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Media's True Colors - Part 1 SUMMARY Some progressives seem to wonder why it is necessary to try and painstakingly prove something (about the media) that we already know. Those that ask this question forget the main objective of such an exercise - it is NOT to preach to the choir. Just ask yourselves why you need to prove anything you already know to the part of the country that doesn't know it. Aside from the obvious issue of who triumphs politically, the answer is simple. It's not enough for you to be convinced of something - what's required is that you be able to convince those who are not, with credible evidence. It is not enough for you to have the best ideas and the best people in the country because people who are kept uninformed or misinformed (by the media) will never come to know the truth about your ideas or your capabilities. To be successful in any realm of life requires one to be credible and convincing enough to motivate other people to trust and believe you. If you want the large percentage of this country that doesn't think the media is biased one way or the other, or the big part of the country that thinks the media is biased "liberal", to really understand what the media is, then you need to be able to persuade them convincingly that you are right and that they are wrong. Not with anecdotes, but with a broad collection of facts. That's why I embarked on my media project a few months ago. Not to convince those of you who are convinced already, but to help put together the data you need to convince others who are not (others, who don't place ideology and opinion above facts). I intentionally started here with the series How the Liberal Media Myth is Created because that toxic myth pervades common discourse and has been a false Republican talking point for decades. In that series, I showed systematically that no credible evidence exists to-date that the media in the U.S. is biased "liberal" overall. My follow-up series titled Why the Liberal Media Myth Persists showed, why, despite the lack of credible evidence, the myth of a liberal media continues to pervade the airwaves. The importance of that cannot be understated because if you want to reform the media and dispel the liberal media myth, you need to first understand why the myth is able to persist. At the same time, those who read these two series would have noticed that they were just precursors to an examination of the mainstream media's real bias, for an examination of media coverage or behavior on a variety of topics is essential to truly understand that. Such an examination is the basis of this series titled The Media's True Colors (which I introduced here). In Part 1 of this series, I addressed issues of basic journalism and showed that when it comes to the most important measures of integrity in journalism, the mainstream media tilts far more conservative than liberal. These measures include:
As I have said numerous times in the past, the real question is not whether the media is liberal or conservative when it comes to a particular incident. The question is whether it is more liberal than conservative or more conservative than liberal on any given issue. What I have shown so far is that at least when it comes to issues of basic journalism, mainstream media bias is like the state of Idaho - it's much more conservative than liberal. The following sections provide detailed evidence in support of my conclusion, but I would like to emphasize one point before that. A defense that the media's bias in unintentional may be of academic interest (if it is really true), but that will not change the fact that the bias exists more in one direction than in the other. The dog-ate-my-homework defense may satisfy the media itself, but it is not a get-out-of-jail-free card for escaping accountability for the media's unacceptable tilt. SECTIONS Part 1A: Journalistic Malpractice in Political Coverage Part 1B: Accountability for Journalistic Malpractice Part 1C: Punishment for Transgressions Part 1E: Astroturf Propagation DETAILS Part 1A: Journalistic Malpractice in Political Coverage [Posted originally at The Left Coaster] The Media's True Colors - Part 1A As I said in my introduction, this is a series intended to explore the real nature and behavior of the U.S. mainstream news media - in terms of news coverage. Part 1 of this series will address issues of basic journalism, and the first topic I address in Part 1 is journalistic malpractice (in the context of political reporting). When we talk about media bias, it is important to distinguish mere slants in news reporting from media malpractice manifested by outright fabrications, lies or fraud since the latter is most damaging to the target of the coverage, especially when it comes to political coverage which is arguably the most significant in terms of impact to one party or the other across the country. Campaign 2004 showed that media malpractice continued its recent historical trend - impacting the Democratic Presidential candidate more than the Republican. Moreover, transgressions against the Right (e.g., CBS/60 Minutes) [or even transgressions that fit the Right's bogus claims about the Media or the Left (e.g., Jayson Blair)] get far more publicity in the mainstream media than the far greater transgressions against the Left. These facts alone show that the media is biased far more conservative than liberal on this issue. 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 a "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. I don't reproduce my review here - those who are interested can read it on this page at ICM. 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 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. The bulk of MRC's 10 "distortions" also have more to do with traditional "bias" - not media malpractice, and even those "bias" claims almost entirely have no merit. On the other hand, the examples of actual media malpractice against John Kerry (not to mention Al Gore, if you consider Campaign 2000 as well) were numerous, something that becomes obvious even from a simple Google search. In the following, therefore, I am going to provide a limited list of incidents showing media malpractice against Kerry (first) and Gore. (It's limited because I don't have the time to sit and mine the massive amounts of data on the media trashing of Kerry or Gore on various websites). Examples of Media Malpractice against John Kerry in 2004 (also posted at ICM) In contrast to MRC's woefully weak list, 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. [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: 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: 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. Examples of Media Malpractice against Al Gore in Campaign 2000 (also posted at ICM) 1. Love Canal 2. Love Story 3. The Internet 4. Buddhist Temple and fundraising 6. Farm chores 12. Likeability 13. Debate Remember, Gore got much worse coverage than Bush during Campaign 2000 - see here, here and here, for example. Part 1B: Accountability for Journalistic Malpractice [Posted originally at The Left Coaster] The Media's True Colors - Part 1B This post is part of my continuing series exploring the real nature and behavior of the U.S. mainstream news media - in terms of news coverage. Part 1 of this series addresses issues of basic journalism, and I previously posted Part 1A on journalistic malpractice (in political coverage). This part, 1B, is about accountability for journalistic malpractice (against the Left). If publishing or broadcasting dubious reports about a major Republican [think 60 Minutes and the Bush TX-ANG "memos"] is an example of "liberal bias" (which it was not, as I have shown) and a firing offense (or equivalently, requires resignation) then, clearly, publishing or broadcasting unending amounts of completely fraudulent or fabricated stories against prominent individuals on the Left (especially Democratic leaders) is an example of conservative bias and should be an automatic firing offense? One would think so, but it seems that accountability is a word that is largely unknown to the big shots in the media when the targets of the smear or fabrication happen to be on the Left. In Part 1A I presented a limited list of incidents of media malpractice against John Kerry in 2004 and against Al Gore in Campaign 2000. In this post, I am extending the targets of malpractice to cover more Democrats to show that the malpractice is not limited to specific individuals on the Left. To make my point, I present here a very small set (25) of general examples illustrating cases of blatant fabrication or lying by mainstream media reporters/columnists against many prominent people on the Left. Let me repeat: this is just a small subset of columnists/reporters and incidents - a mere drop in the ocean of mendacity about Democrats (and liberals/progressives) that has pervaded the U.S. media for a long time now. When such behavior is rampant (a week spent reading the Daily Howler, Media Matters, Eric Alterman, Joe Conason and Gene Lyons - to name just a few references - will start to give you a better idea of how rampant it is; why, even conservatives occasionally, weakly acknowledge it) and it is met with an almost complete lack of accountability, it clearly demonstrates that on the issue of accountability for media malpractice against prominent people on the Left there is clearly NO (and I mean, NO) "liberal bias". In a subsequent post I will show how accountability works when the target happens to be either someone prominent on the Right or the media's (fawning) acquiescence to the Right. Small list of 25 examples (details posted at ICM): 1. William Safire (New York Times, now retd.) on Bill Clinton and the Wen Ho Lee affair 2. Richard Cohen (Washington Post) on Joe Lieberman 3. Sean Hannity (Fox News) on Al Gore and Ted Kennedy 4. Lisa Myers (NBC/MSNBC) on Hillary Clinton 5. Tim Russert (MSNBC) on Al Gore and John Kerry 6. Kellyanne Conway (C-SPAN Washington Journal) and Tucker Carlson (CNN) on Democrats 7. Joe Klein (Time) and Democrats 8. Numerous major media outlets in the U.S. and Howard Dean 9. Katharine Seelye (New York Times) and Al Gore 10. Maureen Dowd and Sheryl Gay Stolberg (New York Times) and John Kerry 11. David Brooks (New York Times) and Hillary Clinton 12. George Will (Washington Post) on Al Gore/Democrats 13. Charles Krauthammer (Washington Post) - on Howard Dean: 14. Ceci Connolly (Washington Post) and Al Gore 15. Carl Cameron (Fox News) and John Kerry 16. Brit Hume (Fox News) and John Kerry 17. Bill O'Reilly (Fox News) on Florida 2000/Paul Krugman and other topics 18. Chris Matthews (MSNBC) and Bill/Hillary Clinton 19. John Fund (Wall Street Journal) on Florida 2000/Gore/Democrats 20. Wolf Blitzer (CNN) on Richard Clarke/Paul Krugman 21. Robert "The-Traitor" Novak (CNN) on Howard Dean 22. Margaret Carlson (Time) on Bill/Hillary Clinton 23. Gloria Borger (CNBC) on Hillary Clinton 24. Rush Limbaugh on a variety of topics [included since he dominates talk radio] 25. Adam Nagourney (New York Times) and Wesley Clark Part 1C: Punishment for Transgressions [Posted originally at The Left Coaster] The Media's True Colors - Part 1C This is part of my continuing series exploring the real nature and behavior of the U.S. mainstream news media - in terms of news coverage. Part 1 of this series addresses issues of basic journalism, and previous posts covered journalistic malpractice on political coverage (Part 1A) and accountability for malpractice against the Left (Part 1B). This part - 1C - summarizes the double-standards on accountability and punishment. [*This post was updated on 5/12/05 to add some additional data.] What do the following individuals have in "common"? 1. Peter Arnett (and NBC/National Geographic) 2. Steve McLinden (and Fort Worth Star-Telegram) 3. Dan Guthrie (and Daily Courier) 4. Tom Gutting (and Texas City Sun) 5. Farnaz Fassihi (and Wall Street Journal) 6. Charles Goyette (and Clear Channel/KFYI) 7. David "Davey D" Cook (and Clear Channel/KMEL) 10. Tim McCarthy (and The Courier) 11. Jon Lieberman (and Sinclair Broadcasting) 12. Peter Werbe (and KOMY-AM, Santa Cruz, CA) 13. Brent Flynn (and Lewisville Leader, TX) 14. Ed Gernon (and CBS - indirectly) 15. Roxanne Walker (and Clear Channel/WMYI) 16. Betsy West, Josh Howard, Mary Murphy, Mary Mapes (and CBS) 17. Henry Norr (and San Francisco Chronicle) 18. William Pates (and San Francisco Chronicle) 19. Jane Akre and Steve Wilson (and Fox News) 20. Molly Ivins (and The Virginian-Pilot) 21. Stephanie Salter (and San Francisco Chronicle) BONUS: J. R. Hatfield (St. Martin's Press and other media) The answer: They are all columnists/talk show hosts/reporters who were either punished or fired (almost all during the Bush presidency) because of their reports or behaviors that, in some way or the other, either placed prominent conservatives/Republicans in poor light or the media in poor light for propagandizing for the Right. This, despite the fact that many of these incidents have nothing to do with media malpractice, but have, at worst, to do with poor judgment. The list of 21 cases above is not extensive by any means since this was only based on Google searches; and let me make it clear that, I am not condoning poor journalism by featuring cases where someone got fired for poor journalism. After all, the whole point of my efforts is to highlight egregious and poor journalism. I am providing the examples to point out the vast hypocrisy and double standards inherent in today's conservatively biased media. Journalistic malpractice against prominent Democrats is routinely considered acceptable and is rarely associated with any real punishment (see Part 1B). Indeed, people are sometimes even promoted after their journalistic malpractice against Democratic leaders (e.g., Carl Cameron of Faux News). In contrast, distortions or even opinions or facts that put prominent Republicans/conservatives or the media outlets that propagandized for them in poor light are often considered unacceptable and meet with publicized punishment. Sometimes this punishment occurs for mere behaviors that are similar in nature to those that are more than tolerated when they are exhibited (or topped) by media personalities or reporters on the Right, such as:
This alone shows how the media is not "liberal biased" on the topic of accountability and punishment, but is in fact conservatively biased. Now, there are a few cases where conservatives have been punished (NOTE: I am not including a few other cases of Republicans being fired, for good reasons - see here; for similar exclusions on the other side, see here):
But, it is obvious that this list is much smaller compared to the list at the top of this page. So, let me reiterate my point: on the topic of accountability and punishment, the mainstream media is in fact conservatively biased. A final point. The fact that people like Rush Limbaugh, the entire set of Faux News talking heads, and hordes of reporters and columnists (especially conservative) far and wide (at the New York Times, Washington Post, Cable TV outlets, talk radio, etc.), have made a career out of years and years of fabrications and deception about the Democratic party leadership (and liberals in general) without losing their jobs, demonstrates that conservatives do not take seriously their own criticisms of media integrity or media bias. Inaccuracies are far worse than biases; yet, as the Daily Howler, Media Matters, FAIR, ConWebWatch and numerous other websites (e.g., News Hounds), as well as the myriad books like those of Brock, Alterman, Conason and many more, have documented over the years, reporters and columnists who invent stories about liberals/Progressives and Democrats overwhelmingly go scot-free. The worst of them even get more publicity, recognition or promotions in conservative circles (names likes Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Carl Cameron, John Tierney, etc. come to mind). [Posted originally at The Left Coaster] The Media's True Colors - Part 1D This is part of my continuing series exploring the real nature and behavior of the U.S. mainstream news media - in terms of news coverage. Part 1 of this series addresses issues of basic journalism, and previous posts covered bias in journalistic malpractice on political coverage (Part 1A), accountability for malpractice against the Left (Part 1B) and punishment for transgressions (Part 1C). This part - 1D - addresses bias in censorship. What do the following incidents have in "common"? 1. CBS and UPN (both part of Viacom), NBC and ABC - and the United Church of Christ 3. NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox News -and USAction 5. PBS and "Postcards from Buster" 6. CNN and Log Cabin Republicans 7. CNN and the Iraq War (Christiane Amanpour) 8. Chicago Tribune and Boondocks 9. Clear Channel and the Dixie Chicks 11. Sinclair Broadcasting and "Nightline" Iraq program 12. New York Times and Other ICM outlets - and the Bush bulge 13. New York Times and Paul Krugman 14. Washington Post - and the Iraq war 15. Sinclair Broadcasting and the DNC 16. Comcast Cable and anti-war ads by Peace Action Education Fund 17. CNN, Fox News, and NBC - and the Win Without War coalition 18. Tribune Media Services and Robert Koehler 19. CBS and Ronald Reagan miniseries 20. CBS and coverage of misleading/false report by Bush administration to go to war 21. Viacom and Compare, Decide, Vote 22. Fox News and CNN and reporting on Al Qaeda post 9/11 The answer: They are all cases of overt censorship by major U.S. media outlets, imposed on ads, coverage or opinions considered unfriendly to (or by) the Bush administration/GOP. In contrast, such incidents of censorship on ads, coverage or opinions unfavorable to Democrats are far less. Three examples I was able to find in the latter category are: (i) The Bone Conduction Music Show of Terry Hughes (via Instapundit) was evidently cancelled by WEMU-FM (radio) because of Hughes' stated pro-Iraq war position (also see here) (ii) Gary Bauer's ad against China (and urging Clinton to not visit China) rejected by CNN [note: I think this is a somewhat doubtful case because Bauer's ad was mostly against China's human rights violations - which Clinton was against as well, but I'm including it anyway] (iii) CNN's self-admitted, self-censorship of anti-Saddam coverage for years (to ostensibly protect its reporters in Saddam-controlled Iraq) [note: again, it is quite a stretch to make this an example of anti-Bush bias because CNN had been doing this even in Clinton's time, when Clinton was bombing Saddam - but I'm including it anyway; also see this note from FAIR providing a different perspective] The fact that censorship of ads/coverage/opinions considered unfavorable to (or by) the GOP far exceeds any censorship of ads/coverage/opinions considered unfriendly to (or by) Democrats shows that on the issue of censorship the media is biased quite conservative, rather than liberal. (It's no surprise that well-known conservatives themselves either overtly or indirectly long for censorship of facts, opinions or portrayals they don't like). P.S. I am not covering censorship that may be hidden and not known to the public because it is impossible to prove and/or quantify in any meaningful way. I am also excluding here the censorship of views expressed against media outlets for their coverage on certain (non-partisan) issues, but I've mentioned the few such incidents here. Part 1E: Astroturf Propagation [Posted originally at The Left Coaster] The Media's True Colors - Part 1E This is part of my continuing series exploring the real nature and behavior of the U.S. mainstream news media - in terms of news coverage. Part 1 of this series addresses issues of basic journalism, and previous posts covered bias in journalistic malpractice on political coverage (Part 1A), accountability for malpractice against the Left (Part 1B), punishment for transgressions (Part 1C) and censorship (Part 1D). This part addresses astroturf propagation. One aspect where the American mainstream media's possibly unintentional bias reveals itself is in how the media propagates the kind of propaganda also known as astroturf. Sharon Beder has stated the conventional definition of astroturf (bold text is my emphasis):
Astroturf is also generated in other ways. At ICM I have provided numerous examples that scratch the surface of what is a huge operation -- an operation that is dominated far more by wealthy, business-friendly/business-funded conservative groups than by the usually (but not always) more cash-strapped progressive or liberal groups (that usually try to keep businesses accountable and protect consumers). As I have shown at ICM and as others have others have shown, conservative (and often corporate-funded) groups more commonly indulge in misleading and deceptive advertising or claims. Additionally, astroturf letter writing campaigns tend to be dominated more by conservatives than progressives/liberals - and even when the media expose such astroturf (usually late in the game) they often resort to false "balance" by merely claiming both sides do it or by implying somehow that both sides do it to the same degree - without producing evidence. When the media makes such inaccurate claims or does not step in to independently assess the accuracy of the claims by the (astroturf) groups that it is reporting on, that are allowed to advertise on it, or whose letters and op-eds are featured in its pages, it skews more conservative than liberal with its tolerance for astroturf (either in news articles, op-eds, letters, or ads). For those would like to read more on this, links are provided below (from ICM) to more detailed coverage (and examples) of the most common types of astroturf seen today: 1. Astroturf propagation in news coverage and ads 2. Astroturf propagation in op-eds 3. Astroturf propagation in letters For completeness, I am going to give an example from each of the above categories below. 1. News coverage/ads This FTCR study is a good place to start. Here's how it works: when consumer advocates sponsor HMO reform, or utility rate reduction proposals, for example, insurance lobbyists or utility executives stay behind the scenes. Instead, they give money to individuals or organizations who then appear in their television ads, press conferences and other events, pretending to be impartial experts, consumer advocates, environmentalists, etc. More here. 2. Op-eds Via Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly, here's William Adler's Washington Post op-ed about astroturf op-eds:
More here. 3. Letters Maia Cowan has compiled some examples of pro-Bush astroturfing in 2004 and prior to that at Failure Is Impossible: Newspapers around the country are being deluged with Letters to the Editor expressing support for the Bush agenda. These letters are obviously an orchestrated campaign: they are identical, word for word, except where they are "edited for length". As I have discussed further here, GOP astroturf letters tend to be much higher than any pro-Democrat astroturf, but it doesn't stop the media from creating false equivalence in their reporting on this. [Posted originally at The Left Coaster] The Media's True Colors - Part 1F This is part of my continuing series exploring the real nature and behavior of the U.S. mainstream news media - in terms of news coverage. Part 1 of this series addresses issues of basic journalism, and previous posts covered bias in journalistic malpractice on political coverage (Part 1A), accountability for malpractice against the Left (Part 1B), punishment for transgressions (Part 1C), censorship (Part 1D) and astroturf propagation (Part 1E). This part covers propaganda. Uncovering propaganda in media behavior is a bit more difficult than one would imagine because there is a certain amount of subjectivity that can creep into such analysis. For example, there may be cases where the news coverage or media behavior is propagandistic in effect but may not have been intentionally propagandistic. Covering such cases and sifting out claims of propaganda vs. non-propaganda is truly a challenging exercise and beyond the scope of what I am able to do. So, in order to separate out media behavior that gives the *appearance* of propaganda from overtly propagandistic behavior, I address only the following types of propaganda that have been observed in the mainstream media:
It is not difficult to get a sense for the ICM's (mainstream media's) comfort with the presence of GOP propagandists in their midst. Such comfort is reflected, for example, in their unsurprisingly poor coverage of Gannongate. When Jeff Gannon (aka James Guckert) and his employer "Talon News" were revealed to be a propaganda arm of the GOP/Bush administration (not to mention liars/serial plagiarists) - and that the White House gave Gannon "press" credentials on highly suspicious grounds and then lied about it - the ICM's utter reluctance to cover the details of this case and investigate the whats and whys behind it, revealed its true colors. The examples listed below (URLs provide details) demonstrate the willingness of the mainstream media (ICM) (or journalists/columnists employed by the media) to serve as propaganda pawns of the GOP (knowingly or unknowingly), far more than any such willingness to serve as a propaganda organ for liberals or Democrats. (As CorpWatch points out, the Bush administration spent almost twice as much on propaganda PR pieces than did the Clinton administration; also see this blog post). EXAMPLES 1. Bush Department of Health and Human Services (Medicare) fake news videos 2. Bush Department of Education fake news videos 3. Bush State Department and fake news videos 4. Bush Transportation Security Department and fake news videos 5. Bush Agriculture Department and fake news videos 6. Bush Defense Department and fake news videos 7. Bush Office of National Drug Control Policy and fake news videos 8. Other Bush administration departments and fake news videos 9. Armstrong Williams and the Bush Department of Education 10. Maggie Gallagher and the Bush Department of Health and Human Services 12. Charles Krauthammer (Washington Post/Fox News) and the Bush White House 13. California GOP Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his fake news videos 14. Mike Vasilinda and Florida's GOP Governor Jeb Bush's administration 15. Charles Chieppo and Massachusetts' GOP Governor Mitt Romney's administration 16. Andrea Engleman and Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-NV) 17. Clear Channel and George Bush ("Our Leader") 18. Fox News and the Bush administration/GOP APPENDIX (includes some commentary on Jeff Gannon/Talon News and Rush Limbaugh) One point should be noted in all this. Considering their Dear Leader's love of propaganda (and dislike of exposes of his paid propagandists), conservatives in the mainstream media unsurprisingly "win" hands down on this. Any media organization that tolerates this behavior (or ignores it) clearly indicates its willingness to also serve as a propaganda arm. Indeed, when one of CNN's co-founders, Reese Schonfeld, actively supports government lying and media cover-ups of Government misbehavior (truly un-American, and the opposite of liberalism and far more in line with today's so-called "conservatism"), it is not surprising that there are others in his midst who feel similarly.
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