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Networks Pounced on "Daisy" Ad; Chinese Money to Dems "Unproven"?; MRC Cited on Comics Page -- Back to today's CyberAlert [1]
This report contrasts how the networks continue to
refuse to tell viewers about the NAACP ad suggesting Bush's opposition to a
hate crimes bill means he's "killed" James Byrd "all over
again," but have pounced on ads by little known groups which dare to
criticize Al Gore. To view The Media Reality Check as an Adobe Acrobat PDF
file as posted by the MRC's Kristina Sewell and Andy Szul, go to: To view the NAACP ad as played and evaluated by FNC, go
to: Tim Graham couldn't fit all the bias into the one-page fax, so item #2 below contains a CyberAlert Bonus of what he had to cut out. The pull-out quote in the fax featured an exchange on Friday's The Early Show on CBS between Bryant Gumbel and Al Gore in which Gumbel falsely identified the ad as being produced by the "GOP," as if either the Bush campaign or an official Republican committee were behind it: Bryant Gumbel: "Speaking of attacks, I don't know
if you've seen it or not, but on behalf of Governor Bush, the GOP has taken
to running the infamous Daisy commercial of Goldwater days and substituting
the language and using you, and suggesting that your dealings with China have
threatened national security. What's your reaction to that?" Now the text of the October 27 Media Reality Check: Networks Talk Ads, But Ignore the NAACP's The NAACP ad suggesting George W. Bush "killed" James Byrd "all over again" over a Texas "hate crimes" bill is still being ignored by ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN's newscasts. But the same networks have shown interest in other liberal and conservative ads. Last night, ABC, CBS, and NBC uncritically aired pieces of an ad from the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL). As NBC's Claire Shipman explained, "pro-choice organizations are spending big money for ads like these make the case that a vote for Nader could mean the end of a woman's right to choose." On Wednesday night's NewsStand on CNN, anchor Greta Van Susteren showed the NARAL ad in its entirety, free of charge. ABC's Aaron Brown reported an entire story on ad campaigns, showing brief clips of NARAL's ad, plus ads made by the NRA and Handgun Control Incorporated. While he skipped the NAACP ad, he did find time to question an anti-Gore ad from a group called Americans Against Hate. Immediately after clips of the gun group ads, Brown intoned: "Harsher still, this ad tying Gore to controversial black activist Al Sharpton, who the ad says praised Adolf Hitler." This morning, TV stars had a new anti-Gore ad to question: an ad saying "Vote Republican" that cheesily reproduces the 1964 "Daisy" ad implying Barry Goldwater would start a nuclear war. On CBS, Bryant Gumbel asked for Al Gore's reaction to that ad, but not the NAACP's ad. On ABC's Good Morning America, anchor Antonio Mora began by noting "The Bush campaign is crying foul over a series of taped anti-Bush telephone messages the Michigan Democratic Party is playing to state residents. One call is from actor Ed Asner. In another, a caller who identifies herself as Ann Friday of Dallas appears to blame Bush for her husband's death in a nursing home." ABC played this audio clip: "He could be alive today if it weren't for the neglect he experienced. When George W. Bush ran for governor, he promised to improve the quality of life for nursing home residents. But Governor Bush broke that promise." Mora asserted: "The Bush campaign claims Bush has actually strengthened quality regulations for Texas nursing homes and it denies a claim in the Democrats' phone message that complaints about the nursing homes have doubled." Mora added: "A different example of nastiness is coming from a mysterious group that has produced a new TV ad that suggests Gore could draw the U.S. into nuclear war. The ad mimics Lyndon Johnson's infamous 'Daisy' commercial and accused the Democrat of endangering the U.S. by giving nuclear secrets to China. At the end of the ad, a nuclear explosion is shown, followed by the words 'Vote Republican.' It's not known who put the money up for the ad." Why the rush to this mysterious ad? An Associated Press story this morning began: "The Gore campaign said a new Republican attack advertisement modeled after the infamous 'Daisy' commercial...is a 'desperate tactic' by conservatives to help George W. Bush." While the AP promoted the "Daisy" ad story today as "top news," they have yet to report on the NAACP ad. END Reprint of Media Reality Check
Perhaps the AP should re-read the 700 pages of the Cox Report, a bipartisan panel who found plenty of Chinese espionage on the Clinton-Gore watch. -- The New York Times also reported the
"Daisy" story this morning under the charged headline:
"Infamous Political Commercial Is Turned on Gore." Like the other
outlets, the Times has so far ignored the NAACP "Bush Dragged Him to
Death Again" ad. Reporter Leslie Wayne explored the little-known entity
behind the ad: But the Wayne story didn't get amusing until University of Pennsylvania professor and liberal pundit Kathleen Hall Jamieson arrived: "'It's an ad that is so inflammatory that it gets free news access,' she said. 'This is a heavy-handed ad. It lacks the subtlety of the original ad, it is not factually accurate and, if anything, it risks that the press coverage over it will produce a backlash against the Bush campaign.'" Yes, you read that correctly. She said "it lacks the subtlety of the original ad." What subtlety was that? Tony Schwartz, the retired advertising executive who made the original "Daisy" advertisement, commented for the Times on this new version: "This troubles me. They are a bunch of thieves. It's a perversion of my ad." The Times didn't get any comment from PBS omnipresence Bill Moyers, another promoter of the original LBJ ad.
To see the Mallard Fillmore
comic, go to where Jewish World Review has posted all the strips from this
week: Also, today's Washington Times and New York Post recounted the MRC's analysis of the saturation coverage of the RAND report while the same networks didn't find any news value in Gore's secret deal with Russia. The New York Post "MediaWatch" column, "A
Little Study, a Lot of Press," began: To read the rest, go to: For today's item in Greg Pierce's Washington Times
"Inside Politics" column, go to:
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Today's
Campaign 2000 Media Reality Check by Tim Graham distributed by fax this
afternoon and titled, "Networks Talk Ads, But Ignore the NAACP's: ABC,
CBS, NBC Air NARAL Ad for Gore; ABC, CBS Hit Ads Against Gore on Sharpton,
Chinagate."
CyberAlert
Bonus: Additional analysis of the "Daisy" ad which the MRC's Tim
Graham couldn't fit into the fax report: The Associated Press dismissed as
"unproven" the charge that China "dumped money into the 1996
campaign"; Kathleen Hall Jamieson, apparently serious, told the New York
Times: "It lacks the subtlety of the original ad."
A
breakthrough for the Media Research Center: Today we've made the comics page
in Bruce Tinsley's "Mallard Fillmore" distributed by King
Features. In today's comic, Al Gore on Air Force 2 says: "The Media
Research Center compiled data showing that the media go easy on me when I make
up 'facts' out of my head.