD has announced the nominations for its 2011 Media Awards, which honor excellence in a broad range of LGBT-related media, including movies, television, theater, newspapers, magazines, and digital journalism. A first-time category this year is Outstanding Blog, for which this here website thingy is nominated! My co-nominees are Bilerico Project, Blabbeando, Pam’s House Blend, and Rod 2.0. All pals of mine! Below is GLAAD’s highlight reel for this year’s nominees in television and film. Click over for the complete listing of nominees in all categories.
New position oversees all Viacom’s media networks outside the…
B&C – Breaking News
By Barry Rubin
How incredibly bad is media coverage of Israel-Palestinian issues and of the Middle East in general? Here’s an example.
CNN has just run a report on how wonderfully moderate the Palestinian Authority (PA) is. They are firing imams of West Bank mosques who are spewing out incitement against Israel!
Well, first of all this claim began five months ago, when the PA started peddling it, and I wrote about it almost three months ago, after liberal American Jews began citing it as another demonstration of the PA’s moderation. It is not a new story at all.
Second, unlike what news reports are supposed to do, this doesn’t name actual imams who have been fired, numbers, or places where these people have been kicked out. Thus, it is impossible to tell whether a single imam has been ousted.
Third, we constantly hear West Bank sermons and they are by no means becoming more moderate. The same goes, of course, with the West Bank newspapers, leaders’ speeches, and television. (See examples at the end of this article).
In fact, though, it is quite possible that imams have been fired, but not for being inciteful but for being Hamas supporters, or at least not sufficiently loyal to the PA.
And if the CNN reporter cannot cite examples, how does he know this happened? I’d bet you large amounts of Euros against small quantities of high-quality, low-fat yogurt (chocolate, thank you) that it is because (ta-da!) PA officials told him that this was so. It might have gone through an additional stage, with the PA official passing it on to a Palestinian pro-Fatah stringer, and then to the reporter.
In short, the PA issues press releases, in effect, the media publishes them as truth. Whether it be women allegedly dying of tear-gas, massacres in Jenin, or whatever, much of the mass media (and notably Reuters, AP, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and National Public Radio being prominent on that list) have merely become extensions of the PA advertising agency.
Or, in other words, business as usual.
Now, what about that moderation lately?
OK, here are some good stories for CNN and others:
Item 1:
If you read the following quote-thanks to Palestinian Media Watch, you’d think it comes from al-Qaida, Hamas, Hizballah, Syria, or Iran.
“There are other conspiracies which the occupation [Israel] plans so as to cause a decrease [in attention] to the Palestinian cause and to turn it into a secondary matter with no priority, such as the ethic-religious battle going on in Lebanon….the division of Sudan….What is happening in Yemen [including al-Qaida]…. There are also the massacres being carried out against the Christian communities in Iraq….”
But who is speaking here? Tayeb Abd al-Rahim. And who is he? The director of the office of Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Authority (PA)-in an interview with al-Hayat al-Jadida, January 4, 2011-whose name is never mentioned in the Western media without the word “moderate” being attached to it.
Item 2:
And here’s a report, thanks again Palestinian Media Watch, on PA television’s consisting claiming all of Israel as part of a future Arab Palestine
Item 3:
PA leader Mahmoud Abbas has just made the Alashekeen band (of musicians, not terrorists-well not gun-toting ones at least) the PA’s official band. And here are some lyrics from their biggest hit:
“The Zionists went out from [their] homelands,
compounding damage and enmity.
But the Palestinian revolution awaits.
The orchard called us to the [armed] struggle.
We replaced bracelets with weapons.
We attacked the despicable [Zionists].
This invading enemy is on the battlefield.
This is the day of consolation of Jihad.”
Jihad, huh? Perhaps internal personal striving to be a better person? Not exactly, “Give Peace a Chance.” It might be enough to say that this promotes extremism and violence. But always remember that by the same token this kind of politics doesn’t support peace and conciliation. So if Abbas did want to make a compromise peace with Israel, he would be perceived as a traitor, partly a situation of his own making.
Thank goodness the PA doesn’t have its own talk radio show in the United States!
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict, and Crisis (Palgrave Macmillan), Conflict and Insurgency in the Contemporary Middle Eastand editor of the (seventh edition) (Viking-Penguin), The Israel-Arab Reader the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria(Palgrave-Macmillan), A Chronological History of Terrorism (Sharpe), and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).
Almost immediately after the shooting in Tucson that killed six people and left Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords severely wounded, the media establishment linked the attack with a debate about “civility,” suggesting an association between Jared Loughner’s rampage and the words and phrases used in national political debates.
Many of these network news stories offered ambiguous references to, as CBS’s Bob Schieffer put it on the January 9 edition of Sunday Morning, “the mean and hateful tone that now marks our modern politics.” Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, in a soundbite on NBC’s Today the next morning, pointed his finger at “the left and the right” as contributing to what he termed “the climate of violence.”
There’s certainly no shortage of instances of the Left deploying violent rhetoric, but how evenly did the media divide the blame during the first few days of this national debate about civility? MRC analysts reviewed all 55 broadcast network stories or segments discussing the discourse from just after the shooting (January through the evening of the national memorial service on January 12, reviewing the ABC, CBS and NBC morning, evening and Sunday talk shows.
While many of those stories offered general comments about “harsh rhetoric,” about three-fifths (31) contained specific references to instances of supposedly intemperate speech. Of those specific examples elevated by the media, more than eight out of ten (82%) were about the conduct of conservatives or Republicans, compared with just 11% which talked about liberals or Democrats.
(Please note: a story could have contained more than one specific example of provocative speech. The remaining 7% of specific instances were drawn from the political fringe, not associated with either mainstream conservatives or liberals, including multiple citations on NBC of the “birther” who yelled from the congressional gallery during the reading of the U.S. Constitution, and one reference on ABC to the movie “Zeitgeist,” which supposedly influenced Loughner’s attitudes.)
Of those the media associated with the shooting, former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin was most frequently impugned — mentioned in 24 stories, or more than three-fourths of those containing references to specific actors. Reporters quickly — within hours of the news breaking, when few facts were reliably known — chose to highlight a map of targeted congressional districts Palin’s Web site had drawn up for the 2010 campaign, creating the sinister implication that it was somehow related to the events in Tucson.
“Giffords was one of 20 Democrats whose districts were lit up in cross hairs on a Sarah Palin campaign Web site last spring,” CBS’s Nancy Cordes noted on the January 8 Evening News. “Giffords and many others complained that someone unstable might act on that imagery.”
On ABC’s World News that same night, correspondent Jon Karl made the same connection: “Giffords had just won re-election in a hard-fought campaign, winning despite being one of the top Republican targets for defeat. She was even on Sarah Palin’s target list.”
“Not since Timothy McVeigh attacked the federal building in Oklahoma City has a crime sparked so much attention on anti-government rhetoric,” NBC’s Lee Cowan noted on Today January 10. “That map Sarah Palin put up on Facebook last year, targeting Congresswoman Gifford’s seat, made Gifford nervous, even then."
The following morning on the same program, correspondent Andrea Mitchell suggested Palin was off the hook — at least, for now: “Was her gun image inflammatory? There is no direct link to this suspect, as far as investigators know.”
Another nine stories linked the Tea Party to the tragedy. “Giffords, a conservative Democrat, was concerned about heated rhetoric from the Tea Party,” NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell noted on the January 9 Today, the morning after the shooting. Anchoring ABC’s World News on January 8, David Muir passed along how Giffords father was asked “Did your daughter have any enemies? And his response was, ‘Yes, the whole Tea Party.’”
The networks’ other examples of the right’s supposed vitriol: Florida talk show host and Tea Party activist Joyce Kaufman, former Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle, national radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson, radio host and Fox News personality Glenn Beck, and Dick Morris, branded by CBS as a “conservative pollster.”
As for pointing fingers at liberals or Democrats, both CBS and NBC once highlighted how then-Democratic senate candidate Joe Manchin shot a copy of the cap and trade bill in a TV ad last year (a position that actually puts Manchin to the right of most in his party). NBC’s Andrea Mitchell twice acknowledged (once on Today, once on the Nightly News) how, just days before the shooting, a blogger at the left-wing Daily Kos web site had written a hostile item about Giffords voting against Nancy Pelosi for House Speaker: “He had written that she was, quote, ‘dead to him’” — an anecdote that went unreported on ABC and CBS.
On the January 9 edition of NBC’s Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory cited how then-Representative Alan Grayson “compared Republicans to the Taliban” in his campaign last year. Only ABC’s George Stephanopoulos mentioned (mildly) the existence of harsh left-wing speech on NBC’s cable network, MSNBC, relaying on the January 9 This Week how “on the left, Keith Olbermann last night on MSNBC, apologizing for any statements he might have made in the past that incited violence in any way.” For its part, none of NBC’s “civility” coverage ever talked about the inflammatory rhetoric of their MSNBC colleagues.
If the media want to have an honest debate about civility, then journalists need to confront the real and harsh examples of liberals engaging in the sort of rhetoric they ostensibly deplore. And the first topic for that debate needs to be the highly un-civil way the Left and many in the media suggested mainstream conservatives and the Tea Party were somehow culpable for the horrible acts of January 8.
And if they choose to continue furthering the Left’s baseless allegations designed to smear conservatives, the media’s self-appointed civility cops are themselves contributing to the coarsening of American politics — the very thing they purport to decry.
— Rich Noyes is Research Director of the Media Research Center. You can follow him here on Twitter.
Almost immediately after the shooting in Tucson that killed six people and left Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords severely wounded, the media establishment linked the attack with a debate about “civility,” suggesting an association between Jared Loughner’s rampage and the words and phrases used in national political debates.
Many of these network news stories offered ambiguous references to, as CBS’s Bob Schieffer put it on the January 9 edition of Sunday Morning, “the mean and hateful tone that now marks our modern politics.” Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, in a soundbite on NBC’s Today the next morning, pointed his finger at “the left and the right” as contributing to what he termed “the climate of violence.”
There’s certainly no shortage of instances of the Left deploying violent rhetoric, but how evenly did the media divide the blame during the first few days of this national debate about civility? MRC analysts reviewed all 55 broadcast network stories or segments discussing the discourse from just after the shooting (January through the evening of the national memorial service on January 12, reviewing the ABC, CBS and NBC morning, evening and Sunday talk shows.
While many of those stories offered general comments about “harsh rhetoric,” about three-fifths (31) contained specific references to instances of supposedly intemperate speech. Of those specific examples elevated by the media, more than eight out of ten (82%) were about the conduct of conservatives or Republicans, compared with just 11% which talked about liberals or Democrats.
(Please note: a story could have contained more than one specific example of provocative speech. The remaining 7% of specific instances were drawn from the political fringe, not associated with either mainstream conservatives or liberals, including multiple citations on NBC of the “birther” who yelled from the congressional gallery during the reading of the U.S. Constitution, and one reference on ABC to the movie “Zeitgeist,” which supposedly influenced Loughner’s attitudes.)
Of those the media associated with the shooting, former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin was most frequently impugned — mentioned in 24 stories, or more than three-fourths of those containing references to specific actors. Reporters quickly — within hours of the news breaking, when few facts were reliably known — chose to highlight a map of targeted congressional districts Palin’s Web site had drawn up for the 2010 campaign, creating the sinister implication that it was somehow related to the events in Tucson.
“Giffords was one of 20 Democrats whose districts were lit up in cross hairs on a Sarah Palin campaign Web site last spring,” CBS’s Nancy Cordes noted on the January 8 Evening News. “Giffords and many others complained that someone unstable might act on that imagery.”
On ABC’s World News that same night, correspondent Jon Karl made the same connection: “Giffords had just won re-election in a hard-fought campaign, winning despite being one of the top Republican targets for defeat. She was even on Sarah Palin’s target list.”
“Not since Timothy McVeigh attacked the federal building in Oklahoma City has a crime sparked so much attention on anti-government rhetoric,” NBC’s Lee Cowan noted on Today January 10. “That map Sarah Palin put up on Facebook last year, targeting Congresswoman Gifford’s seat, made Gifford nervous, even then."
The following morning on the same program, correspondent Andrea Mitchell suggested Palin was off the hook — at least, for now: “Was her gun image inflammatory? There is no direct link to this suspect, as far as investigators know.”
Another nine stories linked the Tea Party to the tragedy. “Giffords, a conservative Democrat, was concerned about heated rhetoric from the Tea Party,” NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell noted on the January 9 Today, the morning after the shooting. Anchoring ABC’s World News on January 8, David Muir passed along how Giffords father was asked “Did your daughter have any enemies? And his response was, ‘Yes, the whole Tea Party.’”
The networks’ other examples of the right’s supposed vitriol: Florida talk show host and Tea Party activist Joyce Kaufman, former Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle, national radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson, radio host and Fox News personality Glenn Beck, and Dick Morris, branded by CBS as a “conservative pollster.”
As for pointing fingers at liberals or Democrats, both CBS and NBC once highlighted how then-Democratic senate candidate Joe Manchin shot a copy of the cap and trade bill in a TV ad last year (a position that actually puts Manchin to the right of most in his party). NBC’s Andrea Mitchell twice acknowledged (once on Today, once on the Nightly News) how, just days before the shooting, a blogger at the left-wing Daily Kos web site had written a hostile item about Giffords voting against Nancy Pelosi for House Speaker: “He had written that she was, quote, ‘dead to him’” — an anecdote that went unreported on ABC and CBS.
On the January 9 edition of NBC’s Meet the Press, moderator David Gregory cited how then-Representative Alan Grayson “compared Republicans to the Taliban” in his campaign last year. Only ABC’s George Stephanopoulos mentioned (mildly) the existence of harsh left-wing speech on NBC’s cable network, MSNBC, relaying on the January 9 This Week how “on the left, Keith Olbermann last night on MSNBC, apologizing for any statements he might have made in the past that incited violence in any way.” For its part, none of NBC’s “civility” coverage ever talked about the inflammatory rhetoric of their MSNBC colleagues.
If the media want to have an honest debate about civility, then journalists need to confront the real and harsh examples of liberals engaging in the sort of rhetoric they ostensibly deplore. And the first topic for that debate needs to be the highly un-civil way the Left and many in the media suggested mainstream conservatives and the Tea Party were somehow culpable for the horrible acts of January 8.
And if they choose to continue furthering the Left’s baseless allegations designed to smear conservatives, the media’s self-appointed civility cops are themselves contributing to the coarsening of American politics — the very thing they purport to decry.
— Rich Noyes is Research Director of the Media Research Center. You can follow him here on Twitter.
