Citing Investor's Business Daily, Hannity repeated Soros funding falsehoods
On Hannity's America, Sean Hannity asserted: "The left-wing group Media Matters denies that Soros gives them any funding, but IBD [Investor's Business Daily] suspects they may be getting his money indirectly through third parties." As Media Matters has repeatedly and exhaustively demonstrated, philanthropist George Soros has never given money to Media Matters, either directly or through another organization. Read more
Will NBC once again help Ann Coulter sell books?
On October 2, 2007, If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans (Crown Forum), the latest book by right-wing pundit Ann Coulter, is scheduled to be released. As Media Matters for America documented, in the weeks following the release of her last book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism (Crown Forum, June 2006), Coulter made numerous appearances on MSNBC, CNBC, and their parent network, NBC, where she unleashed a stream of attacks on the widows of victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
As Media Matters also documented, while NBC continued to provide Coulter an open platform with which to spew her inflammatory and offensive rhetoric, several NBC hosts and anchors -- including Tonight Show host Jay Leno, Today co-host Matt Lauer, and Nightly News anchor Brian Williams -- expressed disapproval of Coulter's "harsh" and "nasty" statements. On June 26, 2007 -- the date Godless was released in paperback --
--Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's Hardball, claimed that Coulter forces him to "go to confession." Matthews, however, has a history of inviting her on his show. Following an appearance on Today in June 2006 -- during which Coulter criticized the 9-11 widows for "speak[ing] out using the fact that they're widows" and "using their grief" and "the fact that [they] lost a husband" to make "a political point whilepreventing anyone from responding" -- Williams devoted a segment of the Nightly News to the subject of "civility in American life," highlighting Coulter's comments.
And yet NBC and its cable affiliates have continued to invite her on the air. The upcoming release of Coulter's new book gives rise once again to the question of whether NBC programs will keep hosting her. Read more
ABC's Greenburg cast Anita Hill's allegations as charge that Thomas simply "pressured her to date him"
In a report on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, ABC News' Jan Crawford Greenburg stated simply that Anita Hill "told the FBI that, 10 years before, Thomas pressured her to date him." However, Hill has said she told the FBI agents who interviewed her "about Thomas' descriptions of pornography, the pressure for dates, [and] the discussions of his sexual activities." Read more
Limbaugh's AFN audience has heard only misrepresentations of his "phony soldiers" comment on his show
During the first hour of the October 1 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, in response to a Media Matters for America item documenting his recent description of service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as "phony soldiers," Rush Limbaugh said: "I want to apologize to all of the members of the United States military, both in uniform and out, active duty and retired, for Media Matters for America." Limbaugh continued: "They will not apologize to you, and they will not apologize to me.
I want to apologize to you on behalf of them." Limbaugh later asserted: "The bottom line to all this is that, last week, with this smear and this phony accusation regarding something I had not said about active duty military personnel, or even those who opposed the war, was that, once again, the integrity of the U.S. military was brought into question when the integrity of the sourcing group, Media Matters for America, should have been brought into question." But Limbaugh has misrepresented his "phony soldiers" comments; indeed, listeners to Armed Forces Network (AFN), which broadcasts only the first hour of The Rush Limbaugh Show, heard only a spliced version of Limbaugh's remarks in which he edited out 1 minute and 35 seconds of discussion, while falsely claiming that he was providing the "entire transcript." Read more
O'Reilly falsely asserted Media Matters added to the audio clip of his controversial comments after posting initial item
On the September 28 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, during a discussion with conservative blogger La Shawn Barber about his controversial comments following his visit to Sylvia's restaurant in Harlem, Bill O'Reilly falsely asserted that Media Matters for America made additions to the audio clip of his remarks after posting the item. Responding to Barber's statement that "to credit Media Matters a little bit, they posted enough of your audio that you could even listen to their clips and understand what you were saying," O'Reilly claimed that Media Matters added content to the audio clip of his September 19 comments after a September 26 appearance by Media Matters Senior Fellow Paul Waldman on NBC's Today.
O'Reilly told Barber, "[T]hey only did that after ... they were busted, and after they were on the defensive, and after [Today co-host] Matt Lauer took the guy apart on the Today show." O'Reilly added: "Lauer slaughtered the Media Matters guy. ... Killed him. And then, they say, 'Oh, we better put up a little bit more.' " In fact, Media Matters added no additional audio of O'Reilly's original discussion about Sylvia's after the first item highlighting his remarks posted on September 21 -- five days before Waldman's appearance on Today. Read more
Gibson aired edited Limbaugh clip to "prove" Media Matters had edited Limbaugh clip
Discussing Rush Limbaugh's recent description of service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as "phony soldiers," John Gibson asserted on his radio show: "Rush was specifically talking about a particular one, Jesse MacBeth, who had pled guilty in court to lying about even being in Iraq." To support this claim, Gibson aired a clip in which Limbaugh purported to air the "entire" segment in question. In fact, that segment did not include a full 1 minute and 35 seconds of the 1 minute and 50 second discussion that occurred between Limbaugh's original "phony soldiers" comment and his subsequent reference to MacBeth. Read more
Double standard? Media provided extensive coverage of MoveOn ad, but largely ignore Limbaugh's "phony soldiers" controversy
Many major media outlets that covered the controversy surrounding MoveOn.org's "General Betray Us" ad have yet to cover the bipartisan outcry over Rush Limbaugh's remarks characterizing service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as "phony soldiers." Read more
No comments:
Post a Comment