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1. 60 Minutes Champions Al Gore's 'PR Agent for the Planet' Cause
On Sunday's 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl delivered a fawning piece on Al Gore's environmental crusade, teasing: "Since he lost the election, Al Gore has become a certified celebrity, a popular prophet of global warming." In the introduction to the subsequent segment, she proclaimed: "When Al Gore ran for President in 2000, he was often ridiculed as inauthentic and wooden. Today, he is passionate and animated, a man transformed." Stahl began the interview by asking Gore about the Democratic presidential race and the possibility of him brokering a deal between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. However, as Stahl observed: "He's not ruling it out, but he says he already has a job -- as he puts it, P.R. agent for the planet." Immediately following Gore's comparison of global warming skeptics to flat Earther's and those who thought the moon landing was staged, Stahl trumpeted: "What Al Gore has set out to do is mobilize a big, popular movement, worldwide. And his winning the Nobel Peace Prize hasn't hurt, since it's given him more stature and prestige."
2. CBS Follows NYT, Warns More Going on Food Stamps Than Since 1960s
Monday's New York Times hyped a dire congressional study, and CBS jumped hours later with a matching story full of anecdotes and relying on the expertise of a left-wing activist -- naturally, unlabeled. "The economic slowdown has left a lot of Americans struggling to pay their bills," CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric asserted, highlighting how "a congressional report projects a record 28 million will receive food stamps in the coming year." Leading into a soundbite from a representative of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, reporter Bill Whitaker ominously intoned: "With jobs declining and prices for basics -- food, fuel, medicine -- on the rise, more Americans are expected to turn to food stamps in the next year than at any time since the program began in the 1960s." Whitaker moved on to more emotion, how one woman "is still stretching beans and her budget to feed her four boys and granddaughter," but "with Congress fighting over funding, millions like" her "won't find much more in the pot."
3. MRC's 'DisHonors Awards' Next Week, Time to Get Tickets Short
The MRC's 2008 "DisHonors Awards" are next week and seats are running out. We only have a few left. The MRC's annual video awards with the "William F. Buckley Award for Media Excellence," this year presented to Tony Snow, will take place in Washington, DC on Thursday evening, April 10. Confirmed participants: Ann Coulter, Larry Kudlow, Mark Levin, Cal Thomas and many more since surprise conservative guests will accept the awards in jest. Get your tickets now.
Clarification: The links were flipped between two March 31 CyberAlert items: "CBS Faster to Identify Party of Republican Than of Democrats" and "ABC's Sam Champion Hypes Global Warming for Eight Minutes." The text of both articles appeared properly, just with the wrong headline. The online version has been corrected: www.mrc.org
 60 Minutes Champions Al Gore's 'PR Agent
for the Planet' Cause
On Sunday's 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl delivered a fawning piece on Al Gore's environmental crusade, teasing: "Since he lost the election, Al Gore has become a certified celebrity, a popular prophet of global warming." In the introduction to the subsequent segment, she proclaimed: "When Al Gore ran for President in 2000, he was often ridiculed as inauthentic and wooden. Today, he is passionate and animated, a man transformed." Stahl began the interview by asking Gore about the Democratic presidential race and the possibility of him brokering a deal between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. However, as Stahl observed: "He's not ruling it out, but he says he already has a job -- as he puts it, P.R. agent for the planet."
Stahl went on to describe Gore's activism as a spiritual crusade: "His slide shows are tailored to his audiences. So, as he showed us in his office, when he talks to Evangelical Christians, he includes passages from the Bible...Gore is trying to redefine this as a moral and spiritual issue."
Stahl also admired Gore's willingness to spend his own money in a new ad campaign: "He's taking his fervor and some of his personal fortune and funneling them into a huge new $300 million advertising campaign." Immediately following Gore's comparison of global warming skeptics to flat Earther's and those who thought the moon landing was staged, Stahl trumpeted: "What Al Gore has set out to do is mobilize a big, popular movement, worldwide. And his winning the Nobel Peace Prize hasn't hurt, since it's given him more stature and prestige."
Stahl concluded the fawning interview by describing Gore's new cause: "He says he's fallen out of love with politics. He's selling a cause now. No consultants telling him what to say or how to dress."
[This item is adapted from a Monday afternoon posting, by the MRC's Kyle Drennen, on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]
For video of the 13-minute segment as posted by CBSNews.com: www.cbsnews.com
Here is the full transcript of the March 30 segment:
TEASER:
AL GORE: I am Al Gore, I used to be the next President of the United States of America.
LESLEY STAHL: Since he lost the election, Al Gore has become a certified celebrity, a popular prophet of global warming. And he's about to launch a new ad campaign so vast and expensive you won't be able to miss it, starring some of the most unlikely couples imaginable.
FULL SEGMENT:
STAHL: When Al Gore ran for President in 2000, he was often ridiculed as inauthentic and wooden. Today, he is passionate and animated, a man transformed. His documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," won an Oscar. And last year, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Now he's a certified celebrity, the popular prophet of global warming. He has helped change the way the country thinks about the issue. And yet, while 70% of Americans believe global warming is a big problem, they still rank it near the very bottom of their list of top 25 concerns. And so, Al Gore is about to wage a new campaign to emphasize the urgency of what he says is the greatest challenge facing our time. But as we found out while spending time with him and his wife, Tipper, for the moment at least, there's another campaign Americans care about most. We were with you in the San Jose airport, and a man came over to you, and he says, "who are you supporting, Obama or Hillary? Who are you supporting? Who are you supporting?"
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Who you voting for?
AL GORE: Uh-huh.
MAN: Who you voting for this year?
GORE: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
STAHL: So, let me ask you. Who are you supporting?
GORE: Yes.
STAHL: That's what you said to him.
GORE: Yeah, I'm trying to stay out of it.
STAHL: Getting Al Gore to talk about politics these days is hard work, believe me. But as a party leader, and uncommitted superdelegate, his staying out of it isn't easy. Are they, are they calling you every minute?
GORE: Not every minute.
STAHL: No? Lot of pressure though, I'll bet.
GORE: We unplugged the phones for this interview, so I can't say with authority. But no, everyone, they, they both call. And I appreciate that fact.
STAHL: And what about the idea of the honest broker who goes to the two candidates and helps push one or the other of them off to the side.
GORE: Yeah, kind of a modern "Boss" Tweed.
STAHL: Except his name would be Al Gore.
GORE: Well, I'm not, I'm not applying for the job of broker.
STAHL: He's not ruling it out, but he says he already has a job -- as he puts it, P.R. agent for the planet. You have said, I'm going to quote you: "If I do my job right, all the candidates will be talking about the climate crisis."
GORE: Yeah.
STAHL: I can't think of a time I've heard the candidates talk about it.
GORE: Right. Well, I'm not finished yet.
STAHL: The Gore campaign on global warming went into high gear when his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," was an unexpected hit.
GORE: That brings up the basic science of global warming-
STAHL: What he's been doing is holding seminars-
GORE: This is Mt. Kilimanjaro, more than 30 years ago, and more recently.
STAHL: -Where he trains other people to give his famous slide show about the effects of greenhouse gases.
GORE: Within the decade, there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro.
STAHL: So far, in all, he's coached about 2,000 people, teaching one little workshop at a time.
GORE: And it's a shame because these glaciers are so beautiful.
STAHL: His slide shows are tailored to his audiences. So, as he showed us in his office, when he talks to Evangelical Christians, he includes passages from the Bible. Here he edited in the voice of an astronaut.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN B: And God said, "let there be light," and there was light.
STAHL: Gore is trying to redefine this as a moral and spiritual issue.
GORE: We all share the exact same interest in doing the right thing on this. Who are we as human beings? Are we destined to destroy this place that we call home, planet Earth? I can't believe that that's our destiny. It is not our destiny. But we have to awaken to the moral duty that we have to do the right thing and get out of this... this silly political game-playing about it. This is about survival.
STAHL: He's taking his fervor and some of his personal fortune and funneling them into a huge new $300 million advertising campaign.
GORE: Hey guys. How's it going?
STAHL: He hired the agency that made the caveman and talking lizard ads for Geico to create global warming commercials.
 UNIDENTIFIED MAN C: Now, the first thing we run on television.
AD NARRATOR: We didn't wait for someone else to storm the beaches at Normandy.
STAHL: The ads will start running this week on the broadcast networks and cable channels in a blitz as sweeping and expensive as a big corporation's rollout of a new product.
AD NARRATOR: And we can't wait for someone else to solve the global climate crisis. We need to act, and we need to act now.
GORE: Come on, don't tell me we can't solve this. We can solve this if we put our minds to it.
STAHL: Now, the rest of the future ads are going to stress this bi-partisan coalition that's coming together on this with some surprising pairings.
GORE: Yeah. Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich, two people who don't agree on very much at all.
STAHL: And they're going to do an ad together?
GORE: Are doing an ad together.
STAHL: And several other unlikely couples, like Pat Robertson and Al Sharpton.
PAT ROBERTSON: And we strongly disagree.
AL SHARPTON: Except on one issue. Tell them what it is, Reverend Pat.
ROBERTSON: That would be taking care of our planet. It's extremely important.
STAHL: Now, we're told that this ad campaign is going to cost a barrel of money. How are you paying for this?
GORE: Well, Tipper and I, thank you again, have put all of the profits from the movie and the book that we would have otherwise gotten -- "An Inconvenient Truth" -- to this and.
STAHL: All the profits?
GORE: Correct. All that we would have received, absolutely.
TIPPER GORE: And, not only that, but you know, there is a cash component to the Nobel Peace Prize, which he was awarded, and we donated that and we matched it.
STAHL: Tipper says that Al's survival after his defeat in 2000 depended on his immersing himself in the climate cause. 2000 was, of course, when he won the popular vote, but lost the presidency when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of George Bush.
GORE: I offer my concession.
STAHL: Did he go through the seven stages of anger and grief? I'm not even joking. Anger? Fury? Rage?
GORE: That doesn't get you anywhere.
STAHL: Doesn't mean you don't have it.
GORE: Uh, again, I'm not sure words are adequate for anybody who tries to describe an experience like that. But, you know, I probably went through all that, yeah.
STAHL: His friends said they were worried about him and his state of mind, especially after he gained a lot of weight and grew a beard. Because people looked at that and said, "Oh, my God-"
TIPPER GORE: I know.
STAHL: "-what's with Al Gore?"
GORE: You know, I don't think it's all that mysterious. You have shattering, disappointing setbacks, and you have a basic decision to make. You know, do you, do you pick yourself up and go on or not? And it's not, ultimately, that's not a difficult choice.
STAHL: You know, your lawyer, one of your lawyers in the Supreme Court case, said publicly of you: "Al Gore thought the court's ruling was wrong and obviously political."
GORE: Well, I -- I strongly disagreed with the decision, but to ascribe low and petty partisan motivations to the five justices who were in the majority, it doesn't feel right for me to do that.
STAHL: Tipper, how has he changed?
TIPPER GORE: For the better. Not that he needed to change for the better at all, but I have to say, I am so proud of him. I mean, I think that if you look at anyone who kind of went through what... what he went through and see what he's been able to do -- I'm just really proud of the way that he has not given up, that he lifted himself and our family, you know, back up as well.
STAHL: He lifted himself up by turning his old slides, that were gathering dust in the basement, into that mega-hit documentary.
GORE: I am Al Gore, I used to be the next President of the United States of America.
STAHL: It's been translated into 27 languages, and was good enough to win an Oscar.
GORE: The atmosphere heats up worldwide -- that's global warming.
STAHL: He not only made a comeback, he made a fortune. It started when he invested in Google early on. Worth less than $2 million in 2000, the Gores are worth so much now, they've been able to invest $35 million in hedge funds and other private partnerships. They bought this 18-room mansion in Nashville. After they moved in, they were criticized because the house "Mr. Global Warming" lived in used 20 times more energy than the average American household. Since then, they have retrofitted everything.
GORE: It's hard to retrofit.
STAHL: Including installing 33 solar panels on the roof.
GORE: We'll generate our own electricity with wind...
STAHL: He's also making his parents' farm eco-friendly. Oh, so you'll have windmills here?
GORE: Yep.
STAHL: With plans to turn it into a training center for people from all over the world. For now, he takes his slide show on the road. We went with him to India. It's going to be so hard, so gigantically difficult to solve this problem. And expensive, no?
GORE: It's much more expensive not to solve it.
STAHL: India is the world's fourth biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
GORE: But it has relevance for India particularly because of the monsoons.
STAHL: He's here in New Delhi teaching 100 people how to give his slide show and spread the word. You're giving talks to a hundred people. There are over a billion people in India. I mean, how do you expect to really have any kind of impact?
GORE: This is the beginning, and then they will train others. And I will be training others.
STAHL: It's so daunting.
GORE: We don't have any choice. We just don't have any choice. I wish I knew a better way to do it. I constantly ask myself, "how can I be more effective in getting this message across?" It's so clear, it's so, it's so compelling. And, and yet, it takes time to get the facts out.
STAHL: But it's not so clear and compelling to everyone. There's still a lot of skepticism about whether global warming is manmade.
GORE: I don't think there's a lot; I think there's-
STAHL: Well, there's pretty impressive people, like the Vice President.
GORE: Well-
STAHL: He said, "we don't know what causes it."
GORE: You're talking about Dick Cheney.
STAHL: Yeah, but others. And they say: 'We don't know what causes it and why spend all this money till we really, really know?'
GORE: I think that those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view. They're almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona and those who believe the Earth is flat. That demeans them a little bit, but it's not that far off.
STAHL: What Al Gore has set out to do is mobilize a big, popular movement, worldwide. And his winning the Nobel Peace Prize hasn't hurt, since it's given him more stature and prestige. Tomorrow is your 60th birthday.
GORE: ( Gasps )
STAHL: Sorry, didn't want to be the one to be the first to tell you. Have you completely, totally put the idea of the presidency behind you once and for all?
GORE: Well, well, first of all, 60 is the new 59, so this is a new world that we're in.
STAHL: So you're a young man, a young man.
GORE: I doubt very seriously that I'll ever be a candidate again.
STAHL: He says he's fallen out of love with politics. He's selling a cause now. No consultants telling him what to say or how to dress.
GORE: We all seem to learn the most from the most painful experiences. And would that it were not so. But it is so. And the old cliche "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is sometimes true. And so, when you go through a lot, you do have an opportunity to learn a lot. And I think I've been very fortunate.
 CBS Follows NYT, Warns More Going on
Food Stamps Than Since 1960s
Monday's New York Times hyped a dire congressional study, and CBS jumped hours later with a matching story full of anecdotes and relying on the expertise of a left-wing activist -- naturally, unlabeled. "The economic slowdown has left a lot of Americans struggling to pay their bills," CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric asserted, highlighting how "a congressional report projects a record 28 million will receive food stamps in the coming year."
Leading into a soundbite from a representative of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, reporter Bill Whitaker ominously intoned: "With jobs declining and prices for basics -- food, fuel, medicine -- on the rise, more Americans are expected to turn to food stamps in the next year than at any time since the program began in the 1960s."
Whitaker moved on to more emotion, how one woman "is still stretching beans and her budget to feed her four boys and granddaughter," but "with Congress fighting over funding, millions like" her "won't find much more in the pot."
[This item, by the MRC's Brent Baker, was posted Monday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]
The front page New York Times headline over the article by Erik Eckholm, a former Carter administration political appointee: "As Jobs Vanish and Prices Rise, Food Stamp Use Nears Record."
"That's quite a melodramatic headline," the MRC's Clay Waters observed in a TimesWatch analysis of the Times story, taking on the headline's claim of vanishing jobs which CBS copied with a reference to declining jobs: "For one thing, what 'vanishing jobs'? The national unemployment rate for February was 4.8 percent, unchanged from January. The headline writer's source seems to be a Congressional Budget Office report 'citing expected growth in unemployment.' No jobs have 'vanished' yet, but that doesn't stop the Times."
The March 31 story began: "Driven by a painful mix of layoffs and rising food and fuel prices, the number of Americans receiving food stamps is projected to reach 28 million in the coming year, the highest level since the aid program began in the 1960s..." For the entire March 31 New York Times article: www.nytimes.com
And how did CBS News find Stacy Dean of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities? Eckholm quoted her -- and also failed to label her.
CBPP home page: www.cbpp.org
CBPP's page for Dean: www.cbpp.org
The MRC's Waters noted that Eckholm did cite factors beyond the economic slowdown, reasons CBS didn't bother to mention, "such as the fact that governments are actually advertising the programs to get more people to use them." For the March 31 TimesWatch critique: www.timeswatch.org
CBS has a long history of hyping and exaggerating the level of hunger in America. A brief trip down memory lane:
# The May 3, 2006 MRC CyberAlert item by Rich Noyes, "CBS: Old People Skipping Food, Medicine Due to High Gas Prices," recited:
 Monday's CBS Evening News inaugurated a new series, "Eye on the Road," the network's latest gimmick to keep people outraged at the high cost of gasoline. Reporter Sharyn Alfonsi is driving from Florida to Boston to find people to complain about the high prices, and she highlighted senior citizens who are ostensibly sacrificing food and medicine because of Big Oil's greediness.
Alfonsi featured a poll taken by the liberal lobbying group AARP to supposedly prove the hardship gas prices are having on the elderly. "They're used to living on fixed incomes," Alfonsi reported, "but now skyrocketing gas prices are forcing seniors to make difficult choices. Some are cutting back on medicine, others say they're eating less."
As she spoke, the screen showed an elderly man getting food from a refrigerator with "AARP Survey" superimposed across the bottom of the screen, plus the words "Cutting Back" followed by "Medicine 6%," then "Food 13%."...
For the previous CyberAlert article in full: www.mediaresearch.org
# The February 8, 2005 MRC CyberAlert, from back in the Dan Rather days, "Nets, Especially CBS, Paint 'Cuts' Hurting 'Homeless' & 'Hungry,'" recounted:
 All of the media have pounced on the Bush administration's desire to "cut" spending on a few programs, focusing on how some small spending adjustments will hurt the poor, but none more so than CBS on Monday night. Lee Cowan devoted a full story to how "the proposed cuts hit the heartland like a mountain of unwanted news, from the soy bean fields of Iowa...to large cities like Minneapolis, where block grant programs help the homeless and the hungry." Cowan, who failed to cite a single proposed budget number, showcased complaints from food bank and health care workers and, led into a soundbite from the unlabeled Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, by stressing how "critics charge the people these cuts hit the hardest tend to have the weakest political voice."...
For that rundown in full: www.mediaresearch.org
# The Friday, July 11, 2003 MRC CyberAlert item, "CBS Finds More 'Hunger in the Heartland' -- Once Again in Ohio," recounted:
A CBS promo on Wednesday night promised a look on Thursday night at "hunger in the heartland," but it seems that to CBS America's "heartland" encompasses just two communities in Ohio barely 50 miles apart. Just seven months after 60 Minutes II discovered hunger in Marietta, Ohio, on Thursday night the CBS Evening News delivered a peek at supposed hunger on Logan, Ohio, another community in the Buckeye state's southeastern region.
CBS's Cynthia Bowers reported: "Twice a month in this small town on the edge of Appalachia, groceries are given away. You could call it a 'line of the times,' because in a growing number of American communities making ends meet means waiting for a handout."
Bowers conveyed an exaggerated claim as fact: "Each year an estimated 30 million Americans go hungry." In fact, that's not true. As even the America's Second Harvest Web site notes, "in 2001, the USDA reported that the number of Americans who were food insecure, or hungry or at risk of hunger, was 33.6 million." Not that they "go hungry," but that, as I recall from memory in looking into this in the past, in answering a survey they say that sometime in the past month they were not sure about where to find their next meal or were concerned about not having enough money to buy enough food.
Bowers also portrayed a stark choice between picking of food and the alternative: "So the free food they get free means more money for kids clothing or maybe life saving medicine."...
For the 2003 CyberAlert piece in full: www.mediaresearch.org
# The January 10, 2003 MRC CyberAlert posting, "CBS's America Under Bush: Depression-Era Food Lines," reported:
George W. Bush's America as seen by CBS News: Bread lines, reminiscent of the Depression-era, made up of average Americans with jobs. Over video of a long line in Marietta, Ohio, on the January 8 60 Minutes II, Scott Pelley ominously intoned: "The lines we found looked like they'd been taken from the pages of the Great Depression. It's not just the unemployed, we found plenty of people working full-time but still not able to earn enough to keep hunger out the house. If you think you have a good idea of who's hungry in America today, come join the line. You'd never guess who you'd meet there."
While Pelley never uttered the name George W. Bush once during his 12 minute piece, the implication came through. Pelley noted, for instance, how "since 1999, the number of people getting emergency food aid in Ohio alone has grown from 2 million to 4.5 million." Pelley contended in relaying the view of a groups which wants more government spending: "Nationwide, the problem is not just in rural scenes like this. The U.S. Conference of Mayors says the need for emergency food aid in major cities jumped 19 percent last year alone."
Pelley's emotions over facts style of reporting included this line: "Pre-schoolers come here with their parents and play in boxes as empty as the day's want-ads."...
For the complete analysis: www.mediaresearch.org
The "Best Notable Quotables of 2003" with two streaming Real video clips from the 2003 Pelley story: www.mrc.org
Back to this week, the MRC's Brad Wilmouth corrected the closed-captioning against the video to provide this transcript of the story on the Monday, March 31 CBS Evening News:
KATIE COURIC: The economic slowdown has left a lot of Americans struggling to pay their bills. A congressional report projects a record 28 million will receive food stamps in the coming year. Bill Whitaker has another example of how this economic downturn is hitting home.
BILL WHITAKER: Alyn Luna has been struggling to give her family a better life. But after losing her job as a security guard-
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE SOCIAL WORKER: How long have you been unemployed?
ALYN LUNA, FOOD STAMP RECIPIENT: About three weeks.
WHITAKER: -she did something today she hoped she'd never have to do again: apply for food stamps.
LUNA: If it wasn't for this program, it would be really bad for me right now.
WHITAKER: With jobs declining and prices for basics -- food, fuel, medicine -- on the rise, more Americans are expected to turn to food stamps in the next year than at any time since the program began in the 1960s. Already, demand is up in 43 states. Fourteen have hit record highs. In Michigan, one in every eight residents is on food stamps. One in seven in Kentucky.
 STACY DEAN, CENTER ON BUDGET AND POLICY PRIORITIES: Their wages are going down or staying the same while the costs that they have to meet each month are going up. And the squeeze on them is so significant that they can't afford food.
WHITAKER: Anyone working, retired, living near the poverty line -- less than about $28,000 per family of four -- is eligible for the benefits. About $100 per person per month. But even with two jobs and food stamps, Shreel Jackson is still stretching beans and her budget to feed her four boys and granddaughter.
SHREEL JACKSON, FOOD STAMPS RECIPIENT: Because what I get, it helps, but it's not enough. It's not enough. It's not enough.
WHITAKER: But with Congress fighting over funding, millions like Jackson won't find much more in the pot. Bill Whitaker, CBS News, Los Angeles.
 MRC's 'DisHonors Awards' Next Week, Time
to Get Tickets Short
Less than two weeks until the MRC's 2008 "DisHonors Awards" and seats are running out. We only have a few left. The MRC's annual video awards with the "William F. Buckley Award for Media Excellence," this year presented to Tony Snow, will take place in Washington, DC on Thursday evening, April 10. Confirmed participants: Ann Coulter, Larry Kudlow, Mark Levin, Cal Thomas and many more since surprise conservative guests will accept the awards in jest. Get your tickets now.
"It was a terrific show...It was a great, great, great assemblage of people... Everybody just had a blast!" -- Rush Limbaugh, 2007 recipient of the William F. Buckley Jr. Award for Media Excellence.
Make your reservation today. Every year our gala sells out, so don't delay.
Individual seats available for $250. To reserve your seat(s), contact the MRC's Sara Bell at: sbell@mediaresearch.org
Or call, 9 to 5:30 PM EDT weekdays: (800) 672-1423.
Online page with information: www.mrc.org
For a look at all the fun at last year's event: www.mediaresearch.org
-- Brent Baker
|
On Sunday's 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl delivered a fawning piece on Al Gore's environmental crusade, teasing: "Since he lost the election, Al Gore has become a certified celebrity, a popular prophet of global warming." In the introduction to the subsequent segment, she proclaimed: "When Al Gore ran for President in 2000, he was often ridiculed as inauthentic and wooden. Today, he is passionate and animated, a man transformed." Stahl began the interview by asking Gore about the Democratic presidential race and the possibility of him brokering a deal between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. However, as Stahl observed: "He's not ruling it out, but he says he already has a job -- as he puts it, P.R. agent for the planet." 
Stahl also admired Gore's willingness to spend his own money in a new ad campaign: "He's taking his fervor and some of his personal fortune and funneling them into a huge new $300 million advertising campaign." Immediately following Gore's comparison of global warming skeptics to flat Earther's and those who thought the moon landing was staged, Stahl trumpeted: "What Al Gore has set out to do is mobilize a big, popular movement, worldwide. And his winning the Nobel Peace Prize hasn't hurt, since it's given him more stature and prestige." 
UNIDENTIFIED MAN C: Now, the first thing we run on television. 
Monday's New York Times hyped a dire congressional study, and CBS jumped hours later with a matching story full of anecdotes and relying on the expertise of a left-wing activist -- naturally, unlabeled. "The economic slowdown has left a lot of Americans struggling to pay their bills," CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric asserted, highlighting how "a congressional report projects a record 28 million will receive food stamps in the coming year." 
Monday's CBS Evening News inaugurated a new series, "Eye on the Road," the network's latest gimmick to keep people outraged at the high cost of gasoline. Reporter Sharyn Alfonsi is driving from Florida to Boston to find people to complain about the high prices, and she highlighted senior citizens who are ostensibly sacrificing food and medicine because of Big Oil's greediness. 
All of the media have pounced on the Bush administration's desire to "cut" spending on a few programs, focusing on how some small spending adjustments will hurt the poor, but none more so than CBS on Monday night. Lee Cowan devoted a full story to how "the proposed cuts hit the heartland like a mountain of unwanted news, from the soy bean fields of Iowa...to large cities like Minneapolis, where block grant programs help the homeless and the hungry." Cowan, who failed to cite a single proposed budget number, showcased complaints from food bank and health care workers and, led into a soundbite from the unlabeled Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, by stressing how "critics charge the people these cuts hit the hardest tend to have the weakest political voice."... 
BILL WHITAKER: Alyn Luna has been struggling to give her family a better life. But after losing her job as a security guard- 
STACY DEAN, CENTER ON BUDGET AND POLICY PRIORITIES: Their wages are going down or staying the same while the costs that they have to meet each month are going up. And the squeeze on them is so significant that they can't afford food. 