Wash. Post uncritically reports McCain ad's false suggestion that Obama wrote letters for Rezko's project in 1998 "in return" for help ... in 2005
The Washington Post uncritically reported the false suggestion in an ad by Sen. John McCain that Sen. Barack Obama wrote letters in support of a Chicago housing project proposed by Chicago businessman Antoin Rezko's company "in return" for Rezko's "help[ing] him buy his million-dollar mansion." In fact, Obama reportedly wrote the letters in 1998 but did not purchase his house until 2005. Read More
AP, Wash. Post fail to report ties between Swift Boat Vets, ad attacking Obama
The Associated Press and The Washington Post quoted a spokesman for the American Issues Project, which has produced an ad attacking Sen. Barack Obama, without mentioning that he was employed in 2004 by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that led a smear campaign against Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 election. Read More
CNN's Schneider asserted that Lieberman speech at RNC could draw Jewish voters, but did not mention polling showing low approval among Jews
CNN's Bill Schneider asserted that "[t]here are some Jewish voters who still have questions about Barack Obama," and that Sen. Joe Lieberman's speaking role at the RNC "could be a way of drawing some Jewish voters over to the Republican ticket." But Schneider made no mention of a poll released in mid-July that found that 48 percent of Jews have a negative opinion of Lieberman, with 37 percent holding a favorable view. In contrast, the same survey found that 60 percent have a favorable view of Obama, while 34 percent view him unfavorably. Read More
Spinonymous: Chicago Tribune inexplicably provides "senior McCain adviser" anonymity to attack Obama
A Chicago Tribune article uncritically and repeatedly quoted a "senior McCain adviser" attacking Sen. Barack Obama and asserted that the adviser "spoke on condition that he not be identified in order to discuss strategy." But the authors gave no explanation of why they would agree to anonymity for a source who proceeded to attack and to foreshadow further attacks on the opposing candidate. Read More
Media don't challenge false claim that Obama vacationed on a "private beach in Hawaii"
Several media outlets have uncritically reported the false charge by Sen. John McCain's campaign that Sen. Barack Obama "just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii." In fact, according to the Hawaii Department of Land and Resources, all beaches in Hawaii are public. Read More
Media uncritically repeat, echo false charge that Obama attacked Cindy in ad about John McCain
While discussing an Obama campaign ad that noted Sen. John McCain's reported inability to say how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own, MSNBC's Joe Watkins claimed, "I thought that Barack Obama was not going to attack Senator McCain's wife." The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder uncritically reported the McCain campaign's claim that "Obama's charges 'attack Cindy. She owns the homes.' " But Obama's ad neither mentions nor refers to Cindy McCain or the McCains as a couple. Read More
Media repeat Limbaugh's baseless charge that claimed Obama got "sweetheart deals" from Rezko without noting rebuttal
Politico's Ben Smith and Time's Mark Halperin uncritically reported Rush Limbaugh's baseless assertion that Sen. Barack Obama "got all kinds of sweetheart deals with [convicted Chicago businessman Antoin] Rezko" and that "[Sen. John McCain] and his wife did not get a sweetheart deal from a fraud embezzler like Tony Rezko to buy their houses." Smith and Halperin did not note that the sellers of the house Obama bought reportedly said they did not cut their asking price because Rezko bought the adjacent lot, even though they had each previously reported it. Read More
Hannity paraphrased passage from Corsi's book that gets Obama's speech on abortion bill wrong
Sean Hannity paraphrased a passage from Jerome Corsi's discredited book The Obama Nation that misrepresents a March 2001 speech Sen. Barack Obama gave in the Illinois state Senate opposing a bill amending the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975. Corsi claimed Obama said that if the bill passed, and "a nine-month-old fetus" that survived a late-term labor-induced abortion was defined as "a person who had a right to live," that it would essentially "forbid abortions to take place." In fact, Obama was not referring to "a nine-month-old fetus"; he was specifically talking about a "previable fetus." Read More
Myths and falsehoods regarding Obama's votes on "born alive" bills
In reporting on abortion-rights opponents' criticism of Sen. Barack Obama's opposition as an Illinois state senator to bills seeking to amend the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975, the media have promoted numerous myths and falsehoods about Obama and the legislation. In several instances, the media have simply repeated false accusations -- or made the accusations themselves -- that Obama's opposition amounted to support for infanticide. For example, on the August 18 edition of his radio show, Rush Limbaugh claimed that Obama "believes it is proper to kill a baby that has survived an abortion," while right-wing pundit Ann Coulter said that Obama "wants the doctors ... chasing it through the delivery room to make sure it gets killed." Further, author Jerome Corsi claimed that "[e]ven if a child was born, he said the woman still had the right to kill the child in an abortion," and Oregonian associate editor David Reinhard wrote that Obama's opposition was "enabling infanticide." In fact, as Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted, Obama and other opponents said the bill posed a threat to abortion rights and was unnecessary because, they said, Illinois law already prohibited the conduct supposedly addressed by the bill. Read More
No comments:
Post a Comment