4. Issues and Bias

4.1 Political

ANNEX TO SECTION 4.1 
The U.S. Mainstream Media and Media Malpractice in Campaign 2004

When we talk about media bias, it is helpful to distinguish mere slants in news reporting from media malpractice manifested by fabrications, lies or fraud. Campaign 2004 showed that media malpractice continued its recent historical trend -  impacting the Democratic Presidential candidate more than the Republican. 

To provide readers with some perspective on how mainstream media malpractice tends to be skewed against Democrats, I decided to do a quick compilation. First, I did a Google search on "media bias against Bush" and one of the links that popped up was the Media Research Center (MRC) post titled "The Ten Worst Media Distortions of Campaign 2004" (a Google search reveals that quite a lot of bloggers linked to it). Since MRC is perhaps the "leader" on the Right when it comes to tracking (supposed) media bias against the Right (in fact, they claim: "MRC has grown to be the nation's largest and most sophisticated television and monitoring operation, now employing 60 professional staff with a $6 million annual budget"), I felt their compilation would be a good reference to compare and contrast media malpractice claims from the left and the right. The comparison shows that there is really no competition - not only did John Kerry face far more media malpractice than George Bush, MRC's claims of distortions are woefully weak and often shield evidence that totally undercuts their claims.

Even a cursory review of MRC's list of "distortions" shows how silly most of their claims are. It is not just weak on facts and high on bogus outrage - it is also remarkably revealing of how little actual media malpractice against Bush that MRC was able to find with its $6 million budget, in comparison to what I, with my negative budget (no one pays me for this), was able to find against Kerry (with thanks due largely to sites like The Daily Howler and Media Matters). Apart from the CBS 60 Minutes fiasco (which in itself revealed only that CBS/60 Minutes was so incompetent that it avoided presenting reams of incontrovertible air-tight evidence which showed Bush was AWOL and instead picked some dubious "memos" to make their case), MRC has virtually NO other instance of actual media malpractice against Bush. The only other incident that comes even remotely close is #9 on their list (below) and even that, like the 60 Minutes claim is an example of the opposite - the media de-emphasizing Bush's real lies about the so-called Saddam-Al Qaeda connection because of their ineptitude. As you will see in my brief response to MRC's 10 "distortions" (below), the bulk of MRC's claims have to do with more traditional "bias" - not media malpractice, and even those claims almost entirely have no merit.

Part I: Brief Response to MRC's "The Ten Worst Media Distortions of Campaign 2004"

Part II: Examples of Media Malpractice against John Kerry in 2004

Part III: Examples of Media Malpractice against Al Gore in Campaign 2000

Part I: Brief Response to MRC's "The Ten Worst Media Distortions of Campaign 2004"

1. "Dan Rather’s Forgery Fiasco"

Sure, Dan Rather and 60 Minutes screwed up big time and deserved criticism for what they did, but MRC conveniently ignores how the media underemphasized far more damaging evidence against Bush. As I said earlier:

...what made Rathergate particularly appalling was the fact that neither Rather nor his team made use of voluminous, clear, evidence that already existed at the time which showed unambiguously that Bush went AWOL (among numerous other things). Instead, Rather's team chose to go after some second-hand documents of unknown or dubious authenticity! Not only that, the work of long-time Republican operatives and right-wing media/columnists in promoting lies about the memos, as well as the words of multiple eyewitnesses who have attested to the validity of the basic content of the memos was almost entirely downplayed by the media. Thus, rather (sorry, pun intended) than prove "liberal bias", Rathergate proved one thing yet again. That the media is illiberal and conservative.

Another way to see how the media is conservative, using the so-called Rathergate example, is through this helpful summary from Outlet Radio (via DailyKos):

Dan Rather, CBS News Anchor

given documents he thought were true failed to thoroughly investigate the facts reported documents to the American people as true to make his case when confronted with the facts, apologized and launched an investigation number of Americans dead: 0 should be fired as CBS News Anchor

George W. Bush, President of the United States

given documents he thought were true failed to thoroughly investigate the facts reported documents to the American people as true to make his case when confronted with the facts, continued to report untruth and stonewalled an investigation number of Americans dead: 1100 should be given four more years as President of the United States

In fact, if you recall the egregiously belated mea culpa (see here) of the New York Times on how it pushed dubious or misleading propaganda from the Bush administration to help the Iraq invasion efforts, the media coverage of Dan Rather’s mea culpa completely dwarfed media coverage of NYT’s apology (see here and here).

In fact, MRC itself admits, indirectly, the media's overall lack of "liberal bias", when they say the following:

CBS’s new “evidence” triggered stories in every major news outlet, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, ABC, NBC, FNC and CNN. But by Friday, September 10, many of those same news organizations quoted independent experts doubting the authenticity of the memos, dated 1972 and 1973, since they looked computer-generated, not typed, citing a range of formatting issues. Then Killian’s widow told ABC Radio that her late husband did not type or keep extensive records, and Killian’s son told the Associated Press he doubted his father wrote those “memos.”

[...later...]

On the Bright Side: ABC Investigated CBS’s Document Experts

So, their biggest complaint in this post is with 60 Minutes. (Incidentally, this, despite 60 Minutes and the TX-ANG producers getting egg in their face and having to walk back from their claims, with the rest of the media making this a much greater public spectacle than their own malpractice in acting as agents of propaganda for Bush on the Iraq war (among other things) and CBS asking the show's producers to resign). As I've noted above, 60 Minutes' ineptness is obvious in how they didn't bother to make their case using bullet-proof evidence that already existed rather than go after some dubious "memos". Not to mention, as Media Matters pointed out: "The glass house of conservative journalism: CBS's attackers shouldn't be throwing stones".

2. "Ignoring, then Attacking, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth"

Ignoring? Huh?

Conservatives complained that Swift Boat Vets were ignored; now they tout impact

Several conservative pundits have touted the influence of anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (now officially called Swift Boat Vets and POWs for Truth) on the outcome of the November 2 presidential election. Media Matters for America voluminously documented the group's false and discredited allegations against Senator John Kerry and the intense media coverage the group received, especially in August 2004 following the Democratic National Convention.

On November 3, the group itself issued a statement touting the group's success. Speaking on their behalf, co-founder Admiral Roy Hoffman said: "We are pleased with the fact that we were able to effectively bring attention to our issues and raise questions regarding Senator Kerry's character."

These triumphal pronouncements contrast sharply with complaints during the election by L. Brent Bozell III, founder and president of the conservative Media Research Center. Bozell complained that the news media was ignoring Swift Boat Vets, as MMFA documented here and here.

The very fact that MRC "honored" the Swift Vets with a "Conservative of the Year" award shows exactly what MRC is all about. It's not every day that an organization takes it upon itself to "honor" a bunch of racketeers who put together one of the most significant, out-and-out fraud operations against a Presidential candidate in American history.

3. "Pounding the Bush National Guard Story"

"Pounding"? Huh? Here's all that they missed "pounding". (Also see #1 above).

4. "Spinning a Good Economy into Bad News"

Here's MRC's spin:

When Bill Clinton ran for re-election in 1996, unemployment was 5.2 percent, inflation 3 percent, and economic growth 2.2 percent. Economic conditions are similar, if not better, today: unemployment is 5.4 percent, inflation 2.7 percent, and economists’ consensus forecast for economic growth this quarter is 3.7 percent. But the networks have stressed the downside of the most positive economic reports, and given wide play to any statistics suggesting weakness.

This is very similar to the junk "paper" written by John Lott and Kevin Hassett for the AEI. Just click here to see the fakery behind this kind of spin.

Not to mention, MRC conveniently ignored the media's de-emphasizing the fact that Bush's job growth was not just spectacularly bad, but it was so poor compared to the vaunted projections Bush and the White House kept making on expected job gains as a result of their tax cuts. Anyway, enough with this junk claim. Let's move on.

5. "The Networks’ Outrageous Convention Double-Standard"

This is an entirely laughable item and it even includes a complaint that a couple of the talking heads characterized Zell Miller's speech at the Republican National Convention as "angry" as if that wasn't a fact! Do I take it that the MRC didn't actually watch the frauds like Rudy Giuliani or Zell Miller speak? All in all, it's the standard MRC spin that Democrats were portrayed more positively than the Republicans - of course, even if this were to be true, the MRC would never admit this was because the Democrats were actually far more well behaved than the Republicans and didn't lie repeatedly and defraud Americans again and again during their convention.

To get a better picture of what the coverage was really like see Media Matters (and this link too).

6. "Swooning Over Edwards’ Image, Ignoring His Liberalism"

Not unexpectedly, they use predictable fakery here to create their faux outrage. Here's a key point they note:

But Edwards, selected earlier in the year by the National Journal as the fourth-most liberal Senator (with Kerry ranked as the most liberal), was not tagged as ideological by network reporters.

Never mind this is the standard deception the Right used during the campaign - creating false images in people's minds about Kerry's and Edwards' real ideology. See this link in particular for a debunking.

7. "CBS’s Byron Pitts Promotional Kerry Coverage"

This entry must surely be a joke. Anyway, even if it is serious, don't even get me started on the media's propagandistically positive coverage of Bush (especially since 9/11). We don't even want to compare notes on "promotional coverage" - there's no competition. (Would you like to see some major Bush-loving, no seriously, Bush-worshipping coverage from the "librul media" kingpin itself? Click here).

8. "CBS Promotes Fears of a New Military Draft"

This is another silly post because CBS was merely reporting that people (activists or not) were concerned about the possibility of the draft - and that was/is legitimate news. Additionally, just because the Bush administration claimed that there was to be no draft, one would have to have been completely brain-dead to take their claims at face value considering their specialization is lying or deceiving people - as it became enormously clear prior to Campaign 2004. So, give me a break.  

Of course, the "liberal media" actually came to MRC's rescue, as they point out:

On the Bright Side: NBC Offered Balanced Coverage

9. "Misrepresenting the 9/11 Commission on Iraq/al-Qaeda Links"

Even if I grant that MRC has a very weak point that some of the media did not use the phrase "collaborative" inserted in their discussion of Al Qaeda and Iraq, MRC's point here is nonsensical:

   But the commission did not examine the case for war against Saddam, and on June 17, its Democratic Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton scolded the media: “I must say I have trouble understanding the flap over this. The Vice President is saying, I think, that there were connections between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s government. We don’t disagree with that.”

   Hamilton added, “It seems to me that the sharp differences that the press has drawn, the media has drawn, are not that apparent to me.”

   The Republican chairman, former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean, agreed. “Were there contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq? Yes. Some of them are shadowy, but there’s no question they were there.”

Even if we are to take Lee Hamilton's and Tom Kean's claims at face value, the issue is not whether there were "contacts". There were "connections" or "contacts" between Al Qaeda and a whole bunch of countries (including many of our "allies" (e.g., Saudi Arabia and Pakistan - the two biggest forces behind the terrorists that caused 9/11, after the Taliban in  Afghanistan); and, um, remember who funded bin Laden many many years ago?). But the context of "contacts" is not that they had a casual "hey, how are you?" relationship. All along, the Bush administration deliberately deceived the public by claiming that the "contacts" were part of a joint effort to promote and support terrorism. Instead, there was no proof found by the 9/11 commission of such a collaborative relationship - despite Bush's utterly false and deceptive claims time and again. A sample list of quotes from the Bushies is here. Here's one of them (bold text is my emphasis):

We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases.

How about this one? (bold text is my emphasis)

Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda.

Was the media blaring these quotes again and again when Bush was shown to be a serial liar? Nope.

Additionally, the fear-mongering and the utter deception by the Bush administration in trying to link Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein in their rush to war (using phrases meant to deceive - like "connections" and "ties" for example; incidentally "ties" clearly refer to collaborative relationships) was absolutely worth noting in the media 24x7, even though they did not do a good job of it at all (more on that here). So, the basic foundation of MRC's claim is utterly bogus.

10. "Equating New Terrorism Warning to LBJ’s “Gulf of Tonkin”"

Another bogus post that conveniently skips the available evidence clearly showing that the Bushies politicized terror alerts and national security quite often.

All in all, very thin gruel, mostly pasted together because they couldn't find anything substantive.

Part II: Examples of Media Malpractice against John Kerry in 2004

In contrast, here is a limited sample of the widespread media malpractice against Democratic Presidential candidates in 2004. Most of my examples relate to John Kerry and what I show is just a subset of the malpractice against Kerry (more of which can be seen here and here); I'm adding a "bonus" item about Howard Dean for good reason. And we're talking real malpractice here (fabrications/lies or fraud).

[Just for fun, to make MRC's job easier, I'm excluding from the numbered list below, the two most serious examples of malpractice against Kerry: 
(a) Publicizing the false charges of the out-and-out fraud operation called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" and giving them even minimal credence, often without refuting their blatantly false claims (as one could tell merely by comparing one swift boat veteran against himself or another), 
and 
(b) portraying Bush as "steady" or "principled" and Kerry as a "flip-flopper" (something that was rampant in the media) even though the reality was exactly the opposite (also see this example).]

1. Fabricating a myth that John Kerry's position on the $87B Iraq bill could not be understood - even though it could (easily) and even though Bush's behavior on the same bill was virtually the same (Talking heads on MSNBC's Hardball - here and here, for example)

2. Fabricating a myth that John Kerry cast specific votes against most major weapons systems - even though he did not (Faux News - Sean Hannity)

3. Fabricating a myth that John Kerry called Yasser Arafat a role model when Kerry was actually implying the opposite (New York Post- Deborah Orin)

4. Fabricating a myth that John Kerry signed a letter backing gay marriage (Associated Press)

5. Committing fraud by dropping a few words to make it appear as if John Kerry was lying about what he said about Vietnam veterans (Washington Times' Wes Pruden)

6. Fabricating a myth about John Kerry and Tora Bora (MSNBC - Tim Russert, Faux News - Chris Wallace, New York Times - David Brooks, Washington Post - Charles Krauthammer)

7. Egregiously making up a claim with no evidence, that John Kerry was a "phony" (Boston Globe's Nina Easton)

8. Fabricating a quote attributed to John Kerry that he never uttered (New York Times - Maureen Dowd invented it and others at the NYT spread it)

9. Fabricating quotes by John Kerry (Faux News - Carl Cameron)

10. Fabricating myths about Kerry's debate claims (CNN)

11. Fabricating a claim about Kerry's sponsorship of bills (Faux News - Carl Cameron and Brit Hume)

...and on and on...

BONUS:
Committing outright fraud against Howard Dean, with their reporting on the "Dean scream" (Most media outlets) 

Part III: Examples of Media Malpractice against Al Gore in Campaign 2000

Just to point out that the malpractice against Kerry was not just an aberration, I am also including a few examples of the even more extensive malpractice against Al Gore in Campaign 2000.

1. Love Canal

3. The Internet

4. Buddhist Temple and fundraising

5. Floodgate (and here)

6. Farm chores

7. "Look for the Union Label"

8. Willie Horton

9. Draft lottery number

10. Social Security plan

11. Years in journalism

12. Likeability

13. Debate

Remember, Gore got much worse coverage than Bush during Campaign 2000 - see here, here and here, for example.