Tag Archives: media-institute

Bozell: Jay Leno Knows More About What’s News than the ‘News’ Networks

Posted on September 10, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The ABC, CBS and NBC evening new shows have yet to notice Fidel Castro’s astonishing admission that Cuban Communism does not work. But non-journalist Jay Leno brought the news to his Tonight Show audience on Thursday, joshing:  “Most Cubans heard this announcement on a 1954 RCA Deluxe console TV — beautiful black-and-white, all mahogany….” (Video at right) The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg recounted Castro’s confession in a September 8 post : During the generally lighthearted conversation (we had just spent three hours talking about Iran and the Middle East), I asked him if he believed the Cuban model was still something worth exporting. “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore,” he said. This struck me as the mother of all Emily Litella moments. Did the leader of the Revolution just say, in essence, “Never mind”? I asked Julia to interpret this stunning statement for me. She said, “He wasn’t rejecting the ideas of the Revolution. I took it to be an acknowledgment that under ‘the Cuban model’ the state has much too big a role in the economic life of the country.” Despite the fact that communist Cuba has been a key foreign policy issue for the U.S. for more than 50 years, none of the three evening newscasts thought that worth mentioning either Wednesday night or Thursday. NBC’s Today show, however, gave it a few seconds on Thursday — a news brief read by Ann Curry: “In a rare interview, Cuba’s Fidel Castro was strikingly candid about his nation’s economy. Castro reportedly told Atlantic magazine that Cuba’s state-dominated economic system no longer works and is in need of change.” MRC President Brent Bozell issued the following statement to address the broadcast networks’ lack of interest: “Jay Leno knows more about current events than do the “news” networks.  Newsflash to the liberal media: Communism Fails! Period. You’ve had 50 years to report the abuses, suffering and oppression in Communist Cuba. But instead, you “journalists” were so infatuated with Fidel Castro that instead you did his bidding, continuously feeding Americans a steady diet of disgraceful propaganda. Aren’t you thoroughly ashamed it took the dictator himself to admit what you should have been reporting all along?”

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Bozell: Jay Leno Knows More About What’s News than the ‘News’ Networks

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CMI’s Burchfiel: Craigslist Has ‘Social Responsibility’ to Address Prostitution

Posted on September 10, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The popular classifieds website Craigslist may not have a legal liability when it comes to use of its services for sex trafficking and prostitution, but they have a social responsibility to address the issue, Culture and Media Institute Assistant Editor Nathan Burchfiel told CBN’s “Newswatch” Sept. 9. The site recently shut down its “Adult Services” section after 17 state attorneys general sent a letter to the company outlining its role in illegal activities including child prostitution and sex trafficking. The section is no longer available to U.S. users, but Burchfiel pointed out that the change doesn’t seem to have had much effect. “What they’ve done is blocked off this one section of the site in the United States only, it’s still available internationally, and these companies, these businesses that have been advertising essentially prostitution, some of them underage prostitution, illegal sex trafficking, have just moved those ads to different parts of the site,” he told anchor Wendy Griffith. “They’re still getting up there. They’re still really easy to find, frankly.” A Sept. 8 Culture and Media Institute report noted that while Craigslist appears to have addressed the issue, ads for brothels and other “adult services” are still readily available across the site. Dozens of listings appeared in other sections of the Washington, D.C., Craigslist, including numerous ads for business under investigation by local authorities. When asked if there would be a change from the company, Burchfiel expressed skepticism. “Given their history, the way that they’ve addressed this issue in the past, it’s not really likely,” he said. “It’s unfortunate, because in spite of the fact that they might not have any legal liability on the issue, they really have a social responsibility as a company of the size and influence that Craigslist is to do something about this. Burchfiel added, “Not only is it an issue where they’re helping people commit illegal acts and in often cases making people victims of horrible crimes, but they’re doing this on a forum that’s really easily accessible to anyone, including kids. It’s not a site where you have to register or prove that you’re a certain age to get access to. So there’s a lot of social responsibility issues that trump the legal issues that aren’t really there.”

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CMI’s Burchfiel: Craigslist Has ‘Social Responsibility’ to Address Prostitution

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CNN’s ‘Glass One-Quarter Full’ Spin: Emphasize Private Job Gains

Posted on September 3, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its “all-important” jobs report on Sept. 3, the morning before Labor Day weekend. CNN rapidly found the ” bright spot ” in a report that showed a net loss of 54,000 jobs and a higher 9.6 percent unemployment rate . “American Morning” co-anchor Kiran Chetry announced the report by saying “It’s good news, but it’s not good news.” Still, she maintained the mainstream media’s spin by focusing on private-sector jobs gains of 67,000 even though that is cold comfort to the 14.9 million people who are unemployed. That CNN segment ignored negative information that would have provided important context. The BLS reported that there are still 1.1 million discouraged workers (too discouraged to even look for work) and another 1.3 million people working part-time who want full-time work instead. Chetry and fill-in co-anchor Ali Velshi discussed the breaking news report with two guests who were even more upbeat: Leigh Gallagher of Smart Money magazine and Shawn Tully of Fortune magazine. Tully told CNN viewers, “This is actually not such bad news because we are looking at unemployment rates in the U.S. we really haven’t seen since the early 1980s. And in the early 1980s the comeback was extremely strong, unemployment dropped very, very sharply. In the U.S. we’ve never had 10 percent unemployment rates for long periods.” Conservative economists argue that Reagan’s tax cuts were part of the reason the unemployment rate dropped and the economic comeback happened. President Obama has not proposed dramatically cutting tax rates and, in fact, seems willing to let the more modest tax cuts of President George W. Bush expire at the end of 2010. Tully told CNN “we’re now in the upcycle,” and said a double-dip recession was unlikely. Gallagher happily noted that the unemployment report beat expectations. But neither CNN host nor their guests pointed out how high real unemployment is or how many jobs we would need per month to “catch up” the 8.4 million jobs lost in the recession. According to CNBC’s Rick Santelli the increase of 0.1 percent to a 9.6 percent unemployment rate just means “real unemployment is in the teens.” Bloomberg said that the underemployment rate is now 16.7 percent . CNBC’s Erin Burnett also brought context to the story on MSNBC, saying that news was “definitely better than expected,” but cautioned that it doesn’t make up for what has been lost. “I would note though, we obviously lost 8.4 million jobs during the financial crisis so to catch up with that you need to have 200,000 jobs or more [added] a month,” Burnett said. The media’s desperate attempts to positively spin jobs reports since Obama was elected contrast with the way they tried to talk down the economy during the Bush presidency. ABC, CBS and NBC failed to criticize Obama even while on his watch the most jobs had been lost in a year since 1940 . The mainstream media have also given Obama a pass on grandiose promises about how many millions of jobs the stimulus package would create. Contrast that with the media’s coverage of unemployment under Republican President George W. Bush when unemployment was roughly half of what it is now. In Feb. 2006, when 193,000 jobs had been added and the unemployment rate dropped to 4.7 percent: the lowest rate since July 2001 . CBS and ABC evening shows ignored the drop in unemployment, while CNN found “mixed” news in the report. A January 2006 Special Report from the Business & Media Institute found that the networks in particular emphasized layoffs in a year that 2 million new jobs had been created . Negative stories about corporate layoffs and outsourcing made up more than half the stories on jobs or unemployment. Like this article? Then sign up for our newsletter, The Balance Sheet .

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Vanity Fair Attacks Palin as Volatile, Angry, Fake

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Another day, another media hit piece aimed at Sarah Palin. Surprise, surprise. A  10,600-word article  in the October issue of Vanity Fair reads like the rambling diaries of a spurned middle school student. Writer Michael Joseph Gross ran through a list of ill-sourced, hearsay attacks on Palin designed to depict her as a raging psychopath – a far cry from the down-to-earth “hockey mom” she portrays in public. But in more than 10,600 words, Gross managed to cite just one person to criticize Palin on the record. Colleen Cottle, who served on the Wasilla City Council when Palin was mayor, complained that she “had no attention span” and “does not understand math or accounting.” Heavy-hitting stuff, that. None of the others Gross apparently interviewed were named, he said, “because they are loyal and want to protect her (a small and shrinking number), or because they expect her prominence to grow and intend to keep their options open, or because they fear she will exact revenge, as she has been known to do.” But given the tone of Gross’s attacks, it’s no wonder those who are close to Palin – including her parents, whom Gross apparently ambushed during a Fourth of July parade in Wasilla – refuse to speak to reporters. Gross described the “surreal world Palin now inhabits – a place of fear, anger, and illusion, which has swallowed up the engaging, small-town hockey mom and her family – and the sadness she has left in her wake.” “Anywhere you peel back the skin of Sarah Palin’s life, a sad and moldering strangeness lies beneath,” Gross said. Among his ground-breaking revelations about Palin: She has a well-controlled media presence. (Apparently unlike any other prominent political figure.) Her team didn’t tip bellhops very well in a Kansas hotel, and “another midwestern hotel.” (The “other midwestern hotel” must have asked not to be named, for fear of reprisal from the Palin camp.) Some bloggers have been mean to Palin detractors. Gross later admitted that anti-Palin bloggers are also prone to “juvenile outbursts.” Palin uses references to the North Star a lot. Palin uses three BlackBerry smart phones. Early in the campaign she didn’t know who Margaret Thatcher was – a charge Gross credits to no specific or even unidentified source. She thanks people for praying for her and uses “code phrases expressing solidarity with fundamentalist Christians.” She apparently bought some form-shaping Spanx underwear. There are “No Trespassing” signs on her Wasilla property. Gross’s attacks on Palin center on the characterization that she is volatile and vengeful. “[W]hen she feels threatened, she does not hesitate to wield some version of a signature threat, ‘I have the power to ruin you,'” Gross alleged, citing “others who have worked with Palin.” At one point Gross made it seem as though Palin monitored the telephone conversations of acquaintances in Wasilla. “When I ask about Palin, though, a palpable unease creeps in,” he wrote. “Some people clam up. Others whisper invitations to call later – but on this number, not that one, and not before this hour or after that one.” The real concern, he said after acknowledging a vicious press as one reason for discomfort, is “because of a suspicion that bad things will happen to them” if Palin finds out they’ve talked to reporters. The online version of the report also featured a drawing depicting Palin dressed in some sort of Viking gear, riding a white horse past a group of (pro-Palin, it would seem) protestors. The photo caption notes Palin’s “erratic behavior and a pattern of lying.” The article fits right in with previous coverage of Palin. A 2008  study by the Culture and Media Institute  found two basic media characterizations of Palin: a dunce whose intellectual shortcomings damaged her credibility and that of the GOP, or a demon whose short-fuse and attack-dog style were unbecoming of a woman who portrayed herself a wholesome, all-American gal.

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CMI’s Burchfiel Talks Media Double Standards on Fox & Friends

Posted on August 13, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Culture and Media Institute Assistant Editor Nathan Burchfiel joined “Fox & Friends” co-host Steve Doocy on Aug. 13 to discuss media coverage of Harry Reid and the media double standard on controversial statements made by liberals versus conservatives. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told supporters on Aug. 10 that he couldn’t understand why “anyone with Hispanic heritage could be a Republican.” “If you watch the national media, there’s no outrage,” Burchfiel said when asked where the uproar over Reid’s comments had come from. “There’s certainly a lot of confusion, I think, among Hispanic conservatives as to the reasoning behind Harry Reid’s comments. It’s clear that he is not reading the same polls that other people are reading about the way that Hispanics feel about the current administration, the way that the feel about the economy and jobs, and even the way they feel about immigration.” Burchfiel suggested that Reid “maybe ask Brian Sandoval why a Hispanic might affiliate himself with the GOP or with conservative ideology.” Sandoval, who is Hispanic, is the GOP’s nominee for Nevada governor. He is leading his Democratic opponent, Reid’s son, Rory, by 19 points in the latest Las Vegas Review-Journal poll . The English-language media often turn to Univision anchor Jorge Ramos as an expert on Latino opinion. Ramos, as the Culture and Media Institute reported, is an active supporter of open borders and amnesty for illegal immigrants. However, a recent AP-Univision poll of Hispanic Americans found that only 9 percent rated immigration as the most important issue facing the United States. Most rated the economy or jobs as most important, and only 43 percent said they felt the current administration was doing a good job of addressing the Hispanic community’s needs. Doocy and Burchfiel also discussed the double standard in media coverage of controversial statements made by liberals versus conservatives in light of the comments made by two New Hampshire Democrats this week about the plane crash that killed former Sen. Ted Stevens. Keith Halloran, a candidate for the state legislature, wrote on Facebook that he wished Sarah Palin had been on the plane that crashed. State Rep. Timothy Horrigan resigned his office after he wrote on Facebook that a dead Sarah Palin would be more dangerous than a living Sarah Palin. The national networks ignored the story. “I mean you get a random guy at a Tea Party rally saying something remotely controversial and the media have his name, his address, his tax records, his elementary school report card, anything they can find that’s going to help them discredit him,” Burchfiel said. “But when you have liberals who are in office or running for office who literally say that they wish Sarah Palin were dead, there’s media silence on it.” “It’s unfortunately par for the course,” he added, “but it’s part of the way that the media have covered Sarah Palin since the very beginning, since she was announced as John McCain’s running mate.” A Culture and Media Institute study of coverage of Palin late in the 2008 campaign found the national media had two portraits of the then-vice presidential nominee. Palin was either portrayed as a Dunce by highlighting her quirks or replaying “Saturday Night Live” impersonations of her, or as a Demon – McCain’s attack dog or poison for conservatives.

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CMI’s Burchfiel Talks Media Double Standards on Fox & Friends

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American Public: Too Much Chelsea, Not Enough Real News

Posted on August 5, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

If you thought the media’s obsession with Chelsea Clinton’s July 31 wedding went a little overboard, you’re not alone. A new poll has found that a majority of Americans think there was too much coverage of the wedding at the expense of real news. The News Interest Index Survey, conducted July 29 through August 1 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press,  found  that 58 percent of respondents felt there was “too much” coverage of the Clinton wedding. As the Culture and Media Institute  reported , the three broadcast networks – ABC, CBS and NBC – aired 87 stories about Clinton’s nuptials between July 25 and August 1. That represented a 48-percent increase over coverage of former first daughter Jenna Bush’s wedding in 2008. Networks had reporters on the scene in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and brought in gossip columnists and celebrity wedding planners to dish on the event. But at what cost? Other news happened over the weekend, after all, including continued drama in the Gulf of Mexico and fallout over the leak of classified documents related to the war inAfghanistan, as well as economy and immigration issues. Americans noticed, according to the survey. While half believed the media delivered the “right amount” of coverage on the oil spill, pluralities felt there was “too little” coverage of the “Afghan War Diary” leak (41 percent) and the economy (42 percent).

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N.Y. Times Columnist: Who Cares About a ‘Tiny Group’ Like the Black Panthers?

Posted on July 19, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

While MSNBC has spent a week or so playing the allegation of Tea Party racism in heavy rotation, on Monday’s Morning Joe on MSNBC, anchor Mika Brzezinski devoted a segment to the controversy over the New Black Panther Party’s voter intimidation. New York Times editorial writer Charles Blow denounced the group and agreed that the Justice Department needs to answer questions, but he predictably tried to argue conservatives are outrageous in suggesting the “strange logic” that Team Obama’s actions say something about Team Obama and racial justice: The political part of it is, I think, the most inflammatory part of this. It’s strange logic. The idea that the Obama administration – which is what’s happening here – people are trying to tie the Obama administration to black radicalism. And that has been happening since the campaign and it continues to happen. Not everybody, but it’s an electoral goal if you can tie him somehow to black radicalism. It’s strange logic to think that this tiny group, he somehow benefits politically from protecting them. They have a summit the year before this voter intimidation thing came up. There were a hundred people there. There’s nobody there. There’s nothing to gain. In fact, there’s everything to gain in prosecuting. The “tiny group” argument is especially fascinating. The liberal media have been consistently excited at following a tiny group of white racist organizations, accepting repeated tips from the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center. The liberal media made an enormous story in 2007 out of a “tiny group” of people who hung nooses from a tree in the schoolyard in Jena, Louisiana. Blow is also the columnist who caught a wave of condemnation after he called a diverse Tea Party rally in Dallas a “minstrel show,” because minorities aren’t supposed to say conservative things. Blow kept coming back to how it would be grossly unfair to try and make political hay out of the Black Panthers, on the same network that’s been trying to make political hay out of Tea Party racism allegations: MIKA BRZEZINSKI: The argument, isn’t it, and correct me if I’m wrong, that the guy holding the stick is being prosecuted while the other guy is not. Why not both of them? That’s one of the questions. But he lived there. BLOW: But also he was a registered poll watcher. They police showed up, they took the guy away with the billy club. They left the other guy there. I mean, there’s a certain point where, and I guess that’s what the investigation will tell us. It’s a complicated case. The political part of it, I mean. If it is being politicized it’s being politicized on the right. You have Erick Erickson of RedState.com saying that every Republican should make this Black Panther case the Willie Horton of this year. The other guest in the Morning Joe segment was Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), who hammered away at how he not only can’t get any answers from Attorney General Eric “Nation of Cowards” Holder, and even the Justice Department’s Inspector General isn’t cooperating: WOLF: Why isn’t Attorney General Holder answering the questions and why won’t the IG look at it? BLOW: All good questions. WOLF: If two members of the KKK stood outside a polling place in Philadelphia or Mississippi and did that they would be in violation of the law. For two New Black Panthers to do this in Philadelphia is a violation of the law. No one should stand outside a polling booth whether it be in Virginia or in Pennsylvania and do that and the IG has an obligation to look at it, and Eric Holder has an obligation to look at it, and the Office of Professional Responsibility, and all three have sort of just said “we’re not going to deal with the issue,” and that’s wrong. PS: Sharp eyes at MRC’s TimesWatch added Blow didn’t seem to think “tiny” meant harmless in a April 18, 2009 column on the alleged epidemic of U.S. veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan and joining hate groups: “The only debate we should be having is about the best way to protect our newest veterans from falling prey to this handful of military apostates. If they only recruit a few, that is still too many. Terrorists have shown the world time and again that a few well-trained men is all it takes.” That piece came with a helpful visual aid showing the number of “Veterans in White Supremacist Groups.” The total confirmed or claimed over seven years? 203 out of a group numbering millions. (Hat tip to MRC’s Alex Fitzsimmons for the transcript.)

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N.Y. Times Columnist: Who Cares About a ‘Tiny Group’ Like the Black Panthers?

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HuffPo Celebrates ‘Great’ Novels Giving Teens Gay Role Models

Posted on July 19, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Do you know what your teens are reading? The folks at the Huffington Post do, and they’re happy to report the emergence of gay role models in teen-focused literature.  In a July 19 post, contributors Jessie Kunhardt and Alexandra Carr highlighted 13 “great” novels for gay teens who want to explore teen homosexuality or find “fictional role models.” Kunhardt and Carr praised the books as “worth a read” despite many of the books having generated complaints from parents and bans from schools and libraries. The list included brief summaries and, in some cases, excerpts of positive reviews from mainstream publications including Publisher’s Weekly and Booklist. The reviews praised the books for themes like “celebration of human differences,” “be proud of who you are” and “love can lead to acceptance.” One highlighted book, “Kissing Kate,” was written by Lauren Myracle, an author whose “TTYL” series topped the American Library Association’s list of Most Challenged Books in 2009. The books, written in “instant message” format, have been criticized for offensive language and nudity, according to the ALA. Another book, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky, was celebrated as a teen literature “classic” by the HuffPo writers. “Perks” was the ALA’s third most-challenged book for its depictions of “homosexuality, sexually explicit, anti-family, offensive language, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age grou, drugs, [and] suicide.” The Huffington Post is a vocal advocate for the mainstreaming of homosexuality through teen literature. Last June, the liberal blog posted an Associated Press article noting that there were “finally” books offering gay role models to teens. And despite the ALA’s list of Most Frequently Challenged Books, the organization has repeatedly shown its approval of the LGBT agenda in children and young adult novels. A report by the Culture and Media Institute found that in 2009 alone, more than 40 pro-gay books were given ALA awards.

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