at-Largely

Brian Williams' "Truthiness" in Advertising

Posted by Brad Jacobson

For some time now, MSNBC has been running commercials touting their election coverage team's commitment to providing information that better enables Americans to make informed choices at the voting booth. But in context of the unfolding Pentagon TV war analysts scandal, one of these promos (which I believe is new) stood out for its particular hypocrisy.

To a melodramatic background score that's one part patriotic sentimentality (scene in Mel Gibson movie after character's army triumphs), one part childhood wonder (kids riding bikes in the sky to silhouette of the moon in E.T.), and one part lovers reuniting after a long separation (archetypal open-armed sprint across verdant meadow), this is the TV promo's content:

TEXT GRAPHIC: Decision 2008

TEXT GRAPHIC: Why Do People Care About Politics?

IMAGE: "VOTE HERE" sign with people standing in line behind it.

BRIAN WILLIAMS VOICEOVER: This is a participatory democracy.

TEXT GRAPHIC: Know

IMAGE: Black and white shot of people voting in the foreground; full-color American flag hanging prominently in the background.

BRIAN WILLIAMS VOICEOVER: I think you owe it to your democracy to know as much as you can about what's going on.

IMAGE: Old man (again in black and white), holding an American flag (again in full color) and seated on a bench, is gazing out toward the New York harbor.

TEXT GRAPHIC: That's Why You Care

TEXT GRAPHIC: That's Why We Cover It

IMAGE: Brian Williams' face, then the major faces of MSNBC election coverage.

TEXT GRAPHIC: MSNBC Decision 2008

TEXT GRAPHIC: MSNBC The Place for Politics

To this day, however, Brian Williams and MSNBC, along with CNN, Fox News, ABC, CBS and NBC, have failed to respond to a PBS NewsHour request for an interview about The New York Times exposé, which revealed ex-generals-turned-TV war analysts, shilling directly for the Pentagon, appeared regularly on their programs. (Yesterday, Media Matters published a study that found "since January 1, 2002, the analysts named in the Times article -- many identified as having ties to the defense industry -- collectively appeared or were quoted as experts more than 4,500 times on ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR.")

Williams, who in that MSNBC promo says, "This is a participatory democracy" in which "you owe it to your democracy to know as much as you can about what's going on," has, along with his network colleagues, prevented millions of people from knowing what's gone on in the run-up to the war in Iraq and over the course of the occupation. Williams champions our participatory democracy in MSNBC's ad yet fails to share with his viewers any information about what President Eisenhower, in his farewell address, presciently predicted would be the single greatest threat to our democracy - the "military-industrial complex."

On January 17, 1961, Eisenhower - a Republican president, former lifetime military man and war hero - explicitly cautioned: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Yet here's Williams only acknowledgment of his network's involvement with these Pentagon-shilling TV war generals - not from behind his anchor desk but on his NBC Nightly News blog The Daily Nightly (April 29, 2008):

Leading Newspapers Perpetuated Obama-Muslim Myth on Day of IN Primary

Posted by Brad Jacobson

Media Matters posted a piece yesterday afternoon about how the right-wing Washington Times earlier in the day "quoted [an] Indiana man saying Obama is 'a Muslim' without noting the assertion is false."

A fine catch.

Media Matters also smartly showed how a responsible journalist reports such incidents:

By contrast, after quoting the same man in its own article, the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that "Obama has never been a Muslim, but bogus e-mails accuse him of being a Muslim who put his hand on a copy of the Quran to be sworn into the U.S. Senate and refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance."

An additional search, however, reveals the decidedly more credible Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and Baltimore Sun also reported the same scene without pointing out the man's claim was false. Except they published their reports on May 6, the day of the Indiana and North Carolina primaries. Specifically, the failure of these newspapers - two of which, along with The New York Times, are considered our nation's papers of record - to clarify the man's misstatement was potentially directly damaging to Obama's chances in Indiana. Whereas yesterday's Washington Times piece, published in a disreputable rag the day after the Indiana primary, might impact voters' opinions for the general election and, possibly, still undecided superdelegates.

Here's the breakdown:

CounterProductive CounterPunch Story on Iran

by Jeff Huber

At least one high profile war critic sounds alarmed by a recent revelation that Mr. Bush signed a “secret finding” against “the Iranian regime” six weeks ago.  I’m frankly less than agog about it.

In a May 2 CounterPunch article, Andrew Cockburn wrote that Bush has launched a “covert offensive” on Iran that is "unprecedented in its scope."  The “directive covers actions across a huge geographic area – from Lebanon to Afghanistan.”  The directive, according to Cockburn, also permits an expanded range of actions, “up to and including the assassination of targeted officials.”

Wow, I thought as I read it.  That’s some scary sounding stuff.  Then, out of habit, I rescanned the piece to note who Cockburn’s sources on the secret finding were, and here’s what I found: “those familiar with its contents.”

Great.  Caesar’s.  Ghost.  Credibility wise, that kind of thing puts Cockburn and CounterPunch on an even footing with Michael R. Gordon and the New York Times.

Springtime in Somalia

by Jeff Huber

It looks like we’re still using U.S. Navy warships to assassinate suspected terrorists in Somalia.  The New York Times said, “at least four Tomahawk cruise missiles fired from a Navy ship or submarine off the Somali coast had slammed into a small compound of single-story buildings in Dusa Marreb.”

The NYT’s source for that information was an “American military official in Washington, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the operation.”  Notice how operations these days are “sensitive” as opposed to “classified” or “secret.”  One has to wonder how they arrived at a world like “sensitive” to describe things like cruise missile attacks that kill people.  Then again, so many of these missile strikes kill people other than the people they were intended to kill that yeah, I guess American military officials in Washington might get sensitive about that aspect.  The NYT reported that 10 to 30 people other than the intended target were killed this time, and we can be pretty sure that part of the story is mostly true because the NYT didn’t get it from an anonymous American military official.

Miley Cyrus Trumps Voter ID Ruling on NBC Nightly News; On Same Day, NBC Anchor Slammed NYT's Fluff

Posted by Brad Jacobson

Last night, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams allotted eighty seconds to yesterday's momentous Supreme Court ruling that there's nothing unconstitutional with Indiana's law requiring a photo ID to vote. Meanwhile, during the same broadcast, it spent over two minutes on the concern caused by photos of teen star Miley Cyrus in Vanity Fair.

That would be embarrassing enough for a news organization purporting to be credible.

But earlier in the day on the Nightly News blog The Daily Nightly, anchor and managing editor Brian Williams (in a post titled "What Times Is It?") actually took The New York Times to task for publishing puff pieces. Now, Williams won't get an argument from me on The Times' penchant for such reporting in between serious news items, which can bump a crucial story to the back pages (that's why "NYT Front|Back" is an ongoing series here). But Williams is either in bunker-mentality denial or gallingly disingenuous to suggest he and his newscast - not to mention his network news colleagues and the mainstream media at large - don't regularly focus attention on the same kind of tripe at the expense of substantive news.

Talk about your glass houses.

How big has Williams' bubble grown? Did it not cross his mind that people might read his post, then watch his newscast and call him out on his hypocritical, cognitive dissonant analysis? Does he realize that even though he might wish to remain in his Big Media bubble, that it's precisely this kind of intellectual dishonesty and brain-dead hackery that drove, and continues to drive, millions of formerly trusting viewers to seek their news elsewhere?

What's more, Williams and NBC poorly handled those eighty whole seconds they allocated to the Supreme Court ruling on voter IDs. They not only failed to present one dissenting viewpoint - whether from a Supreme Court Justice, legal scholar, civil rights lawyer or voters in Indiana - but also to point out how this ruling will impact the upcoming primary in Indiana, where, as the Associated Press reported yesterday, "more than 20 percent of black voters do not have access to a valid photo ID."

Instead, ignoring substantive context, dissenting views and serious implications on the constitutional right to vote, Brian Williams framed the issue for NBC justice correspondent Pete Williams (former longtime aide to Dick Cheney) through a Fox News-like lens:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: Pete, let's come at this a little differently. In a nation where in the post-9/11 era, we need a photo ID to fly, why was it a big story today, this court ruling that we need it to vote?

Yeah, what's all the fuss about, Pete? I mean, sure, we're only spending eighty seconds on this story, but let's take it from the angle of questioning why we should cover it at all.

Of course, Brian turned to the right correspondent to take a complex issue involving civil liberties and the Constitution and, for all intents and purposes, reduce it down to corporate media stenography and Bush administration talking points. A skilled piece of journalistic hackery in short form:

PETE WILLIAMS: Well, showing a photo ID at the airport has been upheld because of the need for security. Now the Supreme Court said that states can require voter ID at the polls to prevent voter fraud. Georgia, Florida and Michigan have laws like Indiana's and seventeen other states were waiting for today's decision before considering laws of their own to make voting another part of American life requiring a photo ID, just like flying. Today's vote was six-to-three, with one of the most liberal justices, John Paul Stevens, in the majority. He said most people do already have a photo ID and that for those who don't, who are poor, elderly or handicapped, this may add to their burden. But he said it was not enough to overcome the state's interest in discouraging fraud, Brian.

Our curious anchor's follow-up?

BRIAN WILLIAMS: All right. Pete Williams in Washington for us. Pete, thanks.

Adding insult to injury, this clip is not currently available on its own on MSNBC's Nightly News website (it's only accessible through watching a video of the full broadcast). But fear not, Brian's two-minute-plus Miley Cyrus (aka, Hannah Montana) report, covered by NBC correspondent Rehema Ellis, is there in all its gratuitously vapid glory.

Never mind how the Supreme Court's decision will directly affect the Indiana Democratic primary, the presidential election in November, and, potentially, voting rights of US citizens for years to come. NBC Nightly News and Brian Williams provided their viewers with a much more valuable piece of information: the "ruckus" over teen sensation Miley Cyrus' photo spread in Vanity Fair and an answer to the question that's keeping most Americans awake at night:

REHEMA ELLIS, NBC CORRESPONDENT: How could this affect the pop star's career?

Cross-posted from MediaBloodhound.

Networks Win Pennsylvania in Landslide!

Posted by Brad Jacobson

Have you ever been dreaming, entertaining whatever loopy narrative your unconscious mind is unleashing, and then suddenly you recognize it's only a dream and you wake up?

Well, during MSNBC's election coverage last night, in between all the manufactured melodrama of the network's ensemble cast, Chris Matthews seemed to experience such a moment when, as if delivering an on-stage soliloquy sans the dimming lights, he said:

"But I really do think it’s a strange time because we’re all watching to see who won, but as Nora pointed out, 4 out of 5, or so, of the Hillary voters today believe she’s still in the running. That this is still up in the air and I think that was probably a mistake of the media. I think in the effort of the media, to try to keep this game going, we’ve created the delusion that somehow this race is still open. I don’t think it is open. I think if you look at the numbers Barack has to really blow it in the weeks ahead to lose."

Credible political analysts, such as #1 MSNBC number cruncher and political director Chuck Todd, have been quietly noting this for weeks. Of course, Todd's checks are also cut by the same network with a huge stake in stoking the "delusion" that this race is still neck and neck. (Just as this unreality benefits all the networks and the mainstream media at large.) So these waking moments supplied by Todd - conveniently, the most soft-spoken figure on network news - are fleeting. Rare glimpses of light before we're plunged back into the ratings-generating, Iago-like gaming of Tim Russert, Joe Scarborough, Pat Buchanan and, yes, Chris Matthews.

Todd reminded us again of this reality last night. Only now, Clinton's chances, ironically, are bleaker than they were before her Pennsylvania victory. Breaking down the numbers, Todd noted that "the pledged delegate count is basically over" and "it now appears like it's going to be impossible for Obama to lose his lead." And it's clear why Todd hedges ever so slightly, softening this dash of sobriety with the words "basically" and "appears": MSNBC desires thousands of miles more out of this nearly broken-down vehicle.

Today on Morning Joe, Matthews, along with Joe Scarborough and the rest of the panel, hailed Clinton's victory and, like Groundhog Day, picked up their ever-extended Thrilla in Manila narrative where they left off. To give him mild credit, Matthews did provide a seconds-long allusion to the reality of Chuck Todd's stark numbers, before he leaped back into the chorus and saddled up for another day at the horse track.

So if you're rooting for Clinton and you're still flush from this latest victory, or your candidate is Obama and you're still licking your wounds, remember this: the biggest winner last night was once again the networks and their ratings, with John McCain and the GOP right behind them.

Buckle up, Democrats, and proceed with caution. Right now, more than any one entity, the indiscriminate knife twisters in the mainstream media have the strongest hand on the wheel and they are driving this nomination process toward a cliff. Keep playing this game of chicken, keep operating within their craven frame of a never-ending steel-cage death match, and the only viable candidate standing - viable as in capable of winning in November - might soon be John McCain.

To corporate media chiefs, along with their friends in the GOP and their advertising sponsor pals in the defense, energy and pharmaceutical industries, this ongoing cutthroat nomination process and its very possible outcome (say hello to President McCain!) would be a tremendous win-win. And a classic demonstration of the Democratic Party's uncanny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Especially when you consider President Bush just received the highest job disapproval rating in Gallup Poll's history (69%) and over 80% of Americans think this country's on the wrong track.

Of course, the more tattered the Democratic nominee is by the end, the closer the presidential race - and thus the higher the ratings - will be in the fall.

Make no mistake, the networks are also looking ahead to November. And their Lord of the Flies mentality has them salivating.

Cross-posted from MediaBloodhound.

NYT Iraq War Timeline Whitewashes History (Part III: Burying News of Iraqi Dead)

Posted by Brad Jacobson

To mark the recent fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, The New York Times published an interactive timeline. This is the third in a series of posts exploring the most misleading statements and glaring omissions from its Iraq War history. (If you missed either of the first two parts, you can read them here and here).

Timeline Entry: W.H.O.'s Iraqi Civilian Death Toll

This entry reads in full: "January 9, 2008, W.H.O. Estimates Deaths: The World Health Organization publishes a study estimating the number of Iraqi civilian deaths from the start of the war through June 2006 as between 104,000 and 223,000. It estimated that the actual total was 151,000."

In the accompanying article filed on Jan. 10, 2008 (linked under the timeline), The Times does note the John Hopkins study, which estimated "about 600,000 [Iraqi civilian] dead between the war’s start, in March 2003, and July 2006." So why, then, isn't this acknowledged in the timeline? Moreover, nine paragraphs into that same companion article, The Times mentions in passing:

In any case, the study [W.H.O.'s] ended four months after the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra helped set off a wave of killings throughout Baghdad and other mixed Sunni-Shiite areas. So because of its timing, the study missed the period of what is believed to be the worst sectarian killings, during the latter half of 2006 and the first eight months of 2007.

FACT: This not only undercuts W.H.O.'s count but, considering the John Hopkins study only covered through the following month (July 2006), it also illuminates the shockingly high number of Iraqi civilian deaths by John Hopkin's estimate, which was counted before the "worst sectarian killings, during the latter half of 2006 and the first eight months of 2007."

The Times' omission of the John Hopkin's study is not surprising, considering it's framed in the accompanying article as having "come under criticism for its methodology." In reality, its methodology was almost solely criticized by the White House (President Bush falsely claimed that "the methodology has been pretty well discredited"), the Pentagon, and partisan pro-war supporters in the media.

AP's Stupidest Poll Findings of the Primary Season

Posted by Brad Jacobson

Congratulations to the Associated Press for being the recipient of the inaugural post in Polled! (Polled, a new feature on MediaBloodhound, will cover the most inane polls from now through the November election and beyond.)

Here's the AP's lede in a story drawing striking conclusions from Democratic primary exit polls:

Add this to the divisive debate over race in the presidential campaign: Whites who said race was important in picking their candidate have been about twice as likely to back Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton as Sen. Barack Obama.

Exit polls of voters in Democratic primaries also show that whites who considered the contender's race — Clinton is white, Obama is black — were three times likelier to say they would only be satisfied with Clinton as the nominee than if Obama were chosen.

Imagine that. Whites who said race would be a deciding factor chose Clinton over Obama.

And just as shocking:

Eighty-eight percent of blacks who said race was an important factor voted for Obama, compared to 81 percent of those who said they did not consider race.

Now I'm no polling expert or statistical analyst, but I'd wager that the majority of, say, insecure, mean-spirited, male chauvinists who would call their wives a "cunt" are more likely to vote for Sen. John McCain. But is that noteworthy?

AP writer Alan Fram, who penned this most insightful article, also reports:

The data is from exit polls in Democratic primaries conducted for The Associated Press and television networks in Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Vermont.

Clearly, however, no one told Fram - or his editors at the AP - that not every finding in every poll is worthy of an article. Or in some cases, such as this, even a sentence.

Here are some other data the AP failed to mention from these exit polls*:

• Members of the KKK are twice as likely to own a backup set of white sheets than are non-KKK members.

• Raving lunatics are more likely to believe little blue men are following them than realize they've lost touch with reality.

• Vegetarians consume roughly 100% less beef per year than do meat eaters.

• People who claim Kenny G. is a "great jazz musician" own considerably fewer recordings of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong and Charles Mingus, and most have undergone full lobotomies.

• A majority of men prefer waking to an alarm clock in the morning rather than being kicked in the testicles; while a predominance of women reported that childbirth is actually more painful than a pedicure.

* As difficult as it is to believe, everything up to this point was documented by the AP; what follows is satire.

Feel free to add some of your own surprising statistical findings in the comments.

Spin One for the Gipper

by Jeff Huber

I have to say it again: If the Bush administration put a fraction of the effort it spends on spinning its wars into winning them, it wouldn’t need to spin them. 

The current clash between Iraqi Shiite Cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s security forces took root last year when Sadr told his forces to take an operational pause for resupply and recuperation.  That reduced violence levels enough to allow U.S. commander David Petraeus to claim his surge strategy was working even though it didn’t accomplish its intended political objectives.  One might have expected a supposedly smart guy like Petraeus to leave well enough alone, but no.  George Bush’s “main man” had to poke his pistol into the hornet’s nest, raiding selected elements of the Mahdi Army in Baghdad’s Sadr City and Shiite population centers in southern Iraq. 

The Sadrists warned for months that they would retaliate if the harassment didn’t stop.  Petraeus must have been too busy escorting John McCain and Lindsey Graham on shopping sprees in Baghdad to listen, because he kept at it, using both U.S. forces and elements of the Badr organization, one of Sadr’s rival Shiite political groups whose members dominate Iraq’s security forces.

It was not too long after Dick Cheney’s surprise visit to Baghdad on March 17 that Maliki launched his offensive against the Mahdi Army in Baghdad and in the southern city of Basra.  The big media were strangely silent about the implications of the timing of the two events.  Sadr’s people responded to Maliki’s push with a rocket and mortar attack on the Green Zone in Baghdad.

Petraeus blamed the Mahdis’ retaliation on Iran, but said nothing about why he and the best-trained, best-equipped military in history were powerless to defend the Green Zone well over a year into his “successful” surge, and nobody in the press asked him about it.

The Wounded-Courier Editorial: Why Obama's Bowling Would've Lost Dr. King's Support (satire)

Posted by Brad Jacobson

"I don’t know whether to kill myself or go bowling."
- Unknown

On this day, the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s death, we believe there is no better time to address Sen. Barack Obama's pitiful bowling display this week in Pennsylvania.

First, though The Wounded-Courier has not endorsed any candidate for president, after witnessing Mr. Obama toss that gutter ball again and again on that 24-hour media loop, let’s just say we are officially not endorsing him.

Why? It's only bowling, you say?

Well, it wasn't only bowling to Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, all of whom (as most Americans know) not only looked comfortable in their bright stripped shoes and loved those miniature pencils, but actually based their foreign policies on proven bowling techniques and strategies.

While Dr. King laid the groundwork for a black man to run for president in 2008, we're sure that even Dr. King would conclude that any man or woman – black, white, brown, yellow or purple – must keep that bowling ball out of the gutter if he or she is truly ready to lead America.

Dr. King did not give his life so one day some bowling delinquent like Barack Obama could land in the White House. (And if there isn’t a law against bowling with a tie on, we believe there should be.) King knew how crucial bowling was to not only improving US foreign policy and ensuring national security but to helping the poor, upgrading education, fixing our healthcare system and keeping the economy strong.

But he also knew America was not ready at the time to have an honest discussion about the issue of bowling. In fact, while some of his aides and confidantes, including Andrew Young and Harry Belafonte, pressed King to incorporate bowling into his "I Have a Dream" speech, King, in the end, believed it would be too controversial. Even in his "Beyond Vietnam" address, as he assailed US actions in Southeast Asia and gross neglect of the poor here at home, he dared not suggest bowling as a remedy for what ailed our nation.

But few people know that in earlier drafts of this speech, the line "A time comes when silence is betrayal" originally read, "A time comes when silence is betrayal and bowling is the only path to right a nation’s wrongs."

There are those who see a bowling ball and ask, "Why is this thing so f***ing heavy?" We see Barack Hussein Obama delivering a gutter ball and ask, “How do you expect to protect America?"

Cross-posted from MediaBloodhound.

(The Wounded-Courier is the satirical news division of MediaBloodhound.)