Rathergate tops the chart at #1. From the Media Research Center:
The Ten Worst Media Distortions of Campaign 20041. Dan Rather’s Forgery Fiasco
2. Ignoring, Then Attacking, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth
3. Pounding the Bush National Guard Story
4. Spinning a Good Economy into Bad News
5. The Networks’ Outrageous Convention Double-Standard
6. Swooning Over Edwards’ Image, Ignoring His Liberalism
7. CBS’s Byron Pitts Promotional Kerry Coverage
8. CBS Promotes Fears of a New Military Draft
9. Misrepresenting the 9/11 Commission on Iraq/al-Qaeda Links
10. Equating New Terrorism Warning to LBJ’s “Gulf of Tonkin”Rathergate … CBS News had to appoint an outside two-member investigating committee to find out how and why a) Dan Rather aired a hatchet job on President Bush based on forged documents that CBS was warned about and b) CBS Producer Mary Mapes coordinated with senior Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart concerning the discredited source of those documents.
The Attack On The Swift Boat Vets … Last spring, over 250 Vietnam War contemporaries, including veterans who served with him when he was a Swift Boat commander and his entire chain of command, came forward to publicly challenge Kerry’s version of Vietnam and his anti-war activities. After being ignored for several weeks the media turned on these honorable men with a vengeance, rather than give them a shred of credibility.Good Economic Numbers = Bad News? … When Bill Clinton ran for re-election in 1996, unemployment was at 5.2 percent, inflation 3 percent, and economic growth 2.2 percent. Today, as Bush stands for re-election, unemployment is at 5.4 percent, inflation 2.7 percent and economists’ consensus forecast for economic growth this quarter is 3.7 percent. Coverage of the Clinton economic data was overwhelmingly favorable (35 positive, 6 negative stories). Under Bush, it’s literally reversed to 6 positive, 38 negative. Numbers don’t lie. Bias is the only explanation.
Addendum: A commenter wants to know what happened to Sandy Berger. Is he in jail yet? Anybody? Anybody?
‘After being ignored for several weeks the media turned on these honorable men with a vengeance, rather than give them a shred of credibility.’
I especially liked the reports that some of them had previously regarded Kerry in high esteem.
Comment by actus — 10.29.04 @ 1:09 pm
Yeah, and whatever happened to Sandy-Pants?
Comment by Shayne — 10.29.04 @ 1:22 pm
Yeah, i agree Actus. The Kerry smearers took a body blow when it was importantly revealed that George Elliot and company had not only praised Kerry at the time, they praised him AGAIN when he ran for senate.
Bias is the only explanation indeed. The top 10 didnt contain ONE right wing folly.
Comment by ElMariachi — 10.29.04 @ 1:41 pm
The year isn’t over yet - plenty more Old Media scandal to come!
Comment by Preston Taylor Holmes — 10.29.04 @ 2:03 pm
I’d put the CBS draft story second, or even first. With all the hoaxes and frauds out there, Internet emails have no credibility at all. CBS lent their own credibility to an Internet fraud because they wanted people to believe the fraud.
Now when people get that email they will give it a lot more credibility because it was on CBS and CBS didn’t say it was a lie. Surely CBS would have told us if it was a lie, right?
Comment by Doc Rampage — 10.29.04 @ 2:50 pm
I would put Sandy in the top 10, probably wiith the 911 bogus report as they are related. He is not in jail and will probably spend no time there. It is unlikely he will be prosecuted, not that he should not be. He like Viacom committed a number of felonies to smear Bush.
Rod Stanton
Cerritos
Comment by Rod Stanton — 10.29.04 @ 3:28 pm
Hey, let’s not forget the media fawning over Fahrenheit 911.
Comment by K. Ham — 10.29.04 @ 4:11 pm
So who can ever trust these liberal scoundrels and especialy dan rather and his ilk as well as CNN and big bad wolf blitzer and just how many times these liberal journalists have lied to the public just a few years ago NBCs program DATELINE was cuaght lying about GM pick-ups NBC tried to convince the public that GM truck were not safe but it turned out that NBC had rigged the whole thing they over filled the gas tanks used the wrong sized gas cap and then used a incenterrary device to ignite the spilled fuel which just proves you cant trust the liberal left-wing news media, maybe its time to boycott the liberal left-wing news media
Comment by firebird — 10.29.04 @ 6:47 pm
Berger’s not in jail. Just read Cosmo’s Call.
Comment by Catez — 10.29.04 @ 10:03 pm
Economic Bad News
MRC sums up what I’ve been saying, offine for a long time: Good Economic Numbers = Bad News? … When…
Trackback by Random Observations — 10.29.04 @ 10:21 pm
La Shawn,
I was reading a post over at Dean’s World referencing a post on Joe Gandalman’s site about the latest bin Laden tape. Upon linking to Gandalman’s site I was astounded to see that Walter Cronkite, former longtime CBS News anchor and mentor to Dan Rather, intimated in an interview with Larry King, that he thought that the latest bin Laden tape was somehow engineered by Karl Rove!
Now Walter IS vey old, and maybe he’s getting senile. Then again, maybe he’s still sharp as a tack, and this is the way he really thinks. If so, is it any wonder that his direct progeny at CBS, Dan Rather, is the leftist hack that he has been revealed to be during this election cycle?
With people like Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather exerting influence at CBS, it is no wonder that they have such an obvious left-leaning bias to the way they report the news. This has been going on for years, I’m sure, but we have just now begun to really recognize it thanks to FOX News and bloggers like you.
I have been carefully watching CBS news, which stories they choose to run, and how those stories are presented, since the whole Rathergate thing. It is truly amazing to see. Even compared the bias of the other major news outlets, CBS comes across as the MOST biased of the whole bunch.
John Kerry could not have bought a better media outlet with all his wife’s money! The funny thing is that they have to know by now that most Americans recognize them for what they are, yet they keep right on plugging away, and still present themselves as a news outlet, rather than what they really are: a Democrat propaganda machine.
Comment by Montie — 10.31.04 @ 10:18 am
Montie, sad but true
Comment by Andy — 10.31.04 @ 12:06 pm
The Democrats have CBS, the Republicans have Fox. The only difference is, Fox is substantially more influential and blatant in its support.
Comment by ElMariachi — 10.31.04 @ 3:23 pm
Montie - I think Rather is rather surprised that he and others are being called on their blatant partisanship. The forged memo scandal is a PERFECT example of what happens when you let partisanship run amok and allow it to influence your professional judgment. We reap what we sow.
Comment by La Shawn — 10.31.04 @ 4:08 pm
I would add to your list the virtual free pass granted to Kerry for the controversy surrounding his military records, especially when compared to the media attention given to Bush’s military records. What little “Kerry coverage” made airtime/print were mostly asides to articles castigating the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. When one considers the specific charges levied against each candidate with respect to their military records, the glaring disparity in coverage becomes that much more acute.
Comment by jaymen — 10.31.04 @ 9:24 pm
ElMariachi,
In fact, FOX makes an effort to appear fair and balanced, often presenting both sides of an issue and giving equal due to both of those sides. CBS, on the other hand, has now taken to calling themselves “fair and balanced” but do not give equal billing to both sides of an issue that they have a partisan interest in. This can be proven by simply watching the campaign coverage of both networks. FOX will show footage of both candidates on stump speeches with neutral commentary and equal camera time. CBS will often accompany footage of Bush with negative commentary, and show much shorter clips, compared with Kerry, whose footage is accompanied by neutral or even positive commentary.
Now, many liberals decry FOX for being biased to the right, but the problem is a matter of perception. When you have CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, et al. with a marked bias to the left, FOX standing alone without the left-leaning presentation of the news only APPEARS more blatant, but in fact is far less so. Maybe they are biased to the right, but one major TV news outlet vs. all those others hardly brings things into balance.
Incidentally, you mentioned that FOX is far more “influential” than CBS. This has occurred because CBS has squandered the level of trust and influence they used to have with the American public, with blatant and obvious partisan hackery like the forged documents incident. It has also occurred because much of the public, weary of the obvious liberal bias in all the major news outlets has found FOX a “breath of fresh air”.
Comment by Montie — 11.01.04 @ 8:42 am
The funny thing is that they have to know by now that most Americans recognize them for what they are, yet they keep right on plugging away, and still present themselves as a news outlet, rather than what they really are: a Democrat propaganda machine.
Montie, do MOST Americans see this? I’m really beginning to believe that they don’t! In the last few months I’ve heard more people sounding like parrots for the major media. It’s sickening.
Comment by John C James III — 11.01.04 @ 9:44 am
JcJ3,
There have been polls and studies that show (don’t have time to find and link right now) that more and more people don’t trust (or take at their word) the established media outlets. This number goes up each year, and is largely tied to the percieved bias and well known incidents of bad reporting/research (exlpoding Fords, forged memos, etc).
But I think that many of the news moguls and figureheads live in an echo chamber… they are liberal, work with fellow liberals, live in liberal neighborhoods, attend leiberal parties etc. So they hear their own worldview 90+% of the day, so it is no shock that they don’t see the bias, or see that they are falling out of step from mainstream America.
Comment by SCSIwuzzy — 11.01.04 @ 11:11 am
Oh, and… Fly, Eagles fly
Comment by SCSIwuzzy — 11.01.04 @ 11:12 am
I have to give the media credit for running a sophisticated propaganda campaign against the president.
The above stories are important but moot if the media does there job which is to force Kerry to answer questions.
Expose his record or lack there of. The Media hasn’t hyped Kerry’s record for a very simple reason, there is no there there.
Finally the relentless barage of negative news coupled with shameless omissions like Kerry insulting our coalition allies including the prime minister of Irraq.
No politician should be allowed to shamelessly demoralise our troops the way kerry has on the explosives and Tora Bora attacks.
The most agregious media bias is as follows:
Our soldiers have thousands of great stories to tell from Afghanistan and Iraq, the media has been shamelessly disrespectfull to our volunteer fighting men. Our young soldiers and veteran commanders are the most valiant, fierce, and compassionate in the history of warfare. Bar none! They have given arms, legs, and lives for the media to practice their…whatever.
This goes on and on and on. The media is about to get the most relentless backlash in the history of our republic after this election, regardless of who wins. Probably more so if Kerry wins.
Pick your poison media elite, but it’s coming.
Comment by vanyogan — 11.01.04 @ 11:15 am
ooops, my apologies to our valiant, fierce and compassionate fighting WOMEN! My bad…
This woman sticks in my mind as the biggest stud of the Iraq war. If you have not read this story… ENJOY!
http://www.talkingproud.us/EditorChoice041103.html
Comment by vanyogan — 11.01.04 @ 11:22 am
Sorry La Shawn, I got error messages that I guess weren’t errors.
Please delet the duplicates in you have a chance.
vann
Comment by vanyogan — 11.01.04 @ 11:28 am
Excuse me but isnt forgery a federal crime? and this has to do with the president should,nt dan rather be charged with forging a signature? and none other then the president of the U.S. should,nt rather be tried for forgery? Well and i do say there will indeed be a few more media constoversies before the year is out and with the ingoreration next year there will be the usial amount of jerks holding the stupid protests they should all go and soak their heads
Comment by firebird — 11.08.04 @ 10:28 am