Free Republic

I probably won't really do it, but I'm so sick of all this eco-propaganda that it's tempting. There's Al Gore running for election. It's Earth Day and even the ads in the paper are environmentally friendly. (Of course, they are PRINTED on newsprint and killing trees, but let's not be picky.) Sorry, had to vent.

Trade Secrets: ‘Lou Dobbs Tonight’ Hides Good News Behind Negative View of Free Market CNN promotes “Lou Dobbs Tonight” as “news, debate and opinion.” But it doesn’t explain that Dobbs defines those words his own unique way. “News” is often economic distortions presented as fact. “Debate” doesn’t always mean that both sides get to comment. And, for Dobbs, opinion is something injected into every aspect of a news report. Dobbs heads an hour-long news and “business” show that assaults business, rails against free trade and relies on union members to paint a dreary economic picture. Yet the network that advertises...

Media’s bad news bears deliver negative news 62 percent of the time despite economic expansion.* Economic news heavily negative: Coverage of economic news on the three broadcast networks was negative 62 percent of the time, despite ongoing good news of more jobs, low unemployment and economic growth. * Good news undermined: Even when good news made it to viewers, journalists undermined it with bad news 45 percent of the time. * Negative stories given more air time: Good news stories were relegated to briefs roughly two thirds of the time. Negative news received longer stories and outnumbered positive stories by...

When do journalists repeatedly cover something that the medical community agrees is bogus? When the man behind those claims is named Kennedy. CBS added itself to the list of media outlets that have given coverage to a discredited claim linking a preservative that contains mercury, thimerosal, in children’s vaccines to autism. As a result, it gave a left-wing “environmentalist” a chance to further his hidden global warming agenda on national television. On CBS’s “Evening News” on July 14, 2005, anchor Bob Schieffer called the link between autism and mercury a “controversy,” even though he said medical experts did not believe...

The Live 8 concerts were tuned to a rare collaboration of politics and music. Organizer and rock star Bob Geldof used the July 2, 2005, event to pressure wealthy nations into increasing foreign aid to Africa. The international performance left the TV media seeing stars and unable to report on Live 8 as anything other than a “good cause.” News people awed by celebrities delivered one-sided accounts about African poverty that were light on facts and heavy on promotion. Even after the event, journalists carried this skewed outlook to the G-8 conference harping on America’s “low” foreign aid and criticizing...

Consumers are confident that the economy is doing well, better than any time in three years, but ABC and NBC didn’t think enough of that June 28, 2005, news to even report it. For ABC, this is part of an ongoing trend of focusing on negative economic news. In the three years covered by the latest consumer confidence report, ABC has covered negative numbers twice as often as positive. ABC had no trouble detailing the downside of the economic outlook with a lengthy list of adjectives, describing consumer confidence as: “waning,” “falling,” “taken a hit,” “dropping,” “spiraling down,” “way down,”...

In the race for emissions regulation, journalists are in the lead. CNN and USA Today have already declared the global warming debate over, and they’re not alone. Media coverage leading up to the G-8 Summit, beginning July 6, has been based on the assumptions that human-caused global warming is occurring and it must be curbed. The Group of Eight major economic powers meets annually to discuss global issues and map out plans for the year. The United Kingdom took the rotating presidency of the G8 in January 2005, and Prime Minister Tony Blair has said Africa and climate change are...

Claims public ‘doesn’t support private accounts,’ but facts show otherwise. Even as President Bush endorsed a new Social Security plan that didn’t focus on personal accounts, poor coverage of the reform issue continued. This time, it was CNN’s Ed Henry claiming that people don’t support personal accounts even though that isn’t the case. According to Henry, on the June 21, 2005, “Inside Politics,” “We see polls across the board saying that the public by and large doesn’t support private accounts.” Henry didn’t cite any of the polls showing this overwhelming opposition. Henry didn’t even bother to quote from the skewed...

Media harp on PBS political controversy but ignore massive government funding of public broadcasting. PBS advocate Bill Moyers is against subsidies – when they go to the wrong people. But the public broadcasting that airs the show he once hosted rides a $7 billion-plus wave of government funding – a fact that media outlets have omitted in recent coverage of budget wrangling. “Favored corporations get their contracts, subsidies and offshore loopholes,” Moyers said in a political rant on “Now,” a weekly newsmagazine, on March 26, 2004. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), has been...

Free market defenders fight for ‘ownership,’ while reform opponents want to increase ‘biggest government program ever.’by Dan Gainor June 16, 2005 NEW YORK – For an issue that many in the media are calling dead, the June 14, 2005, Social Security debate at City University of New York was quite lively. Supporters of reform warned of a situation ready to “implode” and called for ownership while opponents defended Social Security as the “most successful program in the nation’s history.” The event brought together leading supporters and opponents of reform to discuss what Pat Toomey called “the biggest government program in...

Morgan Spurlock shows how difficult it is to pretend to be poor.by Dan Gainor June 16, 2005 The new Morgan Spurlock documentary ’30 Days’ highlighted the fantasy of “reality” TV as Spurlock and his fiancé pretended to live life on minimum wage surrounded by cameras. Instead of teaching important lessons about saving, personal responsibility and the value of education, Spurlock relied on emotion to try to convince viewers the minimum was too low. The June 15, 2005, program tried to duplicate the success of Spurlock’s Oscar-nominated attack on McDonald’s “Super Size Me,” where he stopped exercising and ate 5,000 calories...

New commercial with a healthy focus draws fire from morning shows. McDonald’s took another hit from network mornings shows on June 9, 2005. All three networks – NBC, CBS and ABC – attacked a new commercial and one even blamed the restaurant for childhood obesity. On CBS’s “The Early Show,” Hannah Storm interviewed advertising critic Barbara Lippert, who declared that McDonald’s is “the new tobacco” and blamed the burger chain for obesity. “They see that they’ve engendered this problem, they’ve really created this way of eating, and now they’re trying to do something good,” she said of the commercial, which...

Energy apocalypse is one big worst-case scenario“It probably will be viewed as the worst disaster on American soil, ever.” No, that’s not a review of the new FX Networks movie, “Oil Storm,” though it could be. Instead, it’s a comment from one of the characters in the film about the seemingly endless stream of worst-case scenarios the film ties together to create an energy cataclysm in 2005 and 2006. The movie had its initial airing Sunday, June 5, 2005, in back-to-back broadcasts. The film was designed as a mock-umentary, looking back on the series of catastrophes that piled on top...

‘World News Tonight’ weighs in on the side of the Centers for Disease Control about obesity.by Dan Gainor June 3, 2005 The heavy debate over the recent lower estimates of deaths caused by obesity continued in the media following a press conference by the Centers for Disease Control. ABC’s ‘World News Tonight’ undermined CDC critics in its June 2, 2005 story. Anchor Elizabeth Vargas opened by stating the government position as fact: “Being overweight is extremely bad for your health no matter what the new numbers say.” Both sides of the obesity debate have focused heavily on a new study...

Gasoline prices actually fell during the week leading up to Memorial Day, but broadcasters reminded drivers of ‘record highs.’Memorial Day weekend brought the usual slew of news reports about driving, and network reporters seemed stumped that drivers would keep driving despite the price of gas. What they didn’t point out was that gas prices actually declined going into the holiday weekend. Rewind to April 10, 2005, when CBS’s Trish Regan made a dire prediction on the “Evening News”: that the “national average on a gallon of gas expected to hit $2.50 a gallon by Memorial Day.” That prediction wasn’t attributed...

Post promotes the union side in the battle against Southern retailing giant. If you want to look for the union label, you need only turn to the front page of The Washington Post business section. The May 31, 2005 issue of the Post relied almost exclusively on pro-union and anti-Wal-Mart voices for a one-sided story about battling the retail giant. The 1,400-word Post article, headlined “Logging On With A New Campaign,” was written by Amy Joyce. It focused on yet another new campaign against Wal-Mart – this one Internet-based. The campaign was the brainchild of the United Food and Commercial...

Network blames the president for high gas prices and emphasizes government regulation and taxes over free-market solutions.Though oil prices have fallen about 20 percent from their April peak, NBC hasn’t let up in its scrutiny of the gasoline industry. The network aired a series during the week of May 16, 2005, called “Pain at the Pump,” which included the usual stories about people buying fewer SUVs and bemoaning gas prices above $2 per gallon. But it shifted into high gear on the May 19, 2005, “Nightly News” when Campbell Brown did a segment about blaming the president for high gas...

Major outlets ignore Democratic Congressman’s Social Security proposal that would raise the payroll tax.The major media have largely ignored a Democratic tax increase proposal launched this week that would place new tax burdens on workers and employers. NBC, CBS, The New York Times and The Washington Post ignored or glossed over the first Social Security plan from a Democrat, who declared that raising the payroll tax would bail out the system. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) came forward on May 16, 2005, with his plan to “fix” Social Security’s shortfall by raising payroll taxes. NBC and CBS completely ignored the development....

Three major newspapers attack traditional economic views and show support for the welfare state. by Dan Gainor Readers of three of the most popular newspapers in the U.S. have been deluged with one-sided versions of life in these United States. In four days, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and New York Times all had large articles detailing the disparities between rich and poor. In more than 16,000 words, the three papers painted a picture of what the Post called an “unraveling safety net” that threatens the “New Deal vision of cradle-to-grave security.” What the Post didn’t mention was that...

by Dan Gainor April 22, 2005 It’s rare that The New York Times ignores a chance to push for tax increases, but it was the case yesterday. Over at The Washington Post, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s comments before the Senate Budget Committee yesterday were described “that he expects tax increases to be part of any eventual agreement to reduce the federal budget deficit.” The Times took another approach entirely and focused on Greenspan’s call to reduce the deficit. Sometimes, it’s easy to see how differently two newspapers look at a story. Just compare how different the two headlines appear:...