http://mediamatters.org/countyfair/200902210004
NYT's Sheryl Gay Stolberg, please define "populist"
Sat, Feb 21, 2009
Eric Boehlert
The Times reporter dutifully anoints the previously unknown Rick Santelli of CNBC a "populist" because he uncorked an on-air rant about the Obama housing recovery while reporting among all-white, all-male traders on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. It was a rant where Santelli suggested Obama was leading America down the road to communism.
But nowhere in her article does the Times reporter explain why Santelli, who Chris Matthews rightfully likened to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, in any way tapped into a "populist" feeling. The former VP for Drexel Burnham Lambert (you remember that `80's hothouse of populist fever, right) simply mouthed divisive, right-wing talking points, and disconnected media elites crowned him a populist anyway. The closest Stolberg came to suggesting Santelli articulated populist rhetoric was when she pointed out:
[Santelli] called for the creation of a Web site where Americans could vote on whether they "really want to subsidize the losers' mortgages."
She might think that's "populist," but probably lots of Times readers simply chalk that up as being idiotic.
Showing posts with label Chris Matthews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chris Matthews. Show all posts
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Announcing the P.U.-litzer Prizes for 2007
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3235
Announcing the P.U.-litzer Prizes for 2007
Media Beat (12/22/07)
By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon
Many journalists qualified for the sixteenth annual P.U.-litzer Prizes, but only a few were able to win recognition for turning in one of the truly stinkiest media performances of the year. As the judges for this un-coveted award, we have done our best to confer this honor on the most deserving.
And now, the winners of the P.U.-litzers for 2007:
SPINNING FOR ANOTHER WAR AWARD -- Michael Gordon of The New York Times
Continuing where he left off before the Iraq invasion, when he used unnamed official sources to produce wildly inaccurate page-one articles on Iraq’s alleged weapons threat, Gordon in February wrote a front-page story with the stunning claim that Iran’s Supreme Leader had approved sending lethal explosives into Iraq to attack U.S. soldiers. (Even President Bush soon backed away from the claim.) Readers might have had trouble assessing Gordon’s charges -- which were, as usual, almost entirely based on anonymous sources: “United States intelligence asserts ... Administration officials said ... Some American intelligence experts believe ...” After analyzing the article, blogger Jonathan Schwarz speculated that “Gordon is not an actual person, but rather a voice-activated tape recorder.”
“SOMETHING ABOUT A RETRO MACHO MAN” AWARD -- Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball
With a worshipful media wind pushing actor and former senator Fred Thompson toward the presidential race in June, Matthews lauded Thompson’s “sex appeal” and “star quality.” The hardballer was nearly rapturous as he said: “Can you smell the English Leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man`s shaving cream, or whatever, you know, after he shaved? Do you smell that sort of -- a little bit of cigar smoke? You know, whatever.”
Four years earlier, when George Bush flew onto an aircraft carrier to celebrate “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq, Matthews had gushed at length about the president’s looks and how Americans love “a guy who has a little swagger. We like having a hero as president. We’re not like the Brits.”
“AMERICANS DON’T WANT UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE” AWARD -- Jeff Greenfield of CBS, et al.
Reflecting what became mainstream media’s conventional wisdom in the wake of Michael Moore’s SiCKO documentary, CBS correspondent Greenfield explained that the U.S. lacks a universal healthcare system not because of the powerful insurance lobby -- but because “Americans are just different.” He quoted an academic who said Americans, unlike Canadians and Europeans, don’t want government involvement in healthcare: “It’s a cultural difference.”
Actually, CBS’s own poll of Americans had found 64 percent supporting the view that the federal government should “guarantee health insurance for all” -- with 60 percent approving of higher taxes to pay for it. A CNN poll found 64 percent American support for the idea that “government should provide a national health insurance program for all Americans, even if this would require higher taxes.”
“3-H CLUB” PRIZE -- Too Many to Name
At the same time they’re imposing their own fixations on candidates, elite political reporters like to pretend that they have absolutely no idea why the candidates are struggling to overcome those fixations. A Dec. 11 Washington Post article deadpanned: “[John] Edwards has faced challenges of his own, namely ‘the three H’s’ -- his expensive haircut, his hedge fund work after the 2004 election, and his sprawling homestead.”
Dozens of news reports in major outlets have deployed the “three H’s” shorthand, many implying that Edwards -- unlike the wealthy candidates who never mention the poor -- is a hypocrite when he discusses poverty. In July, the Post’s John Solomon devoted an entire investigative article to Edwards’ pricey haircuts: “It is some kind of commentary on the state of American politics that as Edwards has campaigned,” mused the reporter, “his hair seems to have attracted as much attention, as say, his position on healthcare.” Gee, how did that happen?
RISKY DEMOCRATS AWARD -- L.A. Times, Washington Post
If you believe certain political pundits and reporters, Democrats are continuously pushing “risky” proposals that are off-putting to the American public. In November, a Los Angeles Times report -- headlined “Democrats Calculate Risk on Tax Hikes” -- called proposed Democratic tax hikes on wealthier Americans “a major political gamble.” (Unmentioned was the fact that Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich and was re-elected, or that a Gallup poll shows 66 percent of Americans think “upper income people” don’t currently pay enough taxes.) Days later, a Washington Post report was headlined “Climate is a Risky Issue for Democrats; Candidates Back Costly Proposals.” (Unmentioned was the Post’s own poll showing that 70 percent of Americans think the federal government “should do more” on global warming; only 7 percent said “it should do less.”) Listening to press corps cautions may heighten Democratic timidity -- but it hasn’t won many national elections.
SPINNING HAWKS INTO DOVES AWARD -- ABC, CNN, Fox, CBS and others
There’d be little news value in Iraq war boosters returning from a brief trip to Iraq and endorsing troop escalation. But by presenting two self-acknowledged Iraq war supporters -- Ken Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon -- as doves, national outlets created a fictitious story line and major media push this summer in support of the war.
Few media “experts” had argued more relentlessly for war in 2002 than Pollack, author of “The Case for Invading Iraq.” Yet here was ABC anchor Charles Gibson this July: “A bit of a surprise today on Iraq. Two long and persistent critics of the Bush administration’s handling of the war today wrote a column in The New York Times saying that after a recent eight-day visit to Iraq, they find significant changes taking place.” CNN called them “two fierce critics.” A Fox reporter claimed the duo had “changed their views after seeing some of the military successes first-hand.” CBS spoke of how O’Hanlon “now believes [the troop surge] should be continued” -- even though he’d written a national column seven months earlier: “A Skeptic’s Case for the Surge.”
PUTTING CLOTHES ON THE EMPEROR PRIZE -- New York Times
After numerous inside accounts of the Iraq invasion and other policies had exposed Vice President Cheney as a true believer who often put ideology ahead of data and facts, readers may have thought The New York Times was joking when it reported in February on the impact that the perjury trial of Cheney’s chief of staff would have on the vice president. According to the newspaper of record: “The trial has chipped away at the public image of Mr. Cheney as a sober-minded policy architect.”
“IT’S TRUE BECAUSE WE SAID IT” AWARD -- CNN’s Lou Dobbs
To prove his claim that illegal immigrants were bringing “once eradicated diseases” into our country, Dobbs featured a CNN reporter in 2005 who claimed that the U.S. had seen only 900 cases of leprosy for 40 years -- but that “there have been 7,000 in the past three years.” This year, in May, Dobbs was challenged on the shocking statistic by Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes, who cited a federal report saying there were 7,000 leprosy cases over the last 30 years. Dobbs response: “If we reported it, it’s a fact.”
Stahl: “How can you guarantee that to me?”
Dobbs: “Because I’m the managing editor, and that’s the way we do business. We don’t make up numbers, Lesley. Do we?”
You do, Lou. The Centers for Disease Control report that new leprosy cases in the U.S. have been on the decline for close to 20 years (with 166 cases in 2005).
THE LOU DOBBS US-vs.-THEM AWARD -- Bill O’Reilly of Fox News
Talking to Sen. John McCain in May, O’Reilly said: “But do you understand what The New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you’re a part of, and so am I. And they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have. In that regard, Pat Buchanan is right.”
“WHO’S AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD WOLFOWITZ” AWARD -- Newsweek
As he was being forced out of his job as World Bank president in May, Paul Wolfowitz was described by Newsweek as “a man whose managerial talents do not appear to rise to the level of his analytical prowess. By most accounts, Wolfowitz is a genteel, brilliant figure ...” The Newsweek piece -- headlined “With the Best of Intentions” -- didn’t mention how the brilliant and analytical former Deputy Defense Secretary had insisted just before invading Iraq that the country had no history of ethnic strife, that the U.S. would not need to deploy more than 100,000 troops, or that the war might cost as little as $10 billion. (So far it has cost about $500 billion.)
Announcing the P.U.-litzer Prizes for 2007
Media Beat (12/22/07)
By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon
Many journalists qualified for the sixteenth annual P.U.-litzer Prizes, but only a few were able to win recognition for turning in one of the truly stinkiest media performances of the year. As the judges for this un-coveted award, we have done our best to confer this honor on the most deserving.
And now, the winners of the P.U.-litzers for 2007:
SPINNING FOR ANOTHER WAR AWARD -- Michael Gordon of The New York Times
Continuing where he left off before the Iraq invasion, when he used unnamed official sources to produce wildly inaccurate page-one articles on Iraq’s alleged weapons threat, Gordon in February wrote a front-page story with the stunning claim that Iran’s Supreme Leader had approved sending lethal explosives into Iraq to attack U.S. soldiers. (Even President Bush soon backed away from the claim.) Readers might have had trouble assessing Gordon’s charges -- which were, as usual, almost entirely based on anonymous sources: “United States intelligence asserts ... Administration officials said ... Some American intelligence experts believe ...” After analyzing the article, blogger Jonathan Schwarz speculated that “Gordon is not an actual person, but rather a voice-activated tape recorder.”
“SOMETHING ABOUT A RETRO MACHO MAN” AWARD -- Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball
With a worshipful media wind pushing actor and former senator Fred Thompson toward the presidential race in June, Matthews lauded Thompson’s “sex appeal” and “star quality.” The hardballer was nearly rapturous as he said: “Can you smell the English Leather on this guy, the Aqua Velva, the sort of mature man`s shaving cream, or whatever, you know, after he shaved? Do you smell that sort of -- a little bit of cigar smoke? You know, whatever.”
Four years earlier, when George Bush flew onto an aircraft carrier to celebrate “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq, Matthews had gushed at length about the president’s looks and how Americans love “a guy who has a little swagger. We like having a hero as president. We’re not like the Brits.”
“AMERICANS DON’T WANT UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE” AWARD -- Jeff Greenfield of CBS, et al.
Reflecting what became mainstream media’s conventional wisdom in the wake of Michael Moore’s SiCKO documentary, CBS correspondent Greenfield explained that the U.S. lacks a universal healthcare system not because of the powerful insurance lobby -- but because “Americans are just different.” He quoted an academic who said Americans, unlike Canadians and Europeans, don’t want government involvement in healthcare: “It’s a cultural difference.”
Actually, CBS’s own poll of Americans had found 64 percent supporting the view that the federal government should “guarantee health insurance for all” -- with 60 percent approving of higher taxes to pay for it. A CNN poll found 64 percent American support for the idea that “government should provide a national health insurance program for all Americans, even if this would require higher taxes.”
“3-H CLUB” PRIZE -- Too Many to Name
At the same time they’re imposing their own fixations on candidates, elite political reporters like to pretend that they have absolutely no idea why the candidates are struggling to overcome those fixations. A Dec. 11 Washington Post article deadpanned: “[John] Edwards has faced challenges of his own, namely ‘the three H’s’ -- his expensive haircut, his hedge fund work after the 2004 election, and his sprawling homestead.”
Dozens of news reports in major outlets have deployed the “three H’s” shorthand, many implying that Edwards -- unlike the wealthy candidates who never mention the poor -- is a hypocrite when he discusses poverty. In July, the Post’s John Solomon devoted an entire investigative article to Edwards’ pricey haircuts: “It is some kind of commentary on the state of American politics that as Edwards has campaigned,” mused the reporter, “his hair seems to have attracted as much attention, as say, his position on healthcare.” Gee, how did that happen?
RISKY DEMOCRATS AWARD -- L.A. Times, Washington Post
If you believe certain political pundits and reporters, Democrats are continuously pushing “risky” proposals that are off-putting to the American public. In November, a Los Angeles Times report -- headlined “Democrats Calculate Risk on Tax Hikes” -- called proposed Democratic tax hikes on wealthier Americans “a major political gamble.” (Unmentioned was the fact that Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich and was re-elected, or that a Gallup poll shows 66 percent of Americans think “upper income people” don’t currently pay enough taxes.) Days later, a Washington Post report was headlined “Climate is a Risky Issue for Democrats; Candidates Back Costly Proposals.” (Unmentioned was the Post’s own poll showing that 70 percent of Americans think the federal government “should do more” on global warming; only 7 percent said “it should do less.”) Listening to press corps cautions may heighten Democratic timidity -- but it hasn’t won many national elections.
SPINNING HAWKS INTO DOVES AWARD -- ABC, CNN, Fox, CBS and others
There’d be little news value in Iraq war boosters returning from a brief trip to Iraq and endorsing troop escalation. But by presenting two self-acknowledged Iraq war supporters -- Ken Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon -- as doves, national outlets created a fictitious story line and major media push this summer in support of the war.
Few media “experts” had argued more relentlessly for war in 2002 than Pollack, author of “The Case for Invading Iraq.” Yet here was ABC anchor Charles Gibson this July: “A bit of a surprise today on Iraq. Two long and persistent critics of the Bush administration’s handling of the war today wrote a column in The New York Times saying that after a recent eight-day visit to Iraq, they find significant changes taking place.” CNN called them “two fierce critics.” A Fox reporter claimed the duo had “changed their views after seeing some of the military successes first-hand.” CBS spoke of how O’Hanlon “now believes [the troop surge] should be continued” -- even though he’d written a national column seven months earlier: “A Skeptic’s Case for the Surge.”
PUTTING CLOTHES ON THE EMPEROR PRIZE -- New York Times
After numerous inside accounts of the Iraq invasion and other policies had exposed Vice President Cheney as a true believer who often put ideology ahead of data and facts, readers may have thought The New York Times was joking when it reported in February on the impact that the perjury trial of Cheney’s chief of staff would have on the vice president. According to the newspaper of record: “The trial has chipped away at the public image of Mr. Cheney as a sober-minded policy architect.”
“IT’S TRUE BECAUSE WE SAID IT” AWARD -- CNN’s Lou Dobbs
To prove his claim that illegal immigrants were bringing “once eradicated diseases” into our country, Dobbs featured a CNN reporter in 2005 who claimed that the U.S. had seen only 900 cases of leprosy for 40 years -- but that “there have been 7,000 in the past three years.” This year, in May, Dobbs was challenged on the shocking statistic by Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes, who cited a federal report saying there were 7,000 leprosy cases over the last 30 years. Dobbs response: “If we reported it, it’s a fact.”
Stahl: “How can you guarantee that to me?”
Dobbs: “Because I’m the managing editor, and that’s the way we do business. We don’t make up numbers, Lesley. Do we?”
You do, Lou. The Centers for Disease Control report that new leprosy cases in the U.S. have been on the decline for close to 20 years (with 166 cases in 2005).
THE LOU DOBBS US-vs.-THEM AWARD -- Bill O’Reilly of Fox News
Talking to Sen. John McCain in May, O’Reilly said: “But do you understand what The New York Times wants, and the far-left want? They want to break down the white, Christian, male power structure, which you’re a part of, and so am I. And they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have. In that regard, Pat Buchanan is right.”
“WHO’S AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD WOLFOWITZ” AWARD -- Newsweek
As he was being forced out of his job as World Bank president in May, Paul Wolfowitz was described by Newsweek as “a man whose managerial talents do not appear to rise to the level of his analytical prowess. By most accounts, Wolfowitz is a genteel, brilliant figure ...” The Newsweek piece -- headlined “With the Best of Intentions” -- didn’t mention how the brilliant and analytical former Deputy Defense Secretary had insisted just before invading Iraq that the country had no history of ethnic strife, that the U.S. would not need to deploy more than 100,000 troops, or that the war might cost as little as $10 billion. (So far it has cost about $500 billion.)
Saturday, July 14, 2007
A Bloody Media Mirror
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/1129
A Bloody Media Mirror
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Fri, 07/06/2007
by Norman Solomon
Many of America's most prominent journalists want us to forget what they were saying and writing more than 4 years ago to boost the invasion of Iraq. Now, they tiptoe around their own roles in hyping the war and banishing dissent to the media margins.
The media watch group FAIR (where I'm an associate) has performed a public service in the latest edition of its magazine Extra. The organization's activism director, Peter Hart, drew on FAIR's extensive research to assemble a sample of notable quotations from media cheerleading for the Iraq invasion.
One of the earliest quotes to merit special attention came from ace New York Times reporter -- and chronic Pentagon promoter -- Michael Gordon. In a CNN appearance on March 25, 2003, just a few days into the invasion, Gordon gave his easy blessing to the invaders' bombing of Iraqi TV.
Gordon cited "what I've seen of Iraqi television, with Saddam Hussein presenting propaganda to his people and showing off the Apache helicopter and claiming a farmer shot it down and trying to persuade his own public that he was really in charge, when we're trying to send the exact opposite message" -- and so, the Times reporter went on, Iraqi TV was "an appropriate target."
Let's unpack Gordon's rationale for a military attack on Iraqi broadcasters: They presented propaganda to viewers, aired triumphal images and touted the authority of the top man in the government, while an adversary was "trying to send the exact opposite message." By those standards, Iraqis would have been justified in targeting any one of the American cable news networks, most especially Fox News Channel.
Hart -- who is author of the book "The Oh Really? Factor: Unspinning Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly" -- includes some quotes from Fox in his collection of war-crazed statements from the media. Soon after the invasion began, Fox News commentator Fred Barnes declared: "The American public knows how important this war is, and is not as casualty sensitive as the weenies in the American press are." (Unsurpassed bravery is a common denominator of rabid hawks in stateside TV studios.) But many of Hart's examples are from U.S. media outlets with reputations for judicious professional journalism.
On NBC News, Brian Williams was singing from the choir book provided by U.S. officials. "They are calling this the cleanest war in all of military history," Williams said on April 2, 2003. "They stress they're fighting a regime and not the people, using smart bombs, not dumb, older munitions. But there have been and will be accidents. ... And there's a new weapon in this war: Arab media, especially Al Jazeera. It's on all the time, and unlike American media, it hardly reflects the Pentagon line. Its critics say it accentuates civilian casualties and provokes outrage on the Arab street."
The next day, on the same network, Williams' colleague Katie Couric was more succinct in her fawning. Viewers of the "Today" program listened as she interviewed a U.S. military official and exclaimed: "Thank you for coming on the show. And I want to add, I think the Special Forces rock!"
A week later, on MSNBC, the hardballer Chris Matthews was swept up in beach-ball euphoria as America's armed forces toppled the Saddam regime. "We're all neo-cons now," Matthews exulted.
At the start of May 2003, when President Bush zoomed onto an aircraft carrier and stood near a "Mission Accomplished" banner, Lou Dobbs was quick to tell CNN viewers: "He looked like an alternatively commander in chief, rock star, movie star and one of the guys."
On the same day, journalist Matthews assumed the royal "we" -- and, in the opportunistic process, blew with the prevailing wind. "We're proud of our president," he said. "Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple." All too simple.
Perhaps no journalist was more shameless in echoing President Bush's fatuous claims about the invasion than Christopher Hitchens.
"Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them: If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you," Bush said on March 17, 2003.
The next day, Hitchens came out with an essay declaring that "the Defense Department has evolved highly selective and accurate munitions that can sharply reduce the need to take or receive casualties. The predictions of widespread mayhem turned out to be false last time -- when the weapons [in the Gulf War] were nothing like so accurate." And, Hitchens proclaimed, "it can now be proposed as a practical matter that one is able to fight against a regime and not a people or a nation."
More than four years -- and at least several hundred thousand Iraqi civilian deaths -- later, the most reliable epidemiology available confirms that those claims were more than misleading. They were fundamentally out of touch with human reality.
If you had engaged in such cheerleading for the launch of the Iraq war in early 2003, by now you might also be eager to change the subject and argue about God.
Norman Solomon's book "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death" is out in paperback. A documentary film based on the book will premiere this month www.WarMadeEasyTheMovie.org.
Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Norman Solomon FAIR Peter Hart right-wing media Iraq corporate media
A Bloody Media Mirror
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Fri, 07/06/2007
by Norman Solomon
Many of America's most prominent journalists want us to forget what they were saying and writing more than 4 years ago to boost the invasion of Iraq. Now, they tiptoe around their own roles in hyping the war and banishing dissent to the media margins.
The media watch group FAIR (where I'm an associate) has performed a public service in the latest edition of its magazine Extra. The organization's activism director, Peter Hart, drew on FAIR's extensive research to assemble a sample of notable quotations from media cheerleading for the Iraq invasion.
One of the earliest quotes to merit special attention came from ace New York Times reporter -- and chronic Pentagon promoter -- Michael Gordon. In a CNN appearance on March 25, 2003, just a few days into the invasion, Gordon gave his easy blessing to the invaders' bombing of Iraqi TV.
Gordon cited "what I've seen of Iraqi television, with Saddam Hussein presenting propaganda to his people and showing off the Apache helicopter and claiming a farmer shot it down and trying to persuade his own public that he was really in charge, when we're trying to send the exact opposite message" -- and so, the Times reporter went on, Iraqi TV was "an appropriate target."
Let's unpack Gordon's rationale for a military attack on Iraqi broadcasters: They presented propaganda to viewers, aired triumphal images and touted the authority of the top man in the government, while an adversary was "trying to send the exact opposite message." By those standards, Iraqis would have been justified in targeting any one of the American cable news networks, most especially Fox News Channel.
Hart -- who is author of the book "The Oh Really? Factor: Unspinning Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly" -- includes some quotes from Fox in his collection of war-crazed statements from the media. Soon after the invasion began, Fox News commentator Fred Barnes declared: "The American public knows how important this war is, and is not as casualty sensitive as the weenies in the American press are." (Unsurpassed bravery is a common denominator of rabid hawks in stateside TV studios.) But many of Hart's examples are from U.S. media outlets with reputations for judicious professional journalism.
On NBC News, Brian Williams was singing from the choir book provided by U.S. officials. "They are calling this the cleanest war in all of military history," Williams said on April 2, 2003. "They stress they're fighting a regime and not the people, using smart bombs, not dumb, older munitions. But there have been and will be accidents. ... And there's a new weapon in this war: Arab media, especially Al Jazeera. It's on all the time, and unlike American media, it hardly reflects the Pentagon line. Its critics say it accentuates civilian casualties and provokes outrage on the Arab street."
The next day, on the same network, Williams' colleague Katie Couric was more succinct in her fawning. Viewers of the "Today" program listened as she interviewed a U.S. military official and exclaimed: "Thank you for coming on the show. And I want to add, I think the Special Forces rock!"
A week later, on MSNBC, the hardballer Chris Matthews was swept up in beach-ball euphoria as America's armed forces toppled the Saddam regime. "We're all neo-cons now," Matthews exulted.
At the start of May 2003, when President Bush zoomed onto an aircraft carrier and stood near a "Mission Accomplished" banner, Lou Dobbs was quick to tell CNN viewers: "He looked like an alternatively commander in chief, rock star, movie star and one of the guys."
On the same day, journalist Matthews assumed the royal "we" -- and, in the opportunistic process, blew with the prevailing wind. "We're proud of our president," he said. "Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical, who's not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who's president. Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple." All too simple.
Perhaps no journalist was more shameless in echoing President Bush's fatuous claims about the invasion than Christopher Hitchens.
"Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them: If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you," Bush said on March 17, 2003.
The next day, Hitchens came out with an essay declaring that "the Defense Department has evolved highly selective and accurate munitions that can sharply reduce the need to take or receive casualties. The predictions of widespread mayhem turned out to be false last time -- when the weapons [in the Gulf War] were nothing like so accurate." And, Hitchens proclaimed, "it can now be proposed as a practical matter that one is able to fight against a regime and not a people or a nation."
More than four years -- and at least several hundred thousand Iraqi civilian deaths -- later, the most reliable epidemiology available confirms that those claims were more than misleading. They were fundamentally out of touch with human reality.
If you had engaged in such cheerleading for the launch of the Iraq war in early 2003, by now you might also be eager to change the subject and argue about God.
Norman Solomon's book "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death" is out in paperback. A documentary film based on the book will premiere this month www.WarMadeEasyTheMovie.org.
Technorati Tags: Guest Contribution Norman Solomon FAIR Peter Hart right-wing media Iraq corporate media
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Why pay the bigot?
http://mediamatters.org/items/200706300002?f=h_top
Media Matters; by Jamison Foser
Friday June 29, 2007
Summary:
Why pay the bigot when you can get the bile for free?
In 1996, MSNBC hired Ann Coulter as a contributor. The Washington Post later quoted an MSNBC official describing Coulter's performance: "What she said was so outrageous she was immediately put on probation, and the next one was even worse." Coulter has acknowledged: "They kept firing me, but then they'd rehire me." Coulter barely lasted a year before MSNBC fired her for good for on-air comments she made to Vietnam Veterans of America founder Bobby Muller.
In 2003, less than five months after it began broadcasting his show, MSNBC fired Michael Savage for telling a caller he should "get AIDS and die." An MSNBC spokesperson explained: "Savage made an extremely inappropriate comment and the decision to cancel the program was not difficult." Just a few months earlier, then-NBC chairman Bob Wright had declared: "We strongly defend his new show as a legitimate attempt to expand the marketplace of ideas."
Earlier this year, MSNBC fired Don Imus after he made racist and sexist comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team.
It may be tempting to conclude that, despite the ridiculous decisions to hire the likes of Coulter and Savage in the first place, the firings indicate that MSNBC understands that their violent and hateful rhetoric adds nothing of value to the public discourse.
But maybe MSNBC has simply decided that it doesn't make much sense to pay the bigot when you can get the bile for free.
On Tuesday, for example, MSNBC's Hardball featured Ann Coulter as the sole guest for the entire hour. MSNBC continues to provide a platform for Coulter's hate; the network's just stopped paying her.
During Coulter's last appearance on Hardball, in July 2006, host Chris Matthews told her, "You write beautifully," and, "You have a brilliant brain." He described her as "the picture of heaven." Then Coulter called former Vice President Al Gore a "total fag," and Matthews ended the interview by saying of Coulter, "We'd love to have her back."
Earlier this year, Coulter called Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards a "faggot" during a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). During an appearance on CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck this week, Coulter defended that comment, claiming, "I wasn't saying it on TV. I was saying it at a right-wing political convention with 7,000 college Republicans. I didn't put it on TV." Like much of what Coulter says, this wasn't true, and wouldn't be particularly meaningful even if it was. Coulter's speech was broadcast on C-SPAN, which extensively covers CPAC speeches. (Host Glenn Beck didn't point out Coulter's lie; nor did he point out that she used the same epithet to describe Gore "on TV.")
During her Monday appearance on ABC's Good Morning America, Coulter responded to a question about her CPAC description of Edwards as a "faggot" by saying, "Bill Maher was not joking and saying he wished Dick Cheney had been killed in a terrorist attack. So I've learned my lesson. If I'm gonna say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot."
Those comments prompted the Edwards campaign to denounce Coulter, and Elizabeth Edwards called into Hardball the next day to confront Coulter.
Coulter and her defenders have criticized the Edwards campaign for omitting the Maher portion of her comments about wishing Edwards was killed by terrorists, claiming that her comments were taken out of context. But the context she claims is missing is itself false.
Coulter misrepresented Maher's comments about Cheney. In fact, Maher didn't say he wished Cheney had been killed; he said "if Dick Cheney was not in power, people wouldn't be dying needlessly tomorrow. ... I'm just saying that if he did die -- other people -- more people would live. That's a fact."
During the March 5 broadcast of his show, MSNBC host and former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough (FL) debunked his fellow conservatives' attacks on Maher: "Conservatives accuse Bill Maher of calling for Dick Cheney's assassination, but he didn't, and I should know. I was there." But Scarborough didn't correct Coulter when she appeared on Morning Joe, even though he and Coulter did discuss her reference to Maher.
During that same appearance on Morning Joe, Coulter falsely accused Elizabeth Edwards of lying about Coulter's November 19, 2003, column:
SCARBOROUGH: Now, I will tell you the part of that Elizabeth Edwards interview that jarred the most people -- jarred me, jarred just about everybody I spoke with -- was the part where she brought up the fact -- she said that you had written some column where you had made light of John Edwards' dead son. What's the story behind that?
COULTER: Needless to say, that is not true. And coming from people who have done what we have just seen them do in the earlier segment, I don't think they deserve a lot of credibility on this. You can look it up. It's all over the Web. It's a fabulous column, titled "The Party of Ideas," written in 2003. I had to go back and get the full gist of the column. It was about all of the Democratic primary opponents.
In the column in question, Coulter wrote of John Edwards: "If you want points for not using your son's death politically, don't you have to take down all those 'Ask me about my son's death in a horrific car accident' bumper stickers?"
Again, Scarborough did not challenge Coulter or confront her with what she had actually written; he simply accepted her assertion that Elizabeth Edwards had lied about the column.
On Thursday, MSNBC Live host Chris Jansing asked Elizabeth Edwards, "There are people who support your opinion, I'm sure you know, who say, 'Why even dignify it with a response? Why give Ann Coulter more publicity?' "
That same day, Jansing's network gave Ann Coulter publicity by hosting her on Morning Joe. Two days earlier, Jansing's network had given Ann Coulter publicity by hosting her -- alone, for a full hour -- on Hardball.
This week alone, Coulter appeared on ABC's Good Morning America, MSNBC's Hardball, MSNBC's Morning Joe, CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck, and Fox News' Hannity & Colmes. (On Fox, she took a swipe at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama: "I do think anyone named B. Hussein Obama should avoid using 'hijack' and 'religion' in the same sentence.")
The notion that the targets of Ann Coulter's hateful speech should ignore her and she'll go away is absurd. Coulter was booked on Good Morning America and Hardball long before Elizabeth Edwards confronted her. Time magazine put Coulter on its cover long before Elizabeth Edwards confronted her. NBC's Today hosted her -- repeatedly -- long before Elizabeth Edwards confronted her.
It isn't Elizabeth Edwards who gives Ann Coulter publicity. It is the nation's leading news organizations. They may claim to find her distasteful, but they keep promoting her.
And they not only provide a forum for her hate speech and let her lie and dissemble without consequence, they repeat her false attacks on progressives as though they are true.
On Today, for example, David Gregory pretended that Ann Coulter has a point:
GREGORY: You said rather pointedly that you think Ann Coulter is guilty of hate speech against your husband and others as well. If you strip away some of the inflammatory rhetoric against your husband and other Democrats, the point she's trying to make about your husband, Senator Edwards, running for the White House is in effect that he's disingenuous, especially on the signature issue of poverty, whether it's a $400 haircut or taking big money to speak in front of a poverty group. If you, again, strip away the inflammatory rhetoric, is that a real point of vulnerability that you have to deal with in this campaign?
This is complete and total bunk.
There's simply no reason to pretend that Ann Coulter calling John Edwards a "faggot" and musing about him being killed by terrorists is about anything other than Ann Coulter being a contemptible human being and a national disgrace. There's no deep point there; she's just a sad and pathetic little person.
But that isn't all: Gregory made the nonsensical suggestion that John Edwards is "disingenuous" about poverty because he paid a lot of money for a haircut. It doesn't matter how often pundits keep saying that, it's still dumb. Gregory's statement that Edwards took "big money to speak in front of a poverty group" repeated Coulter's own false claim that he "charge[d] a poverty group $50,000 for a speech." This falsehood is apparently a reference to a paid speech Edwards made at the University of California-Davis, not "in front of a poverty group." So, obviously, he didn't "charge a poverty group" (in fact, his speaking fee was offset by ticket sales.)
Ann Coulter is not only a remarkably unpleasant person, she's a serial liar. And yet NBC's David Gregory -- among other journalists -- pretends that she has a meaningful point and makes false assertions about progressives based on her lies.
That's why it would be folly for progressives to ignore Coulter in hopes that she goes away: because the media don't ignore her. They promote her. They parrot her false claims. It's also why progressives should not only denounce Coulter, but MSNBC and ABC and CNN and Time and every other news organization that gives her a platform and doesn't challenge her lies and repeats them as though they are true.
During the Wednesday edition of Scarborough Country, MSNBC viewers got a hit of another reason why it would be folly to let Ann Coulter's hate and lies go unchallenged. An MSNBC contributor said of Coulter: "I don't think she's peddling hate. And if she -- and MSNBC certainly doesn't ... because if they did, they would never put her on the air for an hour, would we, Dan?"
The MSNBC contributor? Pat Buchanan.
The same Pat Buchanan who called Martin Luther King Jr. "one of the most divisive men in contemporary history."
The same Pat Buchanan who called Adolf Hitler "an individual of great courage" and wrote a column questioning whether World War II was "worth it" and wondered, "[W]hy destroy Hitler?"
There was Pat Buchanan, paid contributor to MSNBC, repeatedly vouching for Ann Coulter:
JOAN WALSH (Salon.com editor in chief): Ann Coulter had a whole hour to herself on Hardball, and she was going to sell her books and peddle her hate on Hardball pretty much unchallenged.
[...]
BUCHANAN: Joan, let me tell you where you're wrong here.
WALSH: Yes, Pat, sure.
BUCHANAN: I don't think she's peddling hate. And if she -- and MSNBC certainly doesn't --
WALSH: "Faggot"? "Faggot"?
BUCHANAN: -- because if they did, they would never put her on the air for an hour, would we, Dan?
WALSH: Well, she wasn't on for quite a while after she called --
DAN ABRAMS (MSNBC general manager): Oh, come on, Pat. Come on.
BUCHANAN: Well, come on! I mean --
WALSH: -- after she called Al Gore a "total fag."
ABRAMS: Pat is misusing his MSNBC analyst moniker there.
WALSH: Thank you, Dan.
ABRAMS: Go ahead, Pat.
BUCHANAN: Look, she is very, very -- look, she's a very good debater, and she's very good on TV and good on her feet, and she's a conservative, and she's an excellent writer. [New York Times columnist] Maureen Dowd's an excellent friend on the other side.
WALSH: No. No, Pat. You're -- Pat, you know what? You're a good debater.
[crosstalk]
BUCHANAN: She's good --
WALSH: You're a good debater.
ABRAMS: [Congressional Quarterly columnist] Craig Crawford -- wait. Wait.
WALSH: She peddles hate.
ABRAMS: Let's at least admit something, Craig Crawford.
BUCHANAN: Oh, cut it out.
WALSH: No, seriously.
[...]
ABRAMS: But that glosses over -- hang on. Hang on a second. That glosses over -- Pat. Pat, what you're doing is you're cherry-picking the pure politics stuff out of what she says and ignoring the sort of unnecessary hateful words that she uses, as well.
BUCHANAN: What hateful word did she use?
ABRAMS: You know, she described him as a gay person, but using a different term.
BUCHANAN: A what? Oh, you mean, that thing?
Pat Buchanan hasn't suffered from his own history of inflammatory comments: He has repeatedly been hired to host television shows on CNN and MSNBC; he currently works as a contributor to MSNBC, where he defends Coulter from charges that she peddles hate.
If people look the other way when Ann Coulter lies and smears and insults, it will only be a matter of time before Coulter will have her own cable television perch from which she can defend the next generation of right-wing hate merchants.
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