This week on FAIR TV: Can Chuck Hagel really be considered anti-war? Pundits are mad about the fiscal cliff tax deal–they wanted more Social Security and Medicare cuts. And Murdoch's New York Post made another attempt to link Occupy Wall Street to crime–and other media outlets went along.
Jan
02
2013
Tom Brokaw and the Not-So-Rich Wealthy
By 46 Comments
The December 30 episode of Meet the Press was, of course, devoted to discussion of the "fiscal cliff." And NBC veteran Tom Brokaw was on hand to recycle some of the most tiresome talking points about wealth and taxes.
Oct
15
2012
CEOs Tout Austerity–Without Being 'Ideological' About It
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This passage from Meet the Press (10/14/12) says a lot about how middle-of-the-road elite journalists think about fiscal issues. Here's NBC veteran Tom Brokaw and host David Gregory: BROKAW: I was just going to say, I talked to a lot of major business leaders who want Romney to get elected, but almost to a man and a woman, they say, "But you know what, we're going to have to pay some more taxes in our category." What they want to do, however, is to benchmark them against spending cuts, so that they can get spending down to 20 percent of [...]
Sep
04
2012
Ryan's Lies… I Mean, His 'Overreaches'
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Paul Ryan's RNC convention speech kicked off a lot of discussion about how and when journalists should do factchecking. Some reporters noted that, for instance, the people you factcheck can push back; other pieces wondered if it was making any difference at all. There are plenty of factchecking operations, but there seems to be a feeling that the lying and deception is more significant now than it's ever been. But if you watched TV coverage of the Republican convention, you may not have seen much in the way of factchecking. More to the point, some of the discussions could get [...]
Aug
31
2012
For Brokaw, It Doesn't Get Better Than Global Warming Denial
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NBC's Tom Brokaw from the Republican National Convention last night (8/30/12): The best line, I think, in the speech was the one in which he said: "President Obama wants to slow the growth of the oceans, I want to help you and your family." Yeah, wasn't that great when Romney pretended we weren't facing an ongoing global catastrophe, and made fun of people who thought we should do something about it? How can you top that?
Oct
18
2010
NYT Investigation: Union Leader NOT Satanic Beast
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Readers of Saturday's New York Times may have noticed thisthis piece (10/16/10): Despite Image, Union Leader Backs School Change By TRIP GABRIEL In "Waiting for Superman," the new education documentary, the union leader Randi Weingarten is portrayed, in the words of Variety, as "a foaming satanic beast." At a two-day education summit hosted by NBC News recently, the lopsided panels often featured Ms. Weingarten on one side, facing a murderer's row of charter school founders and urban superintendents. Even Tom Brokaw piled on. The article actually doesa pretty good of explaining how Weingarten and others in the union movement have, [...]
Mar
15
2010
Karl Rove, Still Lying on TV About Iraq
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Former Bush adviser Karl Rove is making the rounds to promote his new book Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. He landed on NBC's Meet the Press yesterday (3/14/10), interviewed by Tom Brokaw. Brokaw asked him about his book's discussion of the Iraq War: BROKAW: And in it, you acknowledge when weapons of mass destruction were not found, everyone was startled and not very happy about that. If that had been the case before war began, you couldn't have gotten congressional authorization. ROVE: Nor in all likelihood U.N. approval, as we had as well. BROKAW: [...]
Oct
28
2008
Chuck Todd and Tom Brokaw Know Latinos
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Tom Brokaw, the interim host of NBC's Meet the Press, and NBC analyst Chuck Todd expressed bafflement on last Sunday's Meet the Press (10/26/08) at how Latinos had "turned on the Republican Party" and their "friend" John McCain: TODD: I mean, this, this Hispanic–one of the things we–underreported story of the cycle is how Hispanics have just turned on the Republican Party, hurting John McCain. Frankly…. BROKAW: Who is a friend of theirs. TODD: Who is a friend of theirs. BROKAW: Right. TODD: You know, this is a Shakespearean–you know, the S… BROKAW: Right. It's hard to know exactly where [...]
