Here are today's news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.

2008 Elections

ABCNews.com falsely claimed Sen. Clinton "held out threat of withholding funding" to troops
Reporting on MoveOn.org's interview with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), an April 10 post on ABCNews.com's Political Radar weblog stated: "Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., held out the threat of withholding funding for U.S. troops in Iraq if President Bush does not agree to a timeline for withdrawal." But Clinton has done no such thing. Clinton and congressional colleagues have indicated that they will pass legislation to fund the troops. Indeed, the House and Senate have each passed emergency supplemental funding bills for the Iraq war and will meet in conference to reconcile the two versions. Both houses will then be able to send a final version to the president. It is President Bush who has threatened to withhold funds by vetoing a bill if it includes a timeline for redeployment from Iraq. Read more

Boston Globe headline "Obama's silence on Imus alarms some blacks" unsupported by article
An April 11 Boston Globe article bearing the headline "Obama's silence on Imus alarms some blacks" purported to present prominent African-Americans "alarm[ed]" by Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) "silence" regarding nationally syndicated radio host Don Imus' April 4 remark referring to members of the Rutgers University women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos" -- though, as the Globe noted, Obama did issue a statement on April 9. But of the "black activists" cited in the article, only one -- Princeton University professor Melissa Harris Lacewell -- singled out Obama for criticism over his response to the Imus matter. Read more

Couric's "Notebook" rehashed debunked Obama rumors
In the April 12 edition of her "Notebook" video blog, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric asked, "Is America ready to elect a president who grew up praying in a mosque?" and proceeded to repeat debunked rumors surrounding Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) childhood years in Indonesia. Read more

Wash. Post uncritically reported Romney's attack on Pelosi's "partisan" trip
In an April 12 article on Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) April 11 speech at the Virginia Military Institute, The Washington Post reported that "McCain's pro-war rhetoric is largely matched by his chief rivals for the GOP [presidential] nomination," former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.The article then quoted from Romney's April 10 speech in which he called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) recent trip to Syria " 'one of the most partisan, divisive and ill-considered' decisions by a public official in the past 10 years." But in reporting Romney's characterization of Pelosi's trip to Syria as "partisan," the Post failed to note that a Republican -- Rep. David Hobson (OH) -- was part of Pelosi's delegation. Nor did the article report that a Republican-led delegation met with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad three days before Pelosi's visit and that Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) met with him a day after. Read more

Apparently defending Imus, Dietl hammered at Obama's middle name
On the April 12 edition of Fox News' The Big Story with John Gibson, Richard "Bo" Dietl, a private investigator and former New York City Police Department detective, repeatedly referred to Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) middle name while discussing controversial comments by Don Imus on the April 4 edition of Imus in the Morning. Referring to Obama's call for Imus to be fired, Dietl, who was a regular guest on Imus' program, stated: "Obama Hussein. Barack Obama -- what's that guy's name? The three names? The full name?" Fox News business correspondent Rebecca Gomez answered, "Oh, I'm not even sure," and Dietl said: "Hussein. Hussein's his middle name." Read more

Race/Affirmative Action

MSNBC's Crawford on the worst of Imus: "I ... tuned a lot of it out"
On the April 12 edition of MSNBC News Live, MSNBC political analyst Craig Crawford said that he had appeared on the Imus in the Morning program "nearly 70 [times] in the last three years" and asserted: "[I]f more people had listened to the whole context of this man's show, they would see a broader picture." On the April 4 edition of Imus in the Morning, Imus referred to the Rutgers University women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos" after executive producer Bernard McGuirk called the team "hard-core hos." As Media Matters for America documented, Imus' remark was part of a long history of racial slurs made on the show by him, his guests, and regular contributors. Read more

It's not just Imus
On April 11, NBC News announced that it was dropping MSNBC's simulcast of Imus in the Morning in the wake of the controversy that erupted over host Don Imus' reference to the Rutgers University women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." The following day, CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves announced that CBS -- which owns both the radio station that broadcast Imus' program and Westwood One, which syndicated the program -- has fired Imus and would cease broadcasting his radio show. But as Media Matters for America has extensively documented, bigotry and hate speech targeting, among other characteristics, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and ethnicity continue to permeate the airwaves through personalities such as Glenn Beck, Neal Boortz, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, Michael Smerconish, and John Gibson. Read more

Cavuto: "[A] ho is a ho, right?"
On the April 12 edition of Fox News' Your World, while discussing the controversy surrounding radio host Don Imus' recent remarks, host Neil Cavuto asked rapper M-1, one half of the group Dead Prez, "[A] ho is a ho, right?" Cavuto added: "So, if Imus uses the expression and then you use the expression, you've both said 'ho.' " He later said, "So, there's nothing wrong with Imus saying it, right?" On the April 4 edition of Imus in the Morning, which was then produced by CBS Radio and simulcast on MSNBC, Imus referred to the Rutgers University women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." Read more

War in Iraq

LA Times poll question, article gave Bush's argument against war timetable, but not Democratic argument for it
A question in an April 5-9 Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll and an April 10 Los Angeles Times article about that poll both included President Bush's argument against a congressional measure providing supplemental funding for the Iraq war that includes a timetable for withdrawal without including the Democratic position in favor of it, though even with the skewed wording, a plurality said they think Bush should sign "a funding authorization that includes a timetable for withdrawal." Read more

CNN's Henry reported that generals turned down war czar position, ignored reasons why
In an April 11 Situation Room segment on the White House's reported attempts to appoint a "war czar" to oversee the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, CNN White House correspondent Ed Henry aired a clip of deputy White House press secretary Dana Perino asserting: "I have to stress to you that no decisions have been made. No one has been offered the job." But while Henry noted that an April 11 Washington Post article reported that "at least three retired generals have turned the job down," he omitted further evidence in the Post article challenging Perino's claim that "[n]o one has been offered the job." Specifically, the Post quoted one of the three retired generals, Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, describing in detail his discussions with the White House regarding the job and explaining his reason for declining to be considered. The article quoted Sheehan saying that he "never agreed on the basis of the [Iraq] war" and asserting that those currently in charge of the conflict "don't know where the hell they're going." Read more

Propaganda/Noise Machine

Savage called Media Matters "a gay smear sheet," CEO David Brock "a psychopath"
On the April 11 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage referred to Media Matters for America as "a gay smear sheet" and called Media Matters President and CEO David Brock "a psychopath in my opinion, who hates me." Savage read from an April 14, 2006, Media Matters item, which noted that Savage called the woman who alleged she was raped by Duke University lacrosse team members a "Durham dirtbag" and a "dirty, verminous black stripper," and that he also said, "This is the radical, feminist, lesbian agenda being acted out on our campuses in a witch-hunt manner against these white boys, very much like the socialist communist agenda being acted out on the American stage by the extras called the illegal aliens." After reading his previous comments, Savage stated: "That's me. I am proud to tell you I agree with every word that I said a year ago." Savage claimed that Media Matters "ought to apologize to me" -- presumably because of the April 11 decision to drop the sexual assault charges in the Duke case. Read more

Media

O'Reilly "Worst Person" for comments about VA Beach mayor; Morris runner-up
On the April 11 edition of MSNBC's Countdown, host Keith Olbermann named Fox News host Bill O'Reilly the "winner" of his nightly "Worst Person in the World" segment for comments O'Reilly made about Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf on the April 6 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program. Olbermann said of O'Reilly: "He not only called the mayor of that city ... quote, 'limited in her intellectual capacity,' but added, quote, 'She should be home baking pies.' As Media Matters for America documented, O'Reilly made his comments during a discussion about a March 30 automobile accident in Virginia Beach, which resulted in the deaths of two teenage girls, reportedly at the hands of an illegal immigrant who said he had been drinking the night of the accident. Olbermann also observed that O'Reilly "returned to the tragedy in New York, in which he said the kids in the Bronx all burned to death because the city, the sanctuary city of New York, doesn't regulate how many people you can cram into a slum." Read more

This mail was sent by Media Matters for America to 'news@energy-net.org'. Please visit us at http://mediamatters.org

You can help support our work; become a volunteer media monitor, or donate to Media Matters for America.

To change your email subscription preferences, visit http://mediamatters.org/users/prefs.html

If you'd like to unsubscribe from all Media Matters for America emails, you can just click on http://mediamatters.org/users/unsub/_TFiSm6WIkiaci7iLu6ZtH8gu6JaPh8t_vLvpt4dfhY.

To contact us directly, reply to this mail or visit http://mediamatters.org/contact_us