CyberAlert -- 03/12/2002 -- Upset Bush Not Focusing on Osama
Upset Bush Not Focusing on Osama; Media Money Goes to Politicians; Concerned About Conservative Bias & Jingoism; Dave Praised Koppel 5) Tonight on ABC's NYPD Blue: An abortion clinic bombing. ABC's Osama bin Laden obsession. While the other networks on Monday night reported on how in his speech Monday morning on the South Lawn President Bush predicted the war on terrorism is far from over as he warned about nuclear weapons getting into the hands of terrorists and terrorist states, ABC uniquely focused its entire story on what Bush didn't say. "Noticeably absent from that update, one name," Claire Shipman noted, "Osama bin Laden." She drove home her point: "The most wanted terrorist in the world didn't figure into the speech at all." After National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice insisted that she and the President don't talk about bin Laden regularly, an incredulous Shipman asserted: "It is hard to believe that the President of the United States and his National Security Adviser aren't discussing bin Laden with some regularity. This is the man who perpetrated September 11th." In contrast, Dan Rather, for instance, set up the CBS Evening News story: "At somber White House ceremonies President Bush issued another warning that the war on terrorism is far from won and that there's more sacrifice ahead. CBS's John Roberts reports the President said the war will be judged by its finish, not by its start." Shipman began her March 11 World News Tonight report: "The President offered a progress report today on the war on terrorism. He says that with Afghanistan no longer a hospitable climate for terrorists, the hunt will now go global. But noticeably absent from that update, one name: Osama bin Laden." After a clip of Bush she stressed: "But the most wanted terrorist in the world didn't figure into the speech at all, part of a strategy to downplay Osama bin Laden." Shipman asked Rice: "How often do you and
the President discuss Osama bin Laden these days?" Shipman continued, as transcribed by MRC
analyst Brad Wilmouth: "The silence on bin Laden, a marked contrast
to what the President was saying last fall." Maybe ABC's priorities had something to do with ABC's the then-upcoming prime time special, The Hunt for Osama bin Laden. Last Thursday on CNN's Inside Politics, in a piece which also aired Saturday night in an abbreviated form on Reliable Sources, Howard Kurtz took up how the networks, which ignored a campaign finance reform provision which would have hurt the bottom lines of the local stations they own, are large contributors themselves to House and Senate members. Picking up on how during the appearance of
Enron executives at a House hearing CNN had put on screen how much the
Congressman speaking had received from Enron, Kurtz observed: "House
Energy Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin does not think it's fair for CNN to
be suggesting, implying, or insinuating that there's something wrong with
taking corporate contributions. In fact, he says, he's gotten plenty of
money from big media companies as well, more than $70,000 since the last
election cycle." Kurtz concluded his March 7 story, the transcript of which the MRC's Ken Shepherd checked against the tape: "Why haven't you heard about this? NBC, ABC and CBS have not carried a word. And cable has barely mentioned the amendment. It seems like we ought to do a better job to make sure that corporate money and media money keep popping up into the story." Of course, the fact that those in the newsrooms, whom overwhelmingly favor greater campaign speech regulation, don't mention how their corporate parents will benefit or not from a particular provision is no surprise since they independently pursue a liberal agenda without regard for what their owners are up to. The corporate executives have no day-to-day say over the content of news programs. They may set budgets, but they don't decide what a Capitol Hill reporter will report. Network owners come and go, but the same news division personnel remain -- Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer are working for their fourth owner, ABC's news staff under Peter Jennings is under its third owner and neither GE with NBC or Time Warner with CNN has done anything to alter the make-up of the newsroom ideology. More on PBS's slanted look at the cable news networks. The March 7 CyberAlert recounted how Terence Smith fretted on PBS's NewsHour over FNC's conservative bias. Part of his proof, that Andrew Tyndall found that of six analysts featured by FNC "three were from explicitly right-wing publications and three were from mainstream publications. None was from an explicitly left-wing publication." Amongst those from the mainstream: Newsweek's Eleanor Clift. For details on that point: http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/2002/cyb20020307.asp#5 At the end of that item, I promised more on the PBS assessment, and now I'm finally getting to it. The big picture: After never doing a story on how ABC or CBS or NBC or CNN or MSNBC or even PBS itself might possibly be sort of left of center, Smith discovered nefarious conservative bias at FNC. (In January the NewsHour did bring on Bernard Goldberg to debate liberal bias with Marvin Kalb, but that was not equivalent to news story about the bias on the networks.) On three occasions during his March 5 piece, Smith raised the topic of FNC's conservative bias, yet in discussing with CNN chief Walter Isaacson how FNC had surpassed CNN in the ratings, instead of suggesting that maybe CNN is too liberal, he allowed Isaacson to proclaim that "when people really need the news, and they want journalism they can count on, they'll go to CNN." The posted transcript of Smith's interview with Isaacson reveals that he did raise a liberal tilt with Isaacson, only to wonder if "that makes any sense to you?" -- but that didn't make it onto the air. The question: "Surveys will also show that people regard CNN as liberal, somewhat to the left of center. Does that make any sense to you?" During that interview Smith was more worried about whether CNN and other outlets have been too "jingoistic" in war coverage. On the NewsHour, Smith relayed FNC's ratings
success: Smith soon turned to Philadelphia Inquirer TV
columnist Gail Shister for an explanation of FNC's rise. She suggested:
"You could argue that viewers are clearly looking for an alternative
to straight news, which is what CNN and also MSNBC, to a lesser degree,
have been offering for years -- that viewers want more entertainment; they
want more oomph in their news." A bit later Smith returned to his concern:
"Is Fox's appeal explained by its programming or its politics? To
find out, the NewsHour commissioned Andrew Tyndall, the publisher of The
Tyndall Report, a newsletter that monitors television news, to do a
content analysis of the evening programming on the three cable news
networks. He found sharp differences. Smith summarized
Tyndall's take, mixed with network clips: "CNN, he found, adheres
to what he called an 'objective and cool interviewing style.' By
contrast, Tyndall found that the Fox house style is hot." See the March 7 CyberAlert linked above for the decimation of that ludicrous analysis. Smith noted: "Tyndall discovered a
pattern." I'd agree that Tyndall is on target about FNC's preference for prime time shows which discuss rather than report the news -- though the addition of Greta Van Susteren after Tyndall's study period gave a prime time hour to a liberal crusader. But there's a big difference between an opinion show like The O'Reilly Factor and an hour of news on Special Report with Brit Hume or the Fox Report. That's just like Crossfire does not accurately convey how CNN presents the news during NewsNight, though I believe recent CyberAlerts have documented quite convincingly how CNN's NewsNight with Aaron Brown pursues a liberal agenda on many nights. And while Tyndall may consider Larry King to be non-ideological, to whatever extent that's true it's because of the non-political topics the show often features, not because King isn't ideological. Just watch any show about a cutting issue with a left-right split. It's quite clear which side he favors. King refers to "right-wing wackos," but I've yet to hear him utter the phrase "left-wing wackos." Smith later got as close as he ever did to suggesting anything like bias at CNN: "CNN's Isaacson trooped up to Capitol Hill early in his tenure to meet specifically with Republican leaders in Congress, some of whom had criticized the fairness of his network." In the transcript of Smith's interview with
Isaacson, as posted by the NewsHour, Smith gave him a chance to dismiss
the thought of any liberal bias: "Surveys will also show that people
regard CNN as liberal, somewhat to the left of center. Does that make any
sense to you?" During a portion of the interview not shown by
PBS, the MRC's Ken Shepherd noticed, Smith worried about whether the
media "went overboard" with "jingoism" in war
coverage: "One of the controversies after September 11th -- and I
wonder what you think of it -- has been the suggestion of jingoism in the
press, people wearing flag pins in their lapels, using language very
supportive of the war effort and that sort of thing. And you had a memo
that was published about balance. Tell me what you think about that,
whether you think the news media went overboard and what you were trying
to accomplish with that memo." Bottom line: When Terence Smith, a CBS News reporter during the 1980s and early 1990s who previously toiled for the New York Times, looks at the media he has two concerns: Conservative bias and too much nationalistic jingoism. No wonder he and his media elite colleagues are baffled by the success of the Fox News Channel. For the transcript of the Isaacson interview: For a transcript of the NewsHour story and
video of it: For the NewsHour page on the cable news
segment, with links to the above two items as well as a transcript of the
Hume interview and Tyndall's full study results: As I so presciently predicted last week, David Letterman will be staying on CBS -- leaving ABC with a very upset Ted Koppel. In making the announcement Monday night on the Late Show, Letterman put all the controversy in some perspective by noting that compared to the terrorist attacks, "I recognize that what I'm talking about here tonight...is trivial, pointless and downright silly." He also praised Ted Koppel for representing "the absolute highest echelon of broadcast achievement" and argued that "at very least," he "deserves the right to determine his own professional future. He deserves absolutely no less than that." Before getting to his more serious remarks, Letterman joked: "I figured out what I'm going to do. I'm going to get a face-lift then I'm going to Fox News. That is exactly what I am going to do." Letterman then observed: "I recognize that what I am going to talk about here tonight is ridiculous when you consider what happened on this day six months ago. Six months ago today New York City was attacked, Washington DC also attacked. I recognize that what I'm talking about here tonight, by comparison, is trivial, pointless and downright silly, but please bear with me." On potentially displacing Koppel, he stated:
"I just need to say a word about Ted Koppel. Now Ted Koppel has been
on this show 3 or 4 times and to me, personally, he's always been a
gentleman, he's a great guest and he's very funny, I mean he's
really funny. He might be actually too funny for a newsman. Very, very
funny. Back in 1979 Ted Koppel began Nightline, and then, as you recall,
it started out as a nightly report on American hostages being held in
Iran, so that's 23 years ago. In 1979, coincidentally, that's when I
had my first show business job -- I was running errands for Jim Nabors. He added: "I just want to say a word about the folks at ABC. I would rather ride naked on the subway than go through what these people had to go through the last couple of weeks. To me they were gracious and generous and very, very patient. Whatever you decide to do at 11:30, I wish you the best. And my personal hope is that it will continue to be occupied by Ted Koppel and Nightline for as long as that guy wants to have that job -- because that's just the way it ought to be." The above quotes were based on a transcript provided by Letterman's staff to the TV Barn site, (http://www.tvbarn.com/), but they won't match what you may see quoted elsewhere since I corrected them against what Letterman actually said on the show as aired. Going to the first commercial break, the Late Show used as a bumper a clip from a previous program of Letterman and Koppel out on West 53rd Street on roller blades. A
potential political edge on tonight's NYPD Blue on ABC. From the
show's plot summary on ABC's Web site: The Web page for NYPD Blue: http://abc.abcnews.go.com/primetime/nypdblue/index.html NYPD Blue airs Tuesdays at 9pm EST/PST, 8pm CST/MST. A week-and-a-half ago, CBS's First Monday had a plot revolving around death threats against an abortion doctor and threats against the daughter of a Supreme Court Justice, including a dead rat or something in her school backpack. But on that show it turned out the abortion clinic's security guard was behind it all in an effort to generate sympathy for his employer. Let's hope NYPD Blue does not confuse criminal murderers who place bombs with those in the pro-life movement who work within the system to change minds and the law. -- Brent Baker
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