It was surprising to see that critical scholar Mahmood Mamdani's new book (which is largely about debunking Western notions about Darfur and genocide--something he discussed on CounterSpin) got a positive review in the New York Times (3/30/09).

Today (4/3/09) the paper sort of apologizes, in an editor's note (only in the print edition, so far):

The Books of the Times review on Monday was about Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics and the War on Terror, by Mahmood Mamdani, a professor of government at Columbia University. The review was written by Howard W. French, a former reporter for the New York Times who is now an associate professor at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism and does not know the author. But had editors known of Mr. Mamdani's affiliation with Columbia at the time the review was assigned, the review would not have been assigned to a member of the Columbia faculty.

That has the sound of a rule that is bound to be applied selectively; it's hard to imagine that book reviewers do not occasionally have professional or (more importantly) social connections with the authors they are reviewing. In this case the two don't appear to know each other at all, which might lead one to conclude that a positive review of a politically controversial book was the real problem.

ABC World News did a segment on March 31 with a bunch of short reports on how the global recession was hitting around the world.  Most of them were like this:

CLARISSA WARD (ABC NEWS): I'm Clarissa Ward in Tokyo. Japan is the second-largest economy in the world. And lifetime employment has always been the ideal here. But as global demand for Japanese cars and electronics plummets, companies like Toyota and Canon are being forced to shed tens of thousands of jobs. And for many workers in Japan, losing your job means losing your company housing. Thousands of laid off workers are now living in homeless shelters or, even worse, on the streets. Hideki Metsuhashi was fired in January from his job, making air filters for Toyotas. "I was sleeping in this park for a week," he says. "I never imagined my life would be this hard."

But the one from Kenya--the only one from Africa--went like this:

DANA HUGHES (ABC NEWS): I'm Dana Hughes in the Masai Mara Reserve. People from all over the world travel here to see some of the most magnificent wild animals on the planet. Tourism is the second largest contributor to Kenya's economy after agriculture. It brings in hundreds of millions of dollars each year. But this year, the tourists aren't coming. Luxury lodges, usually filled with Europeans and Americans, are practically empty. In the game park, rangers who make their living pointing out and protecting lions, giraffes and zebras are worried about their own futures as well as the animals'.

STANLEY MASHUKO (RANGER): Once we are not there, then the poachers will come in and kill these animals.

Do you remember when Fox News Channel thought comparisons between the U.S. government and Nazi Germany were insane and reprehensible? This was the channel's reaction when a couple of entries to a video contest sponsored by the progressive activist group MoveOn used Hitler analogies to criticize George W. Bush (FAIR Action Alert, 1/16/04):

News Corp's Fox News Channel started the controversy on January 4, airing Republican National Committee chair Ed Gillespie's complaint about the Bush/Hitler comparison. "That's the kind of tactics we're seeing on the left today in support of these Democratic presidential candidates," Gillespie charged, calling such tactics "despicable."

The whole next day (1/5/04), this was a major story on Fox News Channel. John Gibson asked, "What about the hating Bush movement, the MoveOn.org and George Soros sponsoring these ads that compare Bush to Hitler?"--before being corrected that the ads were not sponsored by MoveOn (or Soros, a funder of the group), and were taken down in response to complaints.

Sean Hannity accused a guest: "You guys on the left are going so far over the cliff. You're making comparisons to the president and Adolf Hitler." Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway said on Hannity's show, "This is the hateful, vitriolic rhetoric that has become the Howard Dean Democratic Party." Bill O'Reilly cited the ads as evidence that "right now in America the Democratic party is being held captive by the far, far left."

That was then, of course, and this is now. Here's Fox News star Glenn Beck on April 1 (Think Progress, 4/1/09):

Our government is ... marching us to a non-violent fascism. Or to put it another way, they're marching us to 1984. Big Brother.... Like it or not, fascism is on the rise.

Beck's rant came complete with footage of marching jackbooted Nazis. No word yet from Fox News on how "hateful" and "despicable" such comparisons are.

The ultimate irony is that Beck (FAIR Action Alert, 12/5/06) has threatened Muslim Americans with concentration camps--"the razor wire will be coming," was how he put it (CNN Headline News, 9/5/06)--if the "good Muslims" don't start "lining up to shoot the bad Muslims in the head." When it comes to fascism, Glenn Beck is not the kind of expert you want.

Is it possible for the Washington Post to be embarrassed by George Will? After a series of erroneous claims in a column about climate change, Will is at it again today (4/2/09), laughing off the use of compact fluorescent lightbulbs as a poor fix for a nonexistent problem:

Reducing carbon emissions supposedly will reverse warming, which is allegedly occurring even though, according to statistics published by the World Meteorological Organization, there has not been a warmer year on record than 1998.

Sigh.

This has been explained before; Will cherry picks the hottest year among other relatively hot years as his starting point. The 11 hottest years in the past century and half have all occurred in the last 13 years--but 1998 was the hottest year so far, so there's no such thing as global warming.

What's perhaps most interesting is that the Post ran a long letter (3/21/09) from the secretary General of the World Meteorological Association, spelling this out and explaining that Will just doesn't know what he's talking about:

It is a misinterpretation of the data and of scientific knowledge to point to one year as the warmest on record -- as was done in a recent Post column ["Dark Green Doomsayers," George F. Will, op-ed, February 15] -- and then to extrapolate that cooler subsequent years invalidate the reality of global warming and its effects.

The difference between climate variability and climate change is critical, not just for scientists or those engaging in policy debates about warming. Just as one cold snap does not change the global warming trend, one heat wave does not reinforce it. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the global average surface temperature has risen 1.33 degrees Fahrenheit.

At this point it's obvious that George Will is not going to let a bunch of scientists tell him about climate science.  The real question is why the Post continues to print this stuff-- and give him cover when critics point out his inaccuracies.

The paper, it should be noted, did run a recent op-ed from Chris Mooney debunking some of Will's climate misinformation. But Will will still have his regular platform to write whatever he wants to write about climate science--no matter how wrong he is.

In his op-ed "Take the Limbaugh Challenge," (L.A. Times, 3/29/09), conservative writer Andrew Klavan states as a "certainty" that L.A. Times readers don't listen to Rush Limbaugh's show:

If you are reading this newspaper, the likelihood is that you agree with the Obama administration's recent attacks on conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh. That's the likelihood; here's the certainty: You've never listened to Rush Limbaugh.

What's more, Klavan claims to listen to Limbaugh frequently, and says he has never heard him "utter a single racist, hateful or stupid word."

To someone like me who has been talking about racist, hateful and stupid Limbaugh remarks since the mid-'90s, and who co-authored FAIR's book The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh's Reign of Error, Klavan's charge that Limbaugh critics don't listen to his show is a familiar one. In dozens of appearances on conservative radio shows to talk about our book, it was rare that I was not confronted with this now-hackneyed charge, even though I have been listening to Limbaugh for 25 years, starting with his local show on Sacramento's KFBK.

As for Klavan's claim that Limbaugh doesn't say racist, stupid or hateful things, FAIR's book documents scores of Limbaugh statements fitting those categories, including such stupidly false claims as "the poorest people in America are better off than the mainstream families of Europe"; that "there are more acres of forest land in America today than when Columbus discovered America in 1492"; and that "not one indictment" resulted from the Iran/Contra scandal investigation.

As one of the Bush administration's most credulous media stooges, Limbaugh enthusiastically repeated raw government propaganda. For instance, after the invasion, Limbaugh trumpeted Iraq's nonexistent WMDs (4/7/03): "We're discovering WMDs all over Iraq.... You know it killed NPR to report that the 101st Airborne found a stockpile of up to 20 rockets tipped with sarin and mustard gas.... Our troops have found dozens of barrels of chemicals in an agricultural facility 30 miles northwest of Baghdad."

Limbaugh's gullibility also leaves him vulnerable to wacky far-right conspiracy theories. Shortly after Obama's election, Limbaugh attempted to work up his listeners with the ridiculous rumor that the new administration was planning to take over their retirement accounts: "They're going to take your 401(k), put it in the Social Security trust fund."

Limbaugh's falsehood was so egregious that it prompted L.A. Times reporter James Rainey to write:

To broadcast such a report--so drained of context as to constitute a lie--would be a shameless act at any time. But Limbaugh needlessly stirred the fears of the millions he holds in his thrall--making the 401(k) thievery sound like nearly a done deal. Shameless.

And why isn't Klavan familiar with years of hateful broadcasts where Limbaugh heaped abuse on homeless people and those with HIV, using his "Homeless Updates" to propose a "Homeless Olympics" with events including "the Dumpster dig and the hop, skip and trip"; and "AIDS Updates" where he talked about "Rock Hudson's disease" and introduced segments with the Dionne Warwick song "I Know I'll Never Love This Way Again"?

And what is it if not hateful to hope to see an American political convention erupt in violence? That's what Limbaugh said was the aim of his "Operation Chaos," which urged his listeners to support Hillary Clinton in order to divide the Democratic Party:

The dream end of this is that this keeps up to the convention, and that we have a recreation of Chicago 1968 with burning cars, protests, fire and literal riots and all of that. That is the objective here.

And speaking of racism, what about this gem where Limbaugh favorably compared victims of flooding in Illinois and Iowa, to Katrina victims in New Orleans, repeating discredited claims about rampant rape and murder in New Orleans in the process?

I want to know. I look at Iowa, I look at Illinois--I want to see the murders. I want to see the looting. I want to see all the stuff that happened in New Orleans. I see devastation in Iowa and Illinois that dwarfs what happened in New Orleans. I see people working together. I see people trying to save their property.... I don't see a bunch of people running around waving guns at helicopters, I don't see a bunch of people running shooting cops. I don't see a bunch of people raping people on the street. I don't see a bunch of people doing everything they can...whining and moaning---where's FEMA, where's Bush. I see the heartland of America. When I look at Iowa and when I look at Illinois, I see the backbone of America.

And has Klavan heard Limbaugh's commentary on Barack Obama? In his response to criticism of his expressed hope that Obama fails, Limbaugh notoriously declared:

We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president.

For more examples of Limbaugh racism, Klavan might have read this L.A. Times op-ed, written by FAIR founder Jeff Cohen and myself. We document many instances of outright racism, including his admission that he once told a black caller to "take that bone out of your nose," asserted that "all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson," and said of a group with a 90-year commitment to nonviolence: "The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."

At this late date, no one who's listened to Limbaugh can honestly say that he doesn’t say racist, hateful or stupid things. Which raises the possibility that Klavan doesn't actually listen to Limbaugh, at least with any real care. But what's the L.A. Times' excuse for publishing nonsense which has been debunked in its own pages for at least two decades?

"Co-director of Press Pass TV, a youth organization in Boston," Cara Lisa Powers (Women In Media & News, 3/31/09) is telling how, having "shot a story at the home of a community member who had a scare Friday night when shots were fired outside his children’s bedroom," her group "sent the story to local media outlets with a press release to get our solution-oriented message as far as it would go." Gaining some pick-up in local media, Powers points out that, "all we asked was that any other news outlets that used the story let us know":

So we were surprised last night when we saw the story on the Channel 7 11 O'Clock News. Unlike Open Media Boston and the Dorchester Reporter, who were excited to promote the wonderful work of Boston youth, WHDH sent out their own crew to interview the same people that we had already spoken to, capture similar b-roll, and add a few formulaic sensationalist twists.

Part of the mission here at Press Pass TV is to use the news as a source of empowerment, community-building and to inspire people to action. We were happy to feature Darrin Howell, Cassie Grice and their neighbors in their dialogue about solutions to keep their children and their neighborhood safe. The story featured here on Channel 7 does none of those things, and instead perpetuates a lot of the hopelessness and fear we see young people already feeling about their communities.

Saying that Press Pass TV is "not only... disappointed that NBC would chase a story already covered by youth without giving them any credit for breaking it," the organization's member "are also saddened by their portrayal of our community." Compare for yourself the striking difference between community oriented reporting and a corporate outlet's take on the same story.

Long a critic of the Washington Post's habit of pushing of "its editorial position in the news section" when operating as "a strong proponent of reducing Social Security benefits," Dean Baker (Beat the Press, 3/31/09) has a new example of what he dubs the Post's "Jihad Against Social Security":

In keeping with this practice, it headlined an article today, "Recession Puts a Major Strain on Social Security Trust Fund." The article refers to the fact that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) now projects that annual tax revenue will be nearly in balance with benefit payments for the next several years. Previous projections had shown large surpluses.

While those seeking to cut Social Security benefits are highlighting these new projections, in reality they have very little significance for the program. Under the law, Social Security benefits are paid out of its trust fund. This trust fund has accumulated a surplus of almost $2.5 trillion. The lower projected surpluses for the next few years will have some impact (if the projections prove correct) on the date at which the fund is projected to be depleted, but the projected depletion date will almost certainly be beyond 2040, even after CBO adjusts its numbers for the downturn.

Spying what "presumably... would be an important factor in any debate over reducing benefits," Baker notes that, "remarkably, this piece alludes to plans to cut benefits without ever noting that older workers and retirees have just lost close to $15 trillion in wealth due to the collapse of the housing bubble and the plunge in the stock market."

Blogging on "Greta Van Susteren's defensive response" to reports "saying that one of the reasons that Sarah Palin has been caught up in a 'series of public relations gaffes' is because she is 'taking advice from Greta and her husband,'" major GOP booster John Coale, the Huffington Post's Geoffrey Dunn (3/29/09) thinks the Fox News host "Doth Protest Too Much":

Let me give Van Susteren her due. This is a serious charge of direct professional misconduct, and there should have been more than a throwaway line from an unnamed source to back it up. The allegation begs further questioning.

But what Van Susteren does acknowledge in her "brief" on the subject is equally troubling:

1. She acknowledges that her husband, John Coale, has been advising Palin, that they are in weekly contact, and that he played a central role in the formation of her national political action committee, SarahPAC--all while she has been covering Palin for Fox News.
2. She acknowledges that her husband met Palin through Van Susteren's media contacts with the governor. In short, he used his wife's journalistic access to Palin to gain his own political access.

At least one thing is obvious to Dunn: "There are some serious journalistic conflicts of interest taking place here, and Van Susteren is either being duplicitous or disingenuous to characterize them as 'silly.'"

Despite the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism's new "State of the Media" report likening the current U.S. media condition to "someone about to begin physical therapy following a stroke suddenly contracting a debilitating secondary illness," Eric Alterman and Danielle Ivory spot (Center for American Progress, 3/26/09) "one sunny area in the news business, according to the report": "Cable 'shined' in 2008. Its audience grew by 38 percent. CNN, Fox News and MSNBC gained viewers and expected to see record profits."

While "unlike their paper-based compadres, they actually had money to burn on things like newsgathering and international bureaus," Alterman and Ivory write:

If cable news is more profitable than before, that's because, increasingly, it features less and less news. It certainly contains nothing that will likely replace the reporting role of the newspapers that are currently surviving on life-support. "State of the Media" juxtaposes these robust figures with some pretty unsettling data about what people actually see on their sets:

In a news year dominated by two major stories [the election and the economy], the television sector with the most time to fill, cable news, offered the narrowest news agenda of all. According to an analysis of the coverage examined by PEJ, the cable TV channels spent about three out of every five minutes on a single story: the 2008 presidential election.

The report found "obsessive, often irrelevant horserace coverage of the election eclipsed all other news" to the extent that "it accounted for 59 percent of the cable newshole in 2008, while coverage of the economy accounted for only 10 percent." And, of course, "coverage of the Iraq War fell everywhere, but it positively crashed on cable," where it "fell nearly 90 percent" and "accounted for just 2 percent of overall coverage."

The Rasmussen poll has been criticized for putting a right-wing skew on its questions--a strategy that helps Scott Rasmussen garner frequent appearances on Fox News and the like, but severely diminishes its usefulness as a guide to public opinion.

The latest example of Rasmussen's tilt is particularly tendentious: "How important is it to you that the dollar remain the currency of the United States?" the pollster asked (3/29-30/09), finding 70 percent saying it was "very important" and 88 percent saying at least "somewhat important."

Needless to say, there are no plans to replace the dollar as the currency of the United States--what there is, however, is China's suggestion that a new currency be created for international trading purposes, and an attempt by some on the right (notably Rep. Michele Bachmann) to scare people into thinking that the New World Order is coming to take their dollars away.

The striking thing is that Rasmussen appears to know there are no such plans. "I was really curious where the suspicion level was going to be on this particular question," he told Talking Points Memo (4/31/09). "If the idea got around that this meant replacing the currency in your wallet," he added, "then absolutely there would be support building for protecting the dollar." He seems to be saying that he was testing out how people would respond to misleading scare tactics--and, in the process, furthering those scare tactics himself.