Posted on 03/27/2005 2:53:52 AM PST by MisterRepublican
When Dan Rather used fake memos to smear President Bush, bloggers blew the whistle and the rest of the media recognized a journalistic scandal. But coverage of the dubious “GOP Talking Points” memo on the Schiavo case has been far different.
Perhaps realizing that another phony document scandal could totally sink the credibility of the so-called mainstream media, there is great reluctance to admit that journalists from ABC News, the Washington Post, CBS News and other news organizations were taken in again, and that the Democrats played a dirty trick on the Republicans in a matter of life and death.
The significance of the memo cannot be underestimated. It surfaced at a time when Democrats were on the defensive about what to do in the Schiavo case. Would they allow a federal review of the case, as is routinely done for convicted killers facing the death penalty?
What better way was there to turn the table on the Republicans than by charging that they really didn’t care about Terri Schiavo but only wanted to fire up their conservative pro-life base? The “GOP Talking Points” memo fit the bill perfectly. It called the case “a great political issue” for the Republicans.
However, a week after it first surfaced in an ABC News report by Linda Douglass, there is no evidence that Republicans or their leaders wrote or distributed it. In fact, the only direct evidence suggests otherwise. The New York Times says that Democratic aides had “passed out” the controversial memo “that they said had been distributed to Senate Republicans.” So Democrats were passing out a memo that “they said” had been distributed by Republicans. How convenient.
(Excerpt) Read more at mensnewsdaily.com ...
ABC WEBSITE RIGHT NOW
Reading this item you would have no idea there is any doubt about authenticity.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Schiavo/story?id=600937
GOP Talking Points on Terri Schiavo
Memo, Obtained by ABC News, Was Circulated Among Senate Republicans
Mar. 21, 2005 - The following memo listing talking points on the Terri Schiavo case was circulated among Republican senators on the floor of the Senate.
This is an exact, full copy of the document obtained exclusively by ABC News and first reported Friday, March 18, 2005, by Linda Douglass on "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings."
S. 529, The Incapacitated Person's Legal Protection Act
Teri (sic) Schiavo is subject to an order that her feeding tubes will be disconnected on March 18, 2005 at 1p.m.
The Senate needs to act this week, before the Budget Act is pending business, or Terri's family will not have a remedy in federal court.
This is an important moral issue and the pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue.
This is a great political issue, because Senator Nelson of Florida has already refused to become a cosponsor and this is a tough issue for Democrats.
The bill is very limited and defines custody as "those parties authorized or directed by a court order to withdraw or withhold food, fluids, or medical treatment."
There is an exemption for a proceeding "which no party disputes, and the court finds, that the incapacitated person while having capacity, had executed a written advance directive valid under applicably law that clearly authorized the withholding or or (sic) withdrawl (sic) of food and fluids or medical treatment in the applicable circumstances."
Incapacitated persons are defined as those "presently incapable of making relevant decisions concerning the provision, withholding or withdrawl (sic) of food fluids or medical treatment under applicable state law."
This legislation ensures that individuals like Terri Schiavo are guaranteed the same legal protections as convicted murderers like Ted Bundy.
Nobody putting this story out was as famous as Rather and it is not an exclusive story.
The powerline guys have been on this for the last 4 or 5 days....
ping
sink the credibility of the so-called mainstream media ........ ping
Howard Kurtz is just another lying, sleazy *ss. He has been for decades. He's just another complicit tool. These people, when they die, deserve a special place in hell for lying about such a thing.
More of the same from the liberal/socialist/old media, America's most evil and destructive enemy!
"Their obvious problem in this case is that too many journalists fell for it. If there were just one or two offenders, it would be relatively easy for the rest of the media to expose their transgressions and throw them over the side. An additional problem is that this controversy comes much too soon after the original CBS Memogate scandal. If they admit that this document is fake, it will mean that the major media didn’t learn any lessons at all, and that the abysmal standards at CBS News are common in the journalism business."
Cliff Kincaid
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Ah, yep. :)
bump
. . .
Their obvious problem in this case is that too many journalists fell for it. If there were just one or two offenders, it would be relatively easy for the rest of the media to expose their transgressions and throw them over the side. An additional problem is that this controversy comes much too soon after the original CBS Memogate scandal. If they admit that this document is fake, it will mean that the major media didn’t learn any lessons at all, and that the abysmal standards at CBS News are common in the journalism business.
When exactly did "the rest of the media recognized a journalistic scandal"?
When was CBS forced to say, in so many words, that the memos were frauds?What journalist has ever been forced to retract a story that harmed Republicans? Janet Cooke, maybe. The New York Times still boasts of a Pulitzer Prize it won by publishing Stalin's disinformation denying the fact that the Soviets had intentionally caused starvation in the Ukraine!
Big Journalism coheres as an Establishment around the go-along-and-get-along principle. The principle that the objectivity of the members of that Establishment is never to be questioned. If bias is about to be proven, the subject is instantly changed.
bump.
If bias is about to be proven, the subject is instantly changed.
Correct.
Furthermore, they report (distort)
to please one another. Media are
largely a chorus or an echo chamber.
Media bias bump.
More proof, if any is needed, that the MSM is the propaganda wing of the democrat party.
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