November 30, 2011
From a post by OpinionJournal.com’s editor James Taranto (original post date 11/21/11).
Scott Brown is probably the most vulnerable Republican senator up for re-election next year. His likely opponent, Elizabeth Warren, is a hard-left Harvard professor who has described herself as having “created much of the intellectual foundation” for the anarchist-socialist [Occupy Walll Street] movement. Massachusetts, of course, is one of the few places where that may be a plus for a political candidate.
The New York Times’s Nicholas Confessore reports that Warren plans to make an issue of the contributions Brown has received from people who work in the financial industry. How much would that be?
Here’s one way of looking at it: According to the Center for Responsive Politics, so far in the 2012 cycle he has received just over $1.2 million from people working in securities and investment, plus $62,000 from industry political action committees [PACs]. That’s less than half of New York Democrat Chuck Schumer’s haul: [Schumer received] nearly $2.6 million from individuals and $147,000 from PACs. Kirsten Gillibrand, also a New York Democrat, has raised over $2.2 million from individuals and $190,000 from PACs.
But here’s another way of looking at it–Confessore’s:
Mr. Brown, a freshman who harnessed populist Tea Party anger to win the seat once held by Edward M. Kennedy, has taken more money from the financial industry than almost any other senator: all told, more than $1 million during the last two years, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
Presumably this is also true–the number of senators who have out-raised Brown in this sector is small–but you get a fuller picture when you know that at least two Democrats have done so by quite a large margin.
Here’s another example of the tendentious presentation of statistics, from Politico:
Overall this cycle, about 13 percent of labor groups’ political action committee contributions–just over $2 million–have gone toward GOP [Republican] candidates, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s still dwarfed by the nearly
$14 million in union cash that’s gone to Democrats this cycle, but the GOP appears to be gaining ground with union donors after receiving only 6 percent of total contributions in 2010 and 8 percent in the 2008 cycle.
That’s the fourth paragraph. The headline: “Big Labor Shells Out for GOP Friends.” Again, it is consistent with the facts, but in a rather skewed way.
Read original post at OpinionJournal.com. (Scroll one-third of the way down the page to “Leading with Statistics”)
November 16, 2011
From a Media Research Center Special Report:
…A team of Media Research Center analysts examined every Campaign 2012 segment on the three broadcast network weekday morning programs from January 1 to October 31, 2011. Our analysts used the same methodology we employed four years ago to review the [2008 presidential] campaign coverage on those same programs for the equivalent time period (January 1 through October 31, 2007).
These shows reach a sizable audience of potential voters: ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS’s The Early Show and NBC’s Today averaged more than 12.5 million viewers in October, many times more than the combined audience for the Fox News Channel, MSNBC and CNN at the same hours (about 1.5 million viewers).
Unlike the networks’ evening newscasts, the two- and four-hour long morning shows can spend far more time delving into a candidate’s record. And unlike the networks’ Sunday morning shows, the morning news shows are not geared toward political junkies, but rather the everyday voters that campaigns seek to reach. Consequently, the broadcast morning shows are a prime battleground in the candidates’ competition for media attention and positive coverage.
For this study, our analysts tabulated the total amount of coverage given to each of the candidates, including all field reports, interviews and brief news items. Then they undertook a more detailed examination of the interviews conducted with either the candidates or their designated surrogates, tallying the airtime and the ideological orientation of the questions posed.
The results show none of the Republican candidates received the celebrity “rock star” coverage meted out to the top Democratic candidates (Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards) four years ago. Instead, the networks highlighted perceived controversies and gaffes among the [Republican] candidates. In interviews, the morning hosts hit the Republicans with questions drawn largely from a liberal agenda.
And, in spite of the terrible economic situation, Barack Obama was still treated mostly as a celebrity, with the networks providing the President and his political team a forum to trash their competitors, but offering relatively little scrutiny of [his] record. …..
Four years ago, the network coverage promoted the Democratic candidates and cast their strong liberal views as mainstream. This year, our study finds the networks are disparaging the Republican candidates and casting them as ideological extremists:
Labeling:
Agenda:
Tone:
During the 2008 campaign, the network morning shows acted as cheerleaders for the Democratic field. This time around, they are providing far more hostile coverage of the various Republicans who are running, while treating Obama’s re-election campaign to the same personality-driven coverage that was so helpful to the then-Illinois Senator four years ago.
If the real decisions in our democracy are to be in the hands of voters, then the news media owe viewers a fair and unbiased look at the candidates in both parties. That means asking the candidates questions that reflect the concerns of both sides — liberals and conservatives alike. And the syrupy coverage awarded year after year to the Democrats’ celebrity candidates in no way matches the pretense of journalists holding both sides equally accountable, without fear or favor.
Read the entire report at mediaresearch.org.
November 2, 2011
From a “Best of the Web” post by OpinionJournal.com’s editor James Taranto:
Incandescent light bulb, used by Americans for over 100 years.
House Republicans failed [in July] in an effort to repeal the Bush-and-Pelosi-era ban on traditional incandescent light bulbs, which begins to take effect at the end of this year. The vote was 233-193 in favor of repeal, but the bill was introduced under a procedure that required a two-thirds super-majority. The Associated Press responded by quibbling with Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, whom it describes as “a driving force” behind the repeal effort:
“If you are Al Gore and want to spend $10 for a light bulb, more power to you,” Barton said. [Barton] exaggerated the cost of most energy-efficient bulbs and neglected to mention that they last years longer than old incandescent bulbs, which give off about 90 percent of the energy they consume as heat.
The AP does not hold itself to the same fastidious standards, though. The dispatch’s headline is “House Republicans: Down With Squiggly Light Bulbs”–even though the GOP [the Republican Party] is as permissive toward the squiggly compact fluorescent bulbs as it is toward the old-fashioned incandescent ones. [They want consumers to have the choice to buy the light bulb of their choice.]
London’s left-wing Guardian’s headline is an outright falsehood: “Republican Bill to Ban Energy-Saving Lightbulbs Fails.” Here’s the sarcastic first paragraph:
A Republican campaign to defend America against a sweeping assault on personal freedoms–or energy-saving lightbulbs [CFLs] as they are more commonly known–went down in defeat on Tuesday night.
That’s like describing the repeal of Prohibition as a ban on nonalcoholic drinks.
Read the original post at OpinionJournal.com. (scroll one-third of the way down the page to “Accountability Journalism”)
NOTE: Under federal law, incandescent bulbs are being phased out in 2012, when American manufacturers no longer will be allowed to make 100-watt bulbs. By Jan. 1, 2014, the only incandescents left on the market will be three-way bulbs, plant lights and appliance lamps. Republican congress members attempted in July to repeal this law that would eventually prohibit the sale of incandescent bulbs, so that consumers would have the choice between buying the incandescents or CFLs or LEDs.
Consumers have been slow to accept the two emerging alternative technologies, known as CFLs and LEDs. The main complaints: CFLs, or compact fluorescent lights, cast a harsh, greenish beam, unlike the warm, amber glow of incandescents. Also, they contain mercury, a hazardous material which cannot be thrown into the regular garbage. LEDs and CFLs are much more expensive than traditional light bulbs. Neither variety is universally available in dimmer form and, therefore, not always ideal for people partial to mood lighting. In their final months of retail life, incandescents still dominate market share, accounting for about 82 percent of sales.
October 26, 2011
…Socialists, communists and Marxists roam the Occupy Wall Street rallies, yet zero network news stories since the protests began used any of those three words to label protesters or their goals. Network reporters won’t even explain that protesters are calling for a revolutionary-style change.
Business & Media Institute analyzed 115 news reports, briefs and anchor reads that mentioned the Occupy protests. BMI found that only 6 percent (seven stories out of 115) have even mentioned the word “revolution” in stories about the protests. In one of those instances, the word was actually describing the violent Middle East uprisings that supposedly inspired the occupiers. The other mentions were in passing and none of the stories explained what “revolution” means to the occupiers. …..
According to former Clinton pollster Douglas Schoen 31 percent of the protesters “would support violence to advance their agenda,” he wrote in the Oct. 18 Wall Street Journal.
ABC, CBS and NBC network news stories have ignored this aspect of the protests, focusing instead on non-controversial things like ‘complimentary’ breakfasts and yoga. …
Yoga and libraries are much more innocuous to Americans than video of protesters waving signs that read: “Socialism is the alternative.” …..
In New York City, an Occupy Wall Street protester led the crowd in a screaming chant: “What do we want? Revolution! When do we want it? Now!,” according to video from the anti-American state-sponsored program Russia Today. One sign from that same protest declared: “A Job is a Right. Capitalism Doesn’t Work.”
Extremist Support for Occupy Wall Street [OWS]
The list of extremist groups that support OWS has grown to include the Socialist Party USA and The Nazi Party of America. In its view, the group is willing to partner with “open communists” to defeat who they called “judeo-capitalist banksters.”
Marchers at Occupy Chicago proudly carried red flags to show their support for communism, while one of them wore a CPUSA (Communist Party USA) t-shirt. But in the past month, ABC, CBS and NBC news programs have ignored such connections.
Fox Business senior correspondent Charles Gasparino wrote in The New York Post, “It’s not an overstatement to describe Zuccotti Park as New York’s Marxist epicenter.”
He described the scene at the park: “Flags with the iconic face of the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara are everywhere; the only American flag I saw was hanging upside down. The ‘occupiers’ openly refer to each other as ‘comrade,’ and just about every piece of literature on offer (free or for sale) advocated socialism in the Marxist tradition as a cure-all for the inequalities of the American economic system.” …..
Protesters Don’t Want Jobs, They Want ‘Socialism’
Networks have interviewed some protesters with legitimate economic worries. Many are angry that the banks were bailed out, but they would likely [verbally] attack the banks rather than the government for doing the bailing. News programs have aired footage of protesters demanding to know “where are the jobs?”
But if the Occupy protesters were just upset about the very high unemployment rate, then why have people actually quit their jobs to go protest the banks? It would make sense for the long-term unemployed to protest the bad economy, but they aren’t the only ones in Zuccotti Park and in cities across the country.
[A few employed people who quit their jobs to join the protesters in New York were interviewed for news articles.] Clearly, in those cases the greedy banks hadn’t stopped them from being employed yet each decided to quit their jobs at a time of prolonged 9.1 percent unemployment.
In fact, what many of the protesters want is not a fair shot at a job. Or even a job. They want to be paid regardless of whether they work or not and they want their “fair” share of the evil bankers’ profits. According to polling of the protesters, 85 percent are already employed.
An unofficial, user submitted list of demands revealed the socialistic utopian fantasy held by some proponents of Occupy Wall Street. Here are just a few of that person’s demands:
While that may sound farfetched such wishes are prevalent among the occupiers. Video interviews with protesters and speakers have called for the end of “money.” One girl who claimed to be one of “the 99″ said “knowledge should be free.” In context, she meant that college should be free.
Comments from the Occupy Oakland protesters back this up. One woman said, “We’re here to build a movement for economic justice.” Later she clarified that meant “equitable distribution.” Another woman said she had no “sympathy for people with obscene amounts of money.” In her definition, anything more than $200,000 was obscene. She also called her landlord rich so “I say ‘Eat her.’”
Another anti-capitalist occupier called capitalism “A total bogus system based on slavery and genocide.”
The protesters are very willing to describe the socialist (or communist) system they want. They wear pictures of Marxist revolution Che Guevara on their shirts. But the networks so far, have been unwilling to admit that the Occupy Wall Street movement isn’t simply a bunch of angry young people who want to hang out in a park and eat free food and do yoga. They want a radical change to the American political and economic system.
October 19, 2011
The Occupy Wall Street protestors have received overwhelmingly positive coverage from the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) news networks, as they used their airtime to publicize and promote the aggressively leftist movement. In just the first eleven days of October, ABC, CBS and NBC flooded their morning and evening newscasts with…33 full stories or interview segments on the protesters. This was a far cry from the greeting the Tea Party received from the Big Three as that conservative protest movement was initially ignored (only 13 total stories in all of 2009) and then reviled.
Where the Tea Party was met with skeptical claims of their motivations — with some reporters claiming they were merely corporate backed puppets and others implying they were spurred on by their racist opposition to the first black president – the Occupy Wall Street crowd was depicted as an almost genial “grassroots” movement.
While [ABC, CBS and NBC] network reporters weren’t hesitant to describe the Tea Party as conservative, only once did a reporter attach even the “liberal” label to the overtly leftist Wall Street protestors.
…..The networks’ Occupy Wall Street (OWS) stories were overwhelmingly sympathetic: Protesters and supporters of the movement dominated the soundbites, with 109 (87%) to just 8 critics (6%), with another 8 soundbites from neutral sources. Five of the eight soundbites unsympathetic to the protesters were brief clips of GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain blasting the occupiers. In addition to the 109 pro-OWS soundbites, seven times guests on the Big Three network morning shows expressed sympathy for the protestors. No guests opposed the protests. …..
Very Few Liberal Labels for Liberal Protestors
In 2009 Tea Partiers were repeatedly but accurately described as conservative. Back on the April 15, 2009 Today show, NBC’s Chuck Todd’s labeling was typical when he introduced the Tea Party movement to viewers this way: “There’s been some grassroots conservatives who have organized so-called Tea Parties around the country, hoping the historical reference will help galvanize Americans against the President’s economic ideas. But, I tell you, the idea hasn’t really caught on.”
However, when it came to appropriately labeling the OWS [Occupy Wall Street] crowd as leftist or liberals, it happened exactly one time, when on the October 11 edition of ABC’s Good Morning America, co-anchor George Stephanopoulous asked Obama campaign strategist David Plouffe if he thought the OWS protestors were the “liberal version of the Tea Party?” and wondered if that was a “good thing for the White House?” …..
…As the MRC’s Business & Media’s Julia Seymour documented, not one network report has called the [Occupy Wall Street] protesters “radical,” “extreme,” “left-wing,” or “socialist.” …..
Racist Tea Partiers vs. Cookie Baking Grandmas
While the Tea Partiers were portrayed as racist and rude yokels, the OWS crowd has been portrayed in a decidedly more positive light…
On the October 10, NBC Nightly News, Mara Schiavocampo highlighted: “From school to the streets. On Day 24 of the Occupy Wall Street protest demonstrators were joined by a group of students on their day off.” Viewers were then presented clips of little children holding signs that read: “Tax the one percent, not the 99 percent!” and “Tax the greedy, feed the needy!”
Despite hundreds of arrests, the media have painted the Occupy Wall Street crowd as friendly, genial, even industrious folk who started their own newspapers, and taught Yoga classes to pass the time.
Over images of protestors stretching, on the October 10 Evening News, an impressed Jim Axelrod glowingly noticed: “The Occupy Wall Street protestors have set up a camp with a food court, newspaper, medical unit, Internet café, even yoga practice.”
On the October 3 edition of ABC’s World News, Dan Harris played tour guide to the protest scene: “This is a surprisingly functional little city. Let me give you a little tour. It starts here with the information desk for people newly arrived. Behind that this whole area back here, this is the media area. It’s filled with bloggers and other people getting the word out and powered by donated generators. And this is the food station. It’s all free and all donated including some cookies that came in today from a grandmother in Idaho.
In subsequent days, the effusive notices came streaming in from the network anchors. On the October 5 Nightly News, NBC’s Brian Williams trumpeted: “While it goes by the official name ‘Occupy Wall Street,’ it has spread steadily and far beyond Wall Street, and it could well turn out to be the protest of this current era.” ABC’s weekend evening news anchor David Muir, on the October 9 World News, hailed: “Look at the images coming in tonight, spelling out the anger. This sign in New York, ‘The rich get bailed out, the poor get sold out.’”
In contrast, the network anchors treated the Tea Party much more harshly, depicting its members as violent, racial slur hurling thugs. As the MRC’s Rich Noyes pointed out in the special report, TV’s Tea Party Travesty, in September of 2009, “NBC’s Brian Williams trumpeted Jimmy Carter’s [false] charge that the Tea Party was motivated by race: ‘Signs and images at last weekend’s big Tea Party march in Washington and at other recent events have featured racial and other violent themes, and President Carter today said he is extremely worried by it.’”
In March of 2010, Noyes found that on “the night of the final vote on ObamaCare in March, for example, ABC’s Diane Sawyer cast Tea Partiers as out-of-control marauders, ‘roaming Washington, some of them increasingly emotional, yelling slurs and epithets.’ CBS’s Bob Schieffer also cast a wide net, accusing ‘demonstrators’ of hurling ‘racial epithets’ and ‘sexual slurs,’ and even conjured images of civil-rights era brutality: ‘One lawmaker said it was like a page out of a time machine.’”
Schieffer’s colleague Jeff Greenfield, on the September 20, 2009 edition of CBS’s Sunday Morning, went as far to wonder about the Tea Party: “Does this new militancy on the Right pose an opportunity for the Republican Party or create a dilemma?” He added: “Some of it is aimed specifically and virulently at Obama….At his background, at his race, at his agenda.”
In the media’s coverage of the Wall Street occupiers and Tea Partiers, a clear tale of two different protests is seen. One [the Tea Party] that grew out of concern for out-of-control government spending was initially ignored and treated to catcalls of racism and thuggery by ABC, CBS and NBC. The other [Occupy Wall Street], a leftist movement…that actually resulted in hundreds of arrests, was greeted by the Big Three networks with a tidal wave of coverage full of friendly talking heads.
October 12, 2011
Unemployment became the top concern of Americans in September, according to Gallup. The Sept. 8-11 poll found that unemployment overtook “the economy” as “the most important problem facing this country today.”
It makes sense since the month began with a “dismal” unemployment report showing zero job growth [in August] and the unemployment rate stubbornly stuck at 9.1%. …..
Yes, there is a jobs crisis in the U.S. because unemployment has been above 8% for the past two-and-a half years. Millions of people desperately need work across the country, but viewers of the broadcast network news shows might not realize just how bad the unemployment crisis is. That’s because more than three-fourths of the September jobs stories (77 percent) didn’t mention the 9.1% unemployment rate at all. Several stories put a positive spin on the horrendous jobs situation and only four stories mentioned that more than 14 million people are out of work.
The Business & Media Institute analyzed 79 stories on the broadcast evening news programs that mentioned “job” or “jobs” between Sept. 1 and Sept. 26 and found only eighteen (23%) of them actually mentioned the 9.1% rate or said that unemployment was above 9%. Stories about “job” approval, people doing their “job” and other non-economic references were not counted.
Just as the networks have downplayed the high unemployment and looked for hopeful signs on jobs during much of the Obama presidency, reporters continued to find “good news” about unemployment to talk about.
CBS “Evening News” anchor Scott Pelley shared “a little bit of good news on jobs” on Sept. 7, 2011. He led into a report about Obama’s proposed jobs plan by optimistically reporting that in July there were 3.2 million job openings posted by employers. “That’s the most in nearly three years,” Pelley said without noting the huge shortfall between available jobs and the roughly 14 million who were unemployed in August.
The other networks found hopeful stories too. ABC introduced viewers to “a one-man fighting force” intent on “bringing America back” economically. The man, Bob Rosenberg, decided to start his own frozen yogurt shop when he couldn’t find work in sales. NBC “Nightly News” celebrated a man bringing his company’s manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. from China. CBS “Evening News” showed what one Georgia town did with $14.5 million taxpayer dollars to retrain workers for jobs at a Kia assembly line.
Other reports focused on boom towns in Texas and North Dakota due to oil and gas discoveries.
Looking for positive stories to cover in a troubled economy is the opposite of the way the networks have covered unemployment and the economy under Republican presidents George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. In 2004, the news media attacked Bush routinely on the topic of employment, even in the midst of 13 months of positive job creation and other good economic news.
The difference in coverage depending on which party is in power was even more obvious when BMI compared unemployment coverage during similar time periods in 1982 and 2009. In 1982, network reports were 13 times more negative under Reagan: 91 percent of mentions of his administration were negative compared to only 7 percent of Obama administration mentions.
The Obama administration was mentioned favorably in 2009 network unemployment stories 87 percent of the time. While there were zero positive mentions of Reagan in 1982. An identical unemployment rate (9.4 percent) was “good news” for Obama, but all bad for Reagan. …………..
October 5, 2011
Twenty-six-year-old Rezwan Ferdaus “was arrested Wednesday and accused of plotting to blow up the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol, as well as attempting to assist Al Qaeda in attacking U.S. troops overseas,” Fox News reports:
Ferdaus, who graduated Northeastern University in 2008 with a degree in physics, is accused of beginning in early 2010 a plot to bring violent “jihad” against the U.S, who he described as “enemies of Allah.”
Ferdaus is also accused of supplying eight mobile phones to undercover FBI agents who he thought were recruiters for Al Qaeda. The phones were modified to be used as electrical switches for IEDs, and Ferdaus thought they could be used to kill American soldiers, the affidavit said. Ferdaus also allegedly made a training video to demonstrate how to make the weapons.
Ferdaus said “that was exactly what I wanted,” when he was told one of the devices killed three U.S. soldiers and injured four to five others in Iraq in June, authorities said. . . .
“I want the public to understand that Mr. Ferdaus’ conduct, as alleged in the complaint, is not reflective of a particular culture, community or religion,” said Carmen Ortiz, U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. “In addition to protecting our citizens from the threats and violence alleged today, we also have an obligation to protect members of every community, race and religion against violence and other unlawful conduct.”
We must admit, we were a bit puzzled by Ortiz’s disclaimer. What “culture, community or religion” could she possibly be talking about? Hmm, maybe there’s a clue in that talk about “al Qaeda” and “jihad” and “Allah.” Could it be that Ferdaus is a Mu . . . a Mu . . . a . . .
Oh, what the [heck], we’ll just let CBS News come out and say it: “Massachusetts Musician Accused of D.C. Terrorist Plot.”
Read the original post at OpinionJournal.com. (scroll one-third of the way down the page to “Percussion Section”)
September 28, 2011
To review how the broadcast television networks portrayed the War on Terror in the decade since 9/11, the Media Research Center has identified major trends that stand out from ten years of media analysis. The Bush policy was often reviled, and the Obama policy was often ignored or praised:
MRC’s conclusion: While journalists like ABC News president David Westin insisted that the patriotic thing for journalists to do after 9/11 was “to be independent and objective and present the facts to the American people,” the networks failed to live up that “we report, you decide” standard.
September 21, 2011
When the media tells you that Israel is not interested in peace with the Palestinians, it is ignoring the truth. Watch the video below:
Israel’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Danny Ayalon explains the historical facts relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
September 14, 2011
[NOTE: Texas Governor Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, are candidates for the Republican nominee for the 2012 presidential race.]
From an Associated Press dispatch titled “FACT CHECK: Perry, Romney Twist Records in Debate”:
ROMNEY: “At the end of four years, we had our unemployment rate down to 4.7 percent. That’s a record I think the president would like to see. As a matter of fact, we created more jobs in Massachusetts than this president has created in the entire country.”
THE FACTS: To be sure, 4.7 percent unemployment would be a welcome figure nationally. But Romney started from a much better position than President Barack Obama did. Unemployment was only 5.6 percent when Romney took office in 2003, meaning it came down by less than 1 percentage point when he left office in 2007. Obama inherited a national unemployment rate of 7.8 percent.
That’s the entire item. The AP doesn’t note that if nationwide unemployment were down by less than one percentage point since Obama took office, it would be as low as 6.9%–which would also “be a welcome figure nationally” compared with the current 9.1%.
Meanwhile, check out this AP correction:
BASTROP, Texas–The Associated Press has withdrawn its story about Texas residents questioning why Gov. Rick Perry has not spent more time in areas affected by wildfires. The single person who asked about Perry’s involvement was not an area resident.
Other than that, the story was accurate.
Read the original post at opinionjournal.com. (Scroll almost halfway down to “Accountability Journalism”)