1. Rather Has Chutzpah to Tag FBI Problem as "Major Embarrassment" Takes an embarrassment to know one? Four days after the CBS panel report documented CBS's embarrassing lack of concern for basic journalistic standards in using forged memos to try to take down President Bush, and how Dan Rather hurled unsubstantiated accusations that those who realized CBS's duplicity were "partisan political operatives," Rather had the chutzpah on Thursday night to lead with what he described as "a major embarrassment for the FBI: An expensive new component of its war on terror doesn't work." CBS reporter Bob Orr soon echoed Rather... continue reading
1. ABC Treats No WMD in Iraq as Big New News, Re-Hash Bush Claims Leading with old news. On Wednesday night, CBS and NBC gave brief mention to how the Bush administration has officially ended the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but ABC and CNN treated the revelation as big news even though the lack of WMD in Iraq had been long acknowledged. Peter Jennings led World News Tonight with the subject and used it as a chance to regurgitate embarrassing assertions made by Bush and Cheney. Jennings trumpeted: "The Bush administration has given up the hunt... continue reading
1. NBC's Engel Admits He Rarely Reports on Heroics of U.S. Soldiers NBC's Richard Engel conceded on Tuesday's Today that he rarely gets to report on the heroics of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, but he did this one time because those heroics saved him. Recounting how the Army unit with whom he was traveling came under attack, Engel noted how a soldier "actually stepped right in front of me protecting me with his body and started to return fire at the insurgents. And I just remember thinking that this is one of the small acts of heroism, I think you... continue reading
1. Olbermann: CBS a Victim, FNC the Villain for Running Swift Ads MSNBC's Keith Olbermann insisted on Monday night that the case of Armstrong Williams taking money from the Bush administration combined with the CBS panel finding no political bias behind CBS's hit job on President Bush, discredits the idea of any liberal media bias. Olbermann also portrayed CBS as a victim compared to the perpetrators at FNC since CBS News "played within the journalistic rules" while "you're not going to see Fox News appointing an independent investigation into its own journalistic ethics or lack thereof" for running the Swift... continue reading
1. Iraq "Death Squads" Remind Couric of Innocents Killed in Salvador NBC's Today on Monday morning devoted a 7am half hour segment to a Newsweek Web story about how the U.S. is supposedly considering a "Salvador Option" for Iraq, what Newsweek and NBC's Katie Couric dubbed "death squads" to hunt down terrorists. Couric proposed to retired Army General Wayne Downing: "Is this a clear sign though that U.S. forces are losing the war with these insurgents?" Couric tried to impugn the policy idea by tarring it with what supposedly occurred in El Salvador in the 1980s: "In El Salvador many... continue reading
1. ABC and NBC Treat Ohio Vote Protest by Democrats as Credible Two network anchors treated as a noble and credible cause, not as an unworthy publicity gimmick without any factual basis, the move by a few far-left cranks in the House and Senate to object to the certification of the Electoral College vote in Ohio in favor of President George W. Bush. ABC's Peter Jennings noted that "the Democrats knew that it was a pretty ceremonial objection," but he stressed how they "regarded it as important." Brian Williams, from Singapore, teased Thursday's NBC Nightly News by assuming facts not... continue reading
1. Jennings Blames 9/11 Limits for Stinginess of "Muslim Charities" Peter Jennings: Blame America for the low level of Muslim donations for tsunami relief. On Tuesday, CNN's Octavia Nasr reported that "Arab countries are at the bottom of the list" of those pledging relief. She noted how "Saudi Arabia has pledged $30 million" and contrasted it with "the $155 million raised in 2002" in a "telethon on Saudi TV for families of Palestinian suicide bombers." A few hours later, on Tuesday's NBC Nightly News, Kerry Sanders pointed out how "there's a growing debate in the Arab world whether oil-rich nations... continue reading
1. ABC: Missed Chance to Show "Good Faith"; NBC: Bush "Fumbled" Last week and continuing this week the broadcast network morning shows have devoted time to making the case that the U.S. has been too stingy with aid for tsunami victims and that President Bush was too slow to express sympathy. On today's (Tuesday) Good Morning America, Diane Sawyer quizzed Colin Powell in Thailand: "There's all kinds of second guessing going on that America missed a great opportunity, particularly in an intensely Muslim area to show good faith in the beginning." When Powell touted how he was the first to... continue reading
1. Winning Quotes in MRC's Annual Awards for the Worst Reporting The winning quotes in the MRC's "Best Notable Quotables of 2004: The Seventeenth Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting." 2. List of the 43 Judges Who Selected the Winning Quotes A list of the 43 judges who evaluated the quotes in 18 award categories. Winning Quotes in MRC's Annual Awards for the Worst Reporting The winning quotes in the MRC's "Best Notable Quotables of 2004: The Seventeenth Annual Awards for the Year's Worst Reporting." The annual awards issue provides a compilation of the most outrageous and/or humorous news... continue reading
1. Truth Trickles Out: Unit Cited in Question to Rumsfeld Had Armor The truth trickles out. "It now appears that the premise of the question that caused an uproar around Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was, so to speak, off base," FNC's Brit Hume noted Tuesday night in reminding viewers how two weeks ago National Guardsman "Thomas Wilson said to Rumsfeld, quote, 'our vehicles are not armored, we do not have proper armament vehicles to carry with us north,' into Iraq." But, Hume relayed, "according to senior Army officers, about 800 of the 830 vehicles in Wilson's Army regiment, the... continue reading