Today Show: RW Campaign central

[linazelle]

Katie interviewed Howard Fineman, Newsweek editor and "NBC Analyst" (read: propogandist). Fineman was all to happy to appear on the show right after the DNC and blast the convention calling it a pageant as lying accomplice Campbell Brown wondered how Kerry got no bounce when the convention was aired around the clock. :eyes:

Fineman says Bush's clarity of message is the reason Bush has beat out Kerry in the polls. Fineman says Kerry chose the military issue. Katie complains that it's been weeks of talk about military records and it's getting old. Fineman says the issue is fueled by 527 groups like the Swiftboat vets and the Texans for truth adding Kerry "chose" the war issue to his detriment. No mention of the fact that as far back as March Kerry was criticized for throwing away medals, and all sort of other nonsense. Fineman got in a jab about Kerry being for the Vietnam war and against it and in the same sentence says people understand that it's OK for Bush to have been irresponsible then because everybody was.

Finally Katie asks a leading question as to whether the newly released documents about Bush's service will hurt Bush. "A little bit" says Fineman.

There is so much wrong with the "interview" that I can't even address it all. The bottom line is it was just a setup to repeat RW talking points and bolster the perception that Bush is ahead in the opinion polls.


As it if that weren't enough, Matt interviewed Ron Insana for the hurricane season's impact on the national economy. Matt talks about the insurance industry paying out billions in premiums, lumber for the boarding of homes, as drains on the national economy in the short term--read: blame Bush's economy on the same hurricanes that occur every year. :eyes:


Then Matt interviews Kitty Kelley with a vengeance. I am all for tough journalism mind you. All journalists should ferret out the truth and let the people decide. Matt's toughness had little to do with truth though, and the bias, when he fails to do the same thing with the other side, is a serious problem.

Matt seemed personally angered and enraged by the book. He hardly let Kelley answer some questions before attacking with sources and refutations.

Matt asked about Bush's service and drug use during the national guard. When Kelley stated that the White House has still not released all of *'s records--especially the medical records, Matt cut her off.

When questioning her about daddy Bush's lies about troops estimations, Matt wouldn't allow Kelley to answer. He read disclaimers from Bandar Bush's aide instead.

Then Matt attacked the book as negative saying nothing in 600 pages is positive. His body language is aggressive as he reaches for the book and shoves the manuscript at Kelley after telling her twenty two pages excerpted by the publisher are negative. To her credit, Kelley holds her own seeming amused at Matt's crazed behavior.


I know NBC doesn't give a damn what anybody here thinks but I am drafting a letter all the same. Instead of asking "Where in the World is Matt Lauer", I'm wondering "who in the world is Matt Lauer." Matt's been pretty even keeled IMHO but he lost all credibility with this interview.

Fuck the Today Show and fuck Matt Lauer.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

1. Good Morning America isn't this bad!!! Maybe we should protest...

in front of their studio!!! THE TODAY SHOW is Hitleresque! :grr:

Maybe Katie's husband didn't have Cancer. :shrug:
Maybe he decided to end it all realizing what a Putz Katie is.

:shrug:

:puke:

[PeaceProgProsp]

2. I'm reading The Pinochet Files and it's sad but not surprising...

...that so many of the things the CIA did to undermine a government the citizens seemed pretty happy about getting sound so familiar.

The lies they had the press to tell to turn people against Allende sound like they're describing a typical day in the America press.

Either the CIA is paying off a lot of American media execs, or the media execs understand the fascist project so well they don't need anyone in the government to pay them to behave that way.

[linazelle]

9. Something is very wrong...I've never seen things so bad

There is a total breakdown of information--the truth is out to pasture and nobody's trying to find out where it is. Unless this changes I really believe we are doomed as a country.

[PeaceProgProsp]

10. That's actually the lesson from the Chile bull shit

NOBODY thought subverting democracy in Chile was a good idea and it wasn't because of morality.

People were happy with the outcome of the election, Fries believed more in the constitution than in the center-right's right to rule, and there were only two paid CIA informants in a military which also respected the constitution. Not even the extremists in the CIA or the state dempartment thought it was a good idea.

The ONLY people who wanted a coup were ITT, Kissinger, Nixon and the very few very large and wealthy corporations whose interests they represented.

A big reason the country got SO fucked up was because of the extent the republicans in the US went to create something that didn't exist--something that was only driven by money, and not by logic or will or force of argument.

The same thing is going on in the US. The media is representing the interests of such a small, wealthy cadre that it is forcing a situation that just cannot exist for long which can produce no good at all, not even for the ultra-wealthy who think they are benefitting from it.

It can only create chaos.

If Bush wins again, it will be chaos, because his tenuous existence requires so many balls in the air at once, it's impossible to sustain.

[0007]

19. Yes, and Kissinger was right in the middle, giving orders to the death

squad.

Doesn't big corporation own the media? Doesn't Chile have natural resources that we covet. In the name of Christianity we do the best we can for the almighty dollar. democracy.

Gotta get them goddamn commies, 'eh? I kind of surprised that Henry Kissinger isn't printed on our money, as John Negroponte is the over-lord in Iraq.

[goclark]

3. Huuum ,maybe Matt on Cocaine Overdrive

It is "compelling" to me that he is so hyper about all this, what is he trying to prove?

Did someone check his nose lately??

Maybe he is so personally involved in this story because he and Georgie did some lines together.

One never knows -does one!

[linazelle]

5. Matt's getting some kind of perks from NBC lately...who knows what those

could be? I'm just sayin'...:shrug:

[TheDebbieDee]

4. You should have seen the interview.............

he did with Michael Moore just before the premiere of F9-11. It was disgraceful. He might as well have attacked MM with a hatchet.

But to give credit to MM, he seemed emotionally well-prepared for the hostility he faced. I haven't seen any Kitty Kelley interviews but I assume that she is also well-prepared.

[linazelle]

6. Kelley was extremely well prepared. She took Matt down a peg on

a few points but he just hurried on to the next attack, never engaging her or digging deeper for more information when she did hit paydirt.

[GCP]

7. Lauer lost all credibility today

I've never seen such a display of petulance and rudeness to an interviewee other than on the Fox network.
This is the e-mail I sent to the Today Show - not that I fool myself that it would be read out on the air:

Matt Lauer completely stepped over the line of courteous discourse in his first two interviews with Kitty Kelley. I have never seen such a display of rudeness and nastiness toward an interviewee on a main-stream network. I'm amazed that Ms Kelley kept her cool and her sense of humor - I, personally, would have walked out on the interview. Maybe that was Lauer's aim.
I will make it a point never to watch "The Today Show" again. Charie Gibson and Diana Sawyer have much more class.
Yours in dismay,
Yada yada

[linazelle]

8. You know he's supposed to read Kelley all the nasty emails tomorrow

I think we need to make sure they have a choice of emails to choose from--of course, I don't expect miracles but at least yours and mine will be in the pool. I hope others will send emails too.

[cthrumatrix]

11. they will be emails from rove

[suegeo]

22. You're never gonna watch the Today show again?!

But how will you know what Katie and Matt dress up as on Halloween?
Where will you get cookie recipes from?
How will you know the best make-up tips for aging women?
Don't you want to know all the hot Christmas gift tips this season?


I just know I wouldn't be able to exist without all the wonderful, informative news that the Today show journalists pump out.

/sarcasm

We know they are right-wing, government tools. They know they are right-wing government/corporate tools.
They know we know, and vice versa.

The media is the enemy.

[Booster]

12. I emailed them and told them that any

credibility Matt may have thought he had before went right out the window when he said he never golfed with Bush I and there are pictures all over the internet showing him doing just that. I called them Fox In The Morning, and that I would be switching to Charlie and Diane after Matt's 2 interviews with Michael Moore and Kitty Kelley. Screw em; Matt really isn't all that talented anyway. He certainly doesn't know how to interview and I don't think he can sing.

[goclark]

14. He sings Soprano -LOL

[linazelle]

13. My email to "[e-mail]" (send yours too)

While I'm all for tough journalism and ferreting out the the truth, it seems that you only do it when you want to defend the political right wing at NBC.

Matt Lauer went overboard in his interview with Kitty Kelley. He barely let her answer questions he did not agree with. He glossed over those questions which he should have delved into further in order to refute her at every opportunity with a script of characters all with blatant conflicts of interest with BushCo. The White House press secretary and Bandar Bush's press aide don't make for very credible sources--but then Matt and NBC don't seem to give a hoot about credibility or even the truth.

Matt Lauer literally shoved the transcript at Kelley near the end of the interview and discourteously ended the interview without mentioning Kelley's name and in a threatening tone, promised to share emails and letters with Kelley on Wednesday.

If Matt gets that worked up during an interview, then maybe he is not the right person for the job. His hostility at Kelley for not mentioning positives is akin to BushCo's idiocy about not finding the good in Iraq--where more than 1,000 soldiers have died for reasons other than those given for taking this country to war. The issues at hand here are too important to propogandize and if Matt's incestuous golfing with Rush Limbaugh has resulted in his over the top bias, just remember integrity is also a large part of journalism. Where is NBC's integrity? Where is Matt Lauer's integrity?

Whatever the case, Matt Lauer is not the person I have known and respected for more than ten years. He has sold out, like most of the media and it not worthy of the pay he is given to lie and slant the truth.

Lynn A. Zelle, Former Today Show fan

[Booster]

15. Ouch! Maybe I should do another one, more like yours.

[linazelle]

16. It wouldn't hurt....LOL

We need to blast them with emails.

[linazelle]

17. Well, are you going to send enails? n/t

[phylny]

18. I sent two e-mails to the Today Show

This one on Monday:

I just saw Lauer's biased interview with Kitty Kelley. Nice try, Matt, but it was obvious to me how biased you were in favor of the White House. It looked like you could barely control your outrage that someone would actually discredit a Republican president.

I'll ask, Matt - who are YOU voting for in November?

Were you this aggressive toward the Swift Boat Liars for Distortion?

Didn't think so.

====================

and this one yesterday:

Did Matt Lauer actually READ Kitty Kelley's book? It doesn't appear to me that he did after his interview today.

It is kind of funny, though, that Kitty Kelley is the one who came across as having done her homework.

At one point in the attack, I mean "interview," Matt quoted from an article and then asked Ms. Kelly if she'd read the article. Her answer was that it was in the appendix of the book. Why didn't Matt know this?

Later in the attack, um, "interview," he bemoaned the fact that there was nothing positive in the book. When Ms. Kelly gave him positive examples, and Lauer said they weren't in the publishers summary sent to him.

Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. Almost as sloppy as Republican "intelligence."

I'm through with your show. I'll never watch it again.

==================

Do you suppose Matt is gonna read any positive e-mail to Kitty? Any negative e-mail he's gotten? I'm not watching, so I'll never know - but I can sure make an educated guess.

:puke:

[qanda]

20. Those were very good points about him not reading the book

I honestly think he just read the notes sent from the publisher. Because when she gave him specific questions, he immediately turned to the notes. America has some of the laziest journalists in the world.

[Dawgs]

21. Fuck them...

I am so sick of the "Kerry started the military issue". Does that mean that Bush and his cronies can smear Kerry's military record. Does he deserve it.

When the swift boat people came out with this stuff, Kerry was the ONLY one trying to get people to talk about current issues. Now that Bush is being attacked the press is tired of talking about it. Well tough shit, we are pissed and we ain't going away.

[prolesunited]

23. Connect the dots

NBC is owned by General Electric, who has had millions of dollars in environmental clean-up fines reduced and profits greatly from the military-industrial complex.

General Electric is one of the world’s top three producers of jet engines, supplying Boeing, Lockheed Martin and other military aircraft makers for the powering of airplanes and helicopters. 
<snip>

The “war on terrorism” has seen GE’s military contracts rise substantially.  But the company’s “defense” side has been doing well for a while.
General Electric is currently attempting to overturn the US Superfund Law of 1980, which allows the government to hold polluters responsible for cleaning up their toxic chemicals. GE argues that it is “unconstitutional” for the Environmental Protection Agency to force the company to pay $500 million for the cleanup of the Hudson River, where GE dumped carcinogenic PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, over three decades. In March 2004, a federal appeals court has revived GE’s lawsuit. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that GE is trying to change the Superfund Law: the company is responsible for 78 Superfund sites around the US. 
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?list=type&type=16

Now tell me exactly why or how that they would remain unbiased? Their "news" definitely has an agenda.


http://www.makethemaccountable.com/coverup/Part_04.htm
http://www.rolls-royce.com/media/showPR.jsp?PR_ID=40109

[linazelle]

24. Very informative post...I knew they were biased, I didn't know

all of the info you provided.

[linazelle]

25. Very informative post...I knew they were biased

but did not totally understand why. Thanks for educating us all with the info you provided.