CNN working against Kerry.......(Media Matters)

[Joanne98]

The video CNN won't show you: Media ignores Ben Barnes, while lavishing attention on Swift Boat liars
While CNN and other media outlets continue to give invaluable free coverage to the discredited liars attacking Senator John Kerry's Vietnam record, they continue to ignore President George W. Bush's own Vietnam-era record.

On August 25, a Media Matters for America analysis found that in 2004, Bush's Alabama National Guard record (or lack thereof) had come up in only 752 news reports available on Nexis. By comparison, 1,924 reports discussed Kerry and swift boat veterans.

The disparity in coverage has only grown: From January 1, 2004, to September 3, 2004, 4,199 reports have mentioned Kerry and swift boat veterans; only 803 reports have mentioned Bush and the Alabama National Guard.

This growing disparity in coverage comes despite the fact that, last week, a video surfaced showing former Texas Speaker of the House Ben Barnes admitting he got Bush into the National Guard. The Barnes video was virtually ignored by the broadcast media; according to a search of the LexisNexis database, from the time the video surfaced a week ago through September 2, CNN had mentioned Barnes six times but only once aired a few seconds of the video. CBS had mentioned Barnes three times; FOX had mentioned him only once; and ABC, CNBC, MSNBC, and NBC had all completely ignored him. A search of the LexisNexis "All News" directory for Ben Barnes and Bush yields only 65 hits for the period August 27 to September 2 -- less than one-tenth the hits for Kerry and the swift boat vets during the same period.


http://mediamatters.org/items/200409030013

[newsguyatl]

1. brock's right

NO ONE internally at CNN wants to do this story.

[Julien Sorel]

2. The question is why.

[newsguyatl]

4. because there're a lot of

idiots at the top, running the show.

[Julien Sorel]

7. Even idiots make arguments.

What are they?

[newsguyatl]

9. there IS no "saying"

there's only DOING, and in this case, NOT doing.

while cnn has its share of liberal reporters, producers and writers, a lot of folks at the top there are extremely conservative -- and in the end, that's what matters, because they rule from the top down.

[mzmolly]

12. What can the public do about this newsguy? Suggestions?

:shrug:

Do we shame CNN by sending this story all over?

[newsguyatl]

15. i don't really have a definitive answer

i CAN tell you though, that CONSTANT pressure on cnn by its viewers can have an impact. it's got to be constant though, demanding FAIR coverage.

also, much like what brock's doing will help. holding their feet to the fire, pointing out where they've done wrong, praising when they've done right.

it's my hope that some of the rightwing morons at the top there (you know who you are) will soon be exposed.

[PA Democrat]

11. Can WE exert some pressure?

Demand fair play? Would a massive email and call-in campaign make any type of impression, or is all about the execs own political agenda?

[cthrumatrix]

21. it's called corporatism ... it runs america..it runs politcs... they have

a puppet who will do thier bidding... they like it so they promote the idiot.

[ibegurpard]

5. Are you in a position to say definitively why?

?

[Joanne98]

3. Now we know why the Time poll was so off

The "librul" media is Goreing Kerry. Something we already knew.......

[Scairp]

6. He didn't mention the ad

They were running the second pack of lies from the Smear boat liars during the RNC convention. Of course they are working against him; the media as a whole is working against him just as they did Gore four years ago. This is nothing new. I don't know why anyone, especially Brock, is the least bit surprised.

[NRaleighLiberal]

8. This is just one example of some really smelly stuff going on.....

Has there ever been a more blatant example of media control in our history? I would suspect someone digging in the right place would find the hand of * misadministration behind this...if not illegal, it is certainly immoral - and yes, unpatriotic!

By the way, - where has Colin Powell been hiding - or being hidden????

[Minimus]

14. media is nothing but whores for $

gone are the days of investigative reporters. now we have overpaid teleprompter readers. most media outlets are owned by the big conglomerates and are interested in one thing - making money.

[brainoverload]

22. media robots

I never really bought into the idea of media "whores". For that matter, I never bought into the idea of media robots until I spent the last week in NYC.

As I was watching a local network affiliate I was transfixed when the anchor announced a story, the story aired, and the anchor announced the same story again.

...........dead time............ the anchor reassured us that the video was only temporarily unavailable and cheerfully read the text for the next story. The f-ing announcer was oblivious to the fact that the story she previously announced had just aired and nobody in the studio bothered to clue her in!!

All this time I spend wondering why the public is so uninformed is wasted.

[Shopaholic]

29. And NYC is the number one media market in the country!

The place where the "best" are supposed to work. Does that not tell you something? Jesus, this entire country is really style over substance. I don't know which is worse--the fact that we've got an idiot in WH or we've got a country full of people who are more interested in voting for the next American Idol than they are voting for the next American president.

[girl gone mad]

26. They're still around..

they've just found a new home on the internet.

You've got to hit the media whores where it hurts. Stop watching and e-mail them AND their advertisers to let them know why you've stopped watching.

[LisaM]

10. But won't the Barnes video be shown on CBS (or won't he be on?)

In which case, next week (after Labor Day is over) the Barnes blitz can begin. Who wants it buried in all the stories going on today anyway? Friday, holiday weekend, the Zelltdown, Ahnold's lies, and the horrible situation in Russia are plenty to occupy the news. I'd prefer to see this break when there is a little more space for it to take up.

[Joanne98]

13. Zell Miller and the "Dean scream"

Writer Joshua Micah Marshall, meanwhile, made an excellent point, referring to the relentless media coverage of Howard Dean's speech the night of the Iowa caucus:

After all the grief Howard Dean got way back when, I'll be watching to see how much follow-on there will be after Miller went from delivering that speech to going on Chris Matthews' show and challenges him to a duel.

Wall-to-wall media coverage of Dean's speech led to a summer of media references to Dean and Democrats being "unhinged," "insane," and in danger of a "meltdown."

Will Zell Miller and the Republicans get the same treatment?

And now that Republicans are trying to disassociate themselves from Miller's intemperate remarks by saying he spoke only for himself, will the media accept this spin -- or will the media point out that Miller was chosen to give the keynote address at the Republican National Convention, where he spoke at the request and pleasure of President George W. Bush and the Republican Party leadership? Will the media point out that the GOP read and approved Miller's speech in advance?

WHERE'S THE 3000 REPLAYS OF MILLER FOAMING AT THE MOUTH? If Kerry fights back will he be treated like an angry, out-of-control "librul"?

[flordehinojos]

16. did anyone catch the tail end of judy woodruff's inside politics today?

when the camera came back from break it caught judy unawares and apparently gossiping with tucker carlson, in a most unprofessional manner,about what mary beth cahill's response to judy's pointing out this new poll which has bush in 12 point lead was... she knew she was caught because she told the camera man 'you caught us talking' or something like that. if ever anyone wanted to give woodruff the benefit of the doubt regarding her professionalism, that moment in which she was caught off-guard, gossiping with tucker carlson ought to be the moment of truth that judy is not professional, she is not objective, and she uses her program to push for the bush.

[mbali]

18. Here's the transcript

WOODRUFF: ... the polls is -- She said there may be problems with that poll. There's another poll out today that has them even. I don't know what it is.

That's it for INSIDE POLITICS. You picked up on our conversation.

[DeepModem Mom]

17. kick

[Dem2theMax]

19. Remember what happened with Letterman and CNN.

The White House is controlling the media. We all know that.
Heck, Jon Stewart tried like crazy to get Tweety to admit to that on his show Friday night. And I thought that it looked like Tweety just about slipped up and agreed with Jon.

About a month ago (I'm guessing) I was reading stories that Michael Moore had written on his site. In one of them, he mentioned something that had happened to him recently. He was being interviewed on a show, and during the commercial break, a reporter admitted to him that the White House put pressure on them. The reporter (Michael did not name him/her in the story, but it came across that he/she was BIG in media) said that when the WH didn't like the TONE of his voice during a story that had something to do with *, they contacted higher up's in his company and the next thing you know, he's getting a memo to change the tone of his voice when talking about *. I was flabbergasted that the WH would even try to control the 'tone' of someone's voice, let alone the content, like they did with CNN and their story of the Letterman show.

I am far beyond brain dead right now to go look for the link for the story on MM's site, but it is there, I promise you. I'll try to find it in the morning after I've had some sleep. :)

[Ruffhowse]

20. That's exactly what happened when that Irish female reporter, who

interviewed Bush in Ireland earlier this year, grilled Bush too hard during a one on one interview. She got called on the carpet by her higher ups due to pressure from the White House that her "tone" was not respectful enough. Then they cancelled her scheduled interview of Laura "pickles" Bush.

[In Truth We Trust]

23. With respect to this critical threat to democracy, what.........

redress do citizens have in reference to broadcast licensing? Does anyone at DU know how the law can be used to the true public interest and allow for license revocation?!?!

[abrock]

24. Hey now.

I hate Bush as much as anyone on this forum, but i saw that interview myself and the associated (and completely WRONG) left wing rants about it. The reporter WAS out of line, she WAS combative, and she did NOT bring up many good points. She was goading Bush and constasntly interrupted him but never actually asked anything of substance.

To square things, Bush didn't actually say anything of substance, either.

[Hard Attack]

25. CNN Wants Fox News' Audience

CNN is tired of being a distant second place. From the looks of things, the small fraction of people watching Cable News are Bush Supporters and CNN is trying to get them over to their network.

How do you do that? Well you go after Kerry and not Expose stories against Bush, simple.

And forget about MSNBC, their parent company, (General Electric) are making it on the top end with rebuilding contracts, supplies to Iraq. So they are sacrificing their News Networks to make the public not be aware of whats really going on in order to maintain the War Contracts.
Kind of like giving away the coffee but making it up on the food.

Maybe we can get the Weather Channel to start reporting Real News being that all the networks have turned into 24 hour weather channels.

http://www.hardnewsnow.com/Weather_Channel_Commentary.html

[NewJeffCT]

28. that ain't happening

Freeper types still call CNN the Clinton News Network and think it's all liberal.

No wonder they have no audience - Conservatives mistakenly think CNN is liberal or moderate, while informed liberals KNOW CNN is RW propaganda.

[depakid]

27. Gotta buy the time

expecting the corporate media to cover ANYTHING that might show Bush (or any other Republican) in their true colors is naive. Hell, sometimes you can't even buy the time- as The nation found out with fox or as moveon found out with CBS.