1. ABC and NBC See Celebrating Iraqis in Baghdad, CBS Not So Sure Reporters in Baghdad for ABC and NBC believed the firing off of guns in the capital city reflected happiness over news of the deaths of Saddam Hussein's sons at the hands of U.S. soldiers, but CBS's Byron Pitts wasn't so sure. "It rained bullets in Baghdad as the city celebrated," asserted ABC's Jeffrey Kofman. NBC's Tom Aspell found: "Gunfire in Baghdad tonight -- celebration as word spread that Saddam Hussein's two sons are dead." But Pitts expressed confusion over whether he was witnessing "shots of anger or... continue reading
1. CBS "Exclusive" Features Iraqi Men Who Are Killing U.S. Soldiers File under "Journalist First, American Second." Monday's CBS Evening News featured an "exclusive" report from David Hawkins in Iraq where, at an undisclosed location with their weapons on display, he talked to several disguised men who are actively hunting down and killing U.S. servicemen. Hawkins relayed how the enemy operatives maintained "they're not doing it for love of Saddam -- but instead for God and their country." 2. Half of NBC's Newscast on Bush "Under Fire," "Smearing" Critic Bad News NBC, part one. NBC Nightly News on Monday evening... continue reading
1. Snow Wonders Why Democrat Didn't Doubt Bush Claim When Said Best Question of the Weekend, Fox News Sunday host Tony Snow to Senator Jay Rockefeller, Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee after Rockefeller complained about President Bush's supposedly false statements in the State of the Union address: "You received the National Intelligence Estimate back in October, correct? So you read it. When the State of the Union address came out why didn't you say, 'wait a minute, they can't say this. Haven't they read the sentence here by the State Department?'" 2. Clift and Brown Suggest David Kelly... continue reading
1. CNN Relays How Republican Troops Won't Vote Republican Again Troops who are "life-long Republicans" are so upset by their continued deployment in Iraq, CNN's NewsNight with Aaron Brown relayed on Thursday night, that they promise "they will not vote for a Republican" again "as long as Rumsfeld is the Secretary of Defense." 2. ABC Loves Clip of Soldier Demanding Rumsfeld's Resignation ABC's favorite soundbite: "If Donald Rumsfeld was here, I'd ask him for his resignation." World News Tonight featured, in a story by Jeffrey Kofman on Tuesday's World News Tonight, the blast from an Army soldier in Iraq. World... continue reading
1. Jennings Rues Discipline for Troops Who Blast Mission, Rumsfeld Highlighting the negative reaction of the brass to a few soldiers in Iraq trashing their mission and the Secretary of Defense in stories aired by ABC, Wednesday's World News Tonight re-ran the most strident blasts before anchor Peter Jennings asserted, "We were reminded today of a common refrain from drill sergeants to their troops: 'We are here to defend democracy, not to practice it.'" GMA and World News Tonight featured supportive comments from the spouses of the soldiers. 2. Matt Lauer Cues Up and Reads Aloud John Kerry's Talking Points... continue reading
1. Bush for Hurricanes, Claudette Bumps Iraq from Lead News Spot Hurricanes for Bush, or more like Bush for Hurricanes. Hurricane Claudette managed to do what all of the President's spinners could not: Knock "Credibility-Gate" out of the lead spot on the Tuesday morning and evening broadcast network newscasts. 2. ABC Features Soldiers in Iraq Lashing Out at Army and Rumsfeld Hurricane Claudette only bought Bush a few minutes of a reprieve on Tuesday's World News Tonight. Right after teasing Claudette news, Peter Jennings previewed other upcoming stories: "In Iraq, American soldiers lash out at the Bush administration, angry and... continue reading
1. Brown Skips Own Error, Scorns Bush's Clinton-Like Word Parsing On his first night back since falsely impugning President Bush, by highlighting an already-revealed fraudulent Web site report about how a CIA consultant claimed to have informed Bush about the falsity of the report about Iraq seeking uranium from Africa, CNN anchor Aaron Brown failed to offer a correction. Instead, he lectured Bush about truthfulness and credibility: "The President campaigned for the job in part on the notion that he was the anti-Clinton, a man who said what he meant, meant what he said, no sentence parsing needed. Square that... continue reading
1. "Daily Drumbeat of Media Questions" Aiding Democratic Candidates Democratic presidential candidates may be attacking President Bush's credibility over the single sentence in his State of the Union address, but they are being aided by the media which are turning it into a summer scandal. CBS anchor John Roberts referred to the "swirl of controversy," but in a self-fulfilling statement, he argued that "the issue refuses to go away." Yet as ABC News Political Director Mark Helperin suggested, the media are enabling the Democratic presidential candidates: "Why are the Democrats now directly going after Mr. Bush in the very area... continue reading
1. NY Times Replaces One Liberal Executive Editor with Another One NY Times Replaces One Liberal Executive Editor with Another One This morning, New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. announced that he'd picked Bill Keller, the Times' former Managing Editor and foreign editor, to replace Howell Raines as Executive Editor. Raines was forced to resign in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal. For the past couple of years Keller has penned a column every other Saturday for the Times' op-ed page. Reviewing them, Clay Waters, Editor of the MRC's TimesWatch.org page, discovered that "when it comes to Bush's... continue reading
1. "Bush Knew Iraq Info Was False," CBSNews.com Distorts Story Exaggerating its own story. "Bush Knew Iraq Info Was False," declared the headline over a posting on the CBSNews.com Web site and John Roberts opened Thursday's CBS Evening News by announcing: "President Bush's false claim about Iraqi weapons. He made it despite a CIA warning the intelligence was bad." In fact, in the actual story CBS's David Martin reported something far short of the "Bush knew" summary or that the CIA said "the intelligence was bad." 2. After Two Days in Baghdad, NBC's Aspell Sees "Easy" Solution NBC's instant expert... continue reading