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Nov
05
2012

Worst Media Moment on Hurricane Sandy?

By 11 Comments
CNN's Erin Burnett (screengrab by mroach)

CNN reporter Erin Burnett's comment (10/29/12) that it was "kind of neat" to see New York City break its flooding record as the storm surge from Hurricane Sandy flooded Battery Park was bizarre, to say the very least: I just want to give everyone an update of where we are right now in terms of the record books. This is one for the record books. In terms of the storm surge here in Manhattan, Lower Manhattan where I am right now, almost a three-foot record, three feet. We're at 12.75 feet, as you can see, it's above my ankles now [...]

Filed Under: CBS, Climate Change, CNN, Election Tagged With: , ,
Oct
16
2012

Playing the Role of 'Journalist' at a 'Presidential Debate'

By 13 Comments
Candy Crowley

CNN reporter Candy Crowley was apparently causing the Obama and Romney campaigns to panic over the weekend. Why? She was telling people she might ask a question at tonight's presidential debate. Time's Mark Halperin reported (10/14/12) that has done a series of interviews on her network in which she has suggested that she will assume a broader set of responsibilities. As Crowley put it last week, "Once the table is kind of set by the town-hall questioner, there is then time for me to say, 'Hey, wait a second, what about X, Y, Z?'" The campaigns apparently didn't much care [...]

Filed Under: Barack Obama, CNN, Election, Mitt Romney, Time Tagged With: , , ,
Oct
10
2012

CNN Exposes 'Villain' Chavez's Dastardly Plot to House the Poor

By 23 Comments
Venezuelan GDP per capita (PPP) (US$)

Corporate media's depiction of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is often cartoonish, but the lead from David Frum's piece from CNN.com (10/9/12) takes the cake: Venezuela's authoritarian president Hugo Chavez is a villain out of a Batman movie: buffoonish and sinister in equal measure. You want to be careful about throwing around words like "buffoonish," though, when you're making arguments like "Hugo Chavez has laid Venezuela's economy to waste." Here's a chart of Venezuela's per capita GDP since 1999, when Chavez was first elected; since 2003, when Chavez took control of the national oil company from its self-enriching management, the purchasing [...]

Filed Under: CNN, Economy, Venezuela Tagged With: ,
Oct
05
2012

When Did Checking the Facts Become Taking a Candidate 'at His Word'?

By 20 Comments
cnn-foreman

Before the first presidential debate, CNN sent out a press release to promote the idea that they'd be doing factchecking of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. It's kind of sad that this would be considered a novel enough idea to warrant a press release, but the actual factchecking was nothing you'd want to call attention to. Anchor Wolf Blitzer cued up the night's first "reality check" from correspondent John Berman, "on the president's claim that Mitt Romney wants a $5 trillion tax cut." And here comes Berman's factcheck: Now let's look at the facts here. Mitt Romney does propose across-the-board [...]

Filed Under: CNN, Factchecking, Mitt Romney, Taxes Tagged With: ,
Sep
07
2012

FAIR TV: Iran Misreporting, Labor Day and CNN's Unbelievable Romney

By 20 Comments

The new episode of FAIR TV is here, featuring misreporting on Iran's nuclear energy program, NewsHour lecturing labor leaders on Labor Day, and some of the most embarrassing biographical puffery for a presidential candidate you're likely to ever hear. Please share it with your friends, and let us know what you think in comments below.

Filed Under: CNN, Europe, Iran, Labor, Mitt Romney, PBS Tagged With:
Sep
05
2012

Politicians in Tampa, Charlotte Massaged by Media—Literally

By 7 Comments
Huffington Post Oasis

When it comes to journalists socializing and otherwise cozying up to the powerful, there's not a lot new under the sun. More than 20 years ago, then-FAIR associates Martin Lee and Norman Solomon wrote about it in their book Unreliable Sources: TV's top journalists are part of the wealthy and influential elite, often socializing with people they're supposed to be scrutinizing. At an awards banquet for the Radio & Television Correspondents Association during Reagan's second term, Kathleen Sullivan (at the time with ABC) was photographed on the arm of then-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, while CBS Face the Nation host Lesley Stahl [...]

Filed Under: CNN, Election, Huffington Post, Media Business, PBS, Politico, Washington Post
Jul
17
2012

David Gergen Factchecks His Friends—and Financial Partners—at Bain

By 24 Comments

There are some pretty intense factchecking fights over what is true and not true about the Obama campaign's claims about Romney's record at Bain Capital. Media outlets are struggling with how to render a verdict; most seem to think Obama has exaggerated. But one outlet has found a voice willing to deliver a judgment. CNN has published a column (7/16/12) by veteran pundit David Gergen headlined: Facts don't support Obama's charges against Romney This is, for Gergen, pretty strong stuff; he's a talking head whose head mostly talks about campaign strategy and the like. He's not one usually to call [...]

Filed Under: Barack Obama, CNN, Election, Factchecking, Mitt Romney Tagged With: , ,
Jul
05
2012

Shamir Remembered–With Selective Amnesia

By 12 Comments

In death, the U.S. media remembered the late Yitzhak Shamir as "a political hard-liner who served two terms as Israeli prime minster" (CNN, 6/30/12), "the hawkish Israeli leader who balked at the idea of trading occupied land for peace with the Palestinians" (MSNBC, 6/30/12) and "a man of iron will and simple tastes" (Washington Post, 6/30/12) who prided himself on his hard-line views, his relentless determination to hang onto every square inch of what he considered the Land of Israel, and his championing of Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, defying the demands of Israel's most [...]

Filed Under: CNN, Israel/Palestine, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post Tagged With: , ,
Jun
29
2012

The Race to Be First to Be Wrong at the Supreme Court

By 23 Comments

In corporate media there is always a race to be first to report a breaking story seconds before your competitors. It means nothing to the rest of the world–we're talking a matter of seconds, much of the time–but it's a point of pride in the news business to be first. Being right is more important, by several miles, and on that score a few prominent outlets failed spectacularly yesterday at the Supreme Court, telling viewers that the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act had been struck down. The prime offenders on cable were Fox News (photo by @jasonkeath)  and [...]

Filed Under: CBS, CNN, Fox News, Healthcare, NBC Tagged With: ,
Apr
19
2012

Now They Tell Us: Iran Didn't Actually Threaten to Wipe Israel Off the Map

By 45 Comments

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor acknowledged on Al Jazeera English (4/14/12) that Iranian leaders have never called for Israel to be "wiped" off the map. Meridor agreed with interviewer Teymoor Nabili's suggestion that the supposed remarks were never actually made; Iranian leaders, Meridor said, come basically ideologically, religiously, with the statement that Israel is an unnatural creature, it will not survive. They didn't say "we'll wipe it out," you are right, but [that] it will not survive, it is a cancerous tumor, it should be removed. Hostile words, to be sure, but not the menacing threat endlessly reported in [...]

Filed Under: CBS, CNN, Iran, Israel/Palestine, New York Times, Washington Post Tagged With: , , , , ,
Apr
13
2012

Are Apple and Publishers Helping Readers by Ripping Them Off?

By 13 Comments

The Justice Department alleges that Apple's collusion with book publishers to fix ebook prices has cost readers $100 million. So why are so many news reports on the anti-trust suit suggesting that the Apple/publisher alliance is actually good for consumers? The New York Times' David Streitfeld (4/12/12) warns: Amazon, which already controls about 60 percent of the ebook market, can take a loss on every book it sells to gain market share for its Kindle devices. When it has enough competitive advantage, it can dictate its own terms, something publishers say is beginning to happen. Likewise CNN's Doug Gross (4/11/12): [...]

Filed Under: Books, CNN, New York Times Tagged With: , , , , , ,
Mar
26
2012

CNN Pushing Alarmist Tales of Hezbollah Sleeper Agents

By 37 Comments

With discussions of a military attack on Iran circulating among U.S. and Israeli political elites, CNN has added fuel to the fire with a series of alarmist reports about supposedly Iranian-linked terrorist operatives inside the United States who are ready to strike. On the March 21 broadcast of the Situation Room, anchor Wolf Blitzer announced that there could be "a terrifying new reason for all of us to be potentially very worried about U.S. tensions with Iran." What's the terrifying potential worry? Some U.S. officials apparently claim: Iran has a large terrorist-trained force right here in the United States right [...]

Filed Under: CNN, Iran Tagged With: , , , ,
Mar
07
2012

On CNN: From the Left…a Corporate PR Strategist

By 9 Comments

I was struck by an election night panel I saw on CNN last night (3/6/12). "Contributors here on the left and the right," as host Anderson Cooper told viewers. On the right: former Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer and right-wing blogger Erick Erickson. On the left? Frequent TV pundit and Democratic strategist Donna Brazile and… Hilary Rosen. Who? Rosen might be best known for her years at the Recording Industry Association of America, the music industry's lobbying powerhouse. She briefly held the title of Washington editor-at-large for the Huffington Post. But the site cut ties with her in 2010 because she [...]

Filed Under: CNN, Election, Environment Tagged With: ,
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