Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Media Matters Daily Summary 04-29-08

Politico's Allen misrepresented Obama's April 16 debate response on "disown[ing]" Wright comments
Reporting on a speech by Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor, Politico's Mike Allen misrepresented Obama's April 16 debate response on "disown[ing]" Wright's controversial remarks by writing, "Obama referred to Wright as 'somebody who is associated with me that I have disowned,' then clarified that to say he had disowned the comments." Allen left out the first part of Obama's sentence: "[T]he notion that somehow that the American people are going to be distracted once again by comments not made by me but somebody who is associated with me that I have disowned, I think doesn't give the American people enough credit." Read More

Olbermann named NPR's Rudin "Worst Person" for comparing Clinton to Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction
On Countdown, Keith Olbermann named Ken Rudin the "winner" of his nightly "Worst Person in the World" segment for asserting: "[F]irst of all, let's be honest here, [Sen.] Hillary Clinton is Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. She's going to keep coming back, and they're not going to stop her." Olbermann commented: "[A]fter comparing Senator Clinton to the insane, murderous, kidnapping, stalking, knife-wielding, suicidal, bunny-boiling character of Alex Forrest, who has to be drowned and shot to be finally stopped in Fatal Attraction, even the harshest critic of Senator Clinton is probably beginning to think, you know, that might be a little harsh. Maybe an apology is in order." Read More

Fox News' Garrett falsely claimed the Golden Rule, Obama's "favorite Scripture," is not, in fact, "exactly rooted in Scripture"
Reporting on Sen. Barack Obama's answer to a question about his "favorite Scripture," Fox News' Major Garrett asserted that "Obama's answer [was] not exactly rooted in Scripture but [was] in the ballpark," and then aired a clip of Obama saying: "[T]he Golden Rule. It's very simple. I mean, it's a very simple concept. I think what he asks of me is that I treat my brother as -- and my sister -- as I would have them treat me." Contrary to Garrett's claim, Obama's answer is, in fact, "rooted in Scripture." Read More

Networks continue to ignore NY Times' military analyst story, but all find time for Hannah Montana
Since The New York Times reported on the hidden ties between media military analysts and the Pentagon on April 20, ABC, CBS, and NBC have still not mentioned the report. By contrast, during their April 28 evening news broadcasts, all three networks reported on the Vanity Fair photo of Miley Cyrus. Read More

Drudge further distorted Hill article that itself made misleading comparison regarding Clinton's reported earmark request
The Hill made a misleading comparison between the amount in earmarks reportedly requested by Sen. Hillary Clinton for 2009 and the amount secured by other senators for the 2008 fiscal year in reporting that Clinton "has requested nearly $2.3 billion in federal earmarks for 2009, almost three times the largest amount received by a single senator this year." The Hill did not report which senator had requested the most in earmarks for 2009 -- presumably because senators are not required to make their earmark requests public, a detail not noted until the 22nd paragraph of the Hill article. The Drudge Report further distorted the Hill article to falsely claim: "Clinton requests $2.3B in earmarks -- three times largest amount ever by Senator!" Read More

Matthews conflated Wright and Obama, then said they are "different faces of the same guy"
On Hardball, Chris Matthews likened the relationship between Sen. Barack Obama and his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, to "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and asserted: [E]very time you have a problem with Barack, because you don't really know him and he seems a little foreign to you, you think of -- you think of him as both these guys. They're different faces of the same guy. Jeremiah Wright, to a lot of people, is Barack Obama." Read More

CNN continues trend of uncritically airing McCain's false attacks on Dems' health care plans
CNN's Dana Bash, Wolf Blitzer, and Kyra Phillips all uncritically aired video of Sen. John McCain's false attacks on Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton regarding health care, in which McCain suggested that the Democratic candidates favor a "one-size-fits-all, big-government takeover of health care," and that "[t]hey want the government to make the decisions." In fact, neither Obama nor Clinton has proposed a "big-government takeover of health care"; both have called for individuals to choose their own insurance. Read More

Media that reported Lieberman's hacking charge against Lamont supporters have yet to report FBI found "no evidence of (an) attack"
Despite having reported the allegation by Sen. Joe Lieberman's campaign that supporters of Ned Lamont had "hacked" Lieberman's campaign website, ABC, CNN, and CBS have yet to report that an FBI investigation reportedly found "no evidence of (an) attack." The Advocate of Stamford, Connecticut, reported on April 9 that an October 2006 FBI email indicated that the FBI had found Lieberman's website "crashed because Lieberman officials continually exceeded a configured limit of 100 e-mails per hour the night before the primary." Read More

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