Media Matters for America summary, June 11, 2007
 
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 22:03:07 -0400


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<p>Here are today's news items from <i>Media Matters for America</i>, 
click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.</p>
<h1><a href="http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/2008_elections?src=other">2008 Elections</a></h1>
<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200706110005?src=other"><em>Newsweek</em> noted Bossie's upcoming "tough documentary" about Clintons, but not his past "slimy tactics"</a></b><br />
An <a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19140629/site/newsweek/">article</a> for the June 18 edition of <i>Newsweek</i> reported that Republican activist
David Bossie is producing "a tough documentary" about former President
Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) aimed at "a new
generation of voters who don&#39;t remember the old Clinton wars." The article noted that
Bossie "worked tirelessly as an investigator for" Rep. <a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,986389,00.html">Dan</a> <a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://www.time.com/time/daily/special/look/burton/">Burton</a>&#39;s (R-IN) House Committee on
Government Reform and Oversight in the 1990s. But <i>Newsweek</i> failed to inform readers that Bossie&#39;s alleged actions in that
post ultimately got him fired from the committee and earned him the
condemnation of congressional Republicans and Democrats. 
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200706110005?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>

<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200706110006?src=other">NBC, ABC, MSNBC misrepresented Edwards' response to question about Hilton sentence</a></b><br />
Several media outlets -- including NBC&#39;s <i>Nightly News</i>, ABCNews.com, and
MSNBC&#39;s First Read weblog -- misrepresented Democratic presidential candidate
and former Sen. John Edwards&#39; (NC) comments at a June 7 press conference
to suggest that he drew a parallel between celebrity heiress Paris
Hilton&#39;s initial release from (and subsequent return to) <a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/us/08cnd-paris.html?ex=1338955200&amp;en=17d505d026c16380&amp;ei=5090&amp;partner=rssuserland&amp;emc=rss">jail</a> and the class divide in the United States --
one of his signature campaign issues. In fact, Edwards mentioned Hilton only after a reporter posed
a question linking her to Edwards&#39; message about economic
inequality, as <i>Media Matters for America</i> has
<a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200706100004?f=h_top">noted</a>. Moreover, Edwards said specifically that he was
going to "stay out of the Paris Hilton story" and stated twice that
his comments were "without regard to Paris Hilton."
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200706110006?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>

<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200706110008?src=other">Gerth grasps for evidence to support book's claim of longtime plan for Hillary Clinton presidency</a></b><br />
On the June 10 edition of NBC&#39;s <i>Meet the Press</i>, host Tim Russert asked Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr.,
authors of <i><a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/books/51/0316017426/index.html" title="http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/books/51/0316017426/index.html">Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton</a></i>
(Little, Brown &amp; Co.), about the claim in their book that, in the 1970s,
Bill and Hillary Clinton developed a 20-year "secret pact of
ambition" -- which initially included a Bill Clinton presidency and was
allegedly <a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200706040011?src=other" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200706040011">expanded</a>
after he assumed the presidency in 1993 to include "eight years as
president for him, then eight years for" Hillary Clinton. Russert noted
that the purported
source for Gerth and Van Natta&#39;s allegation
regarding the updated "plan" -- historian Taylor Branch -- had
labeled the authors&#39; claim "<a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/24/AR2007052402479_pf.html" title="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/24/AR2007052402479_pf.html">preposterous</a>." In his response, Gerth first cited Ann Crittenden and John Henry, who he said relayed to him a conversation the two said they had with Branch in 1993 in which Branch purportedly disclosed the alleged plan for
both Clintons
to become president. Gerth then <a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200706040011?src=other" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200706040011">invoked</a>
former Clinton chief of staff Leon Panetta, the authors&#39; source for the Clintons&#39;
original "plan": "I think,
more interestingly and more surprisingly, the ambition of the Clintons going back to when they were in
their 20s and the 20-year project that Leon Panetta remembers Bill Clinton
describing to him." But when Russert challenged Gerth by noting that the
"project" Panetta purportedly described to the authors "was
never about Hillary," Gerth answered: "No, but Bill Clinton, of
course, at that point in the 1970s, even before they married, was talking about
that Hillary Clinton, that she could be president but she had to subordinate
her plans, of course, to his coming to Arkansas."
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200706110008?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>

<h1><a href="http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/lgbt_issues?src=other">LGBT Issues</a></h1>
<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200706110001?src=other">Savage again called gay parenting "child abuse"</a></b><br />
On the June 7 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio
show, <a href="http://mediamatters.org//issues_topics/people/michaelsavage?src=other">Michael
Savage</a> called gay parenting, "child abuse,"
echoing remarks he made during the February 26 edition of Talk Radio Network&#39;s <i>The Savage Nation</i>.
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200706110001?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>

<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200706110002?src=other">Olbermann awarded O'Reilly "Worst Person" honors for "white-bread" comment  <br /></a></b><br />
On the June 8 edition of MSNBC&#39;s <i>Countdown</i>, host Keith Olbermann named Fox News host <a href="http://mediamatters.org//issues_topics/people/billoreilly?src=other">Bill O&#39;Reilly</a>
"winner" of his nightly "Worst Person in the World"
segment for, as Olbermann noted, "reacting to the arrest in the abduction and murder
of the Kansas teenager Kelsey Smith, saying, quote, &#39;This guy [who] is charged has a child and a wife. You know, like he&#39;s a white-bread guy. And we&#39;re all going, "What is that?" &#39;
" <i>Media Matters for America</i>
<a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200706080005?f=h_latest">noted</a>
O&#39;Reilly&#39;s comments earlier that day. O&#39;Reilly has frequently been
cited during Olbermann&#39;s "Worst Person" segment, as <i>Media Matters</i> has documented (<a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200706080001?f=h_latest">here</a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200705230003?src=other">here</a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200704260003?src=other">here</a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200703260002?src=other">here</a>, and <a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200703130008?src=other">here</a>).
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200706110002?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>

<h1><a href="http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/2006_elections?src=other">2006 Elections</a></h1>
<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200706110003?src=other">Fox News, CBS.com, <em>Financial Times</em> all misidentified Lieberman as a Democrat</a></b><br />
In reporting on Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman&#39;s (CT)
suggestion, during the June 10 edition of CBS&#39; <i>Face the Nation</i>, that the United States should be
"prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians,"
Fox News, CBS.com, and the <i>Financial Times</i>
(in an article also posted on MSNBC.com) all misidentified Lieberman as a
Democrat. As <i>Media Matters for America</i>
<a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200702080004?src=other" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200702080004">has</a> <a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200701220007?src=other" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200701220007">repeatedly</a> <a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200701160003?src=other" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200701160003">noted</a>, on January 12, <i>Congressional Quarterly</i> <a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2007/01/12/cq_2114.html" title="http://mediamatters.org/rd?src=other&http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2007/01/12/cq_2114.html">reported</a>
that "Lieberman has asked to be called an Independent Democrat,"
adding that, "if the compound modifier that the senator prefers was not
going to take hold, then Lieberman&#39;s second choice is to be described as an
Independent" rather than being described as a "Democrat."
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200706110003?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>

<h1><a href="http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/torture?src=other">Torture</a></h1>
<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200706110007?src=other">NBC's <em>Nightly News</em> only network news broadcast not to report Council of Europe's CIA secret prison claims</a></b><br />
In contrast with the other two
networks&#39; national nightly news
broadcasts, NBC&#39;s <i>Nightly News</i> has
yet to report on <a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://assembly.coe.int/CommitteeDocs/2007/EMarty_20070608_NoEmbargo.pdf">conclusions</a> released
June 8 by the Council of Europe, Europe&#39;s official human rights watchdog
agency, that the CIA operated secret prisons in Romania
and Poland where at least a dozen Al Qaeda leaders were subjected to
interrogation techniques "tantamount to torture."


<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200706110007?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>




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