Monday, June 25, 2007

Media Matters for America , June 25, 2007

On Fox News Sunday, Wallace did not note Inhofe changed his story about talk radio allegations

On the June 24 edition of Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace reported on Sen. James Inhofe's (R-OK) disputed claim that he had overheard Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) discussing a "legislative fix" for right-wing talk radio, but Wallace did not note that Inhofe had altered a crucial element of the story since his allegations were first made public. Wallace said Inhofe "says that he overheard Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton three years ago complaining about talk radio and saying there should be a legislative fix."


Wallace was referring to comments Inhofe had made during a June 22 interview on Fox News' Your World. However, as blogger Greg Sargent observed, Inhofe had first asserted during a June 21 interview on Los Angeles radio station KFI 640 AM's The John Ziegler Show that he had overheard the conversation between Boxer and Clinton "the other day" but then said on Your World that the conversation had occurred "three years ago." Read more



Kurtz claimed "a lot of journalists" are giving to Dems -- but number giving at all is tiny percentage of whole

On the June 24 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources, host and Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz said: "MSNBC.com had a lengthy investigation this week ... they found a lot of journalists contributing to political candidates and political parties, mostly Democrats."

Throughout the segment, the on-screen text read: "Journalists' donations: Many give to Democrats." While Kurtz did not define what he meant by "a lot" and the on-screen text did not define "many," the assertions are contradicted by the MSNBC report itself. As the report notes, the actual number of journalists identified in the study as political donors -- 143* total -- is a "tiny fraction of the roughly 100,000 staffers in newsrooms across the nation." Read more

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