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

Williams, Russert ignored own NBC poll to question Clinton's electability
While discussing a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll on the June 13 edition of NBC's Nightly News, host Brian Williams, after noting that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY) is leading the Democratic field for the presidential nomination, said to NBC News Washington bureau chief Tim Russert that "the $60,000 question is: Is she electable as president?" Russert cited a June 1-3 Gallup poll, which found that Clinton's "favorable rating amongst all Americans was 46 percent, her disapproval, 50 percent," and called this "a real warning sign." He concluded that "it would be a very difficult, hotly contested campaign -- winnable -- but no doubt difficult." But the June 8-11 NBC News/WSJ poll itself actually included a question specifically addressing the issue of Clinton's electability. The poll found that in a head-to-head match-up with the Republican front-runner, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Clinton would win, 48 percent to 43 percent, a 10-point change from the last NBC News/WSJ poll taken in March, which showed Giuliani leading Clinton 47 percent to 42 percent. Read more

Politico reported Republican's attack on Obama, Edwards without noting his ties to GOP
A June 13 Politico article reported a claim by Republican attorney Brad Smith that the distinction drawn by Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) between registered federal lobbyists, whose campaign contributions Obama and Edwards will not accept, and other lobbying firm employees, whose contributions they will accept, "is a little bit phony." The Politico, however, failed to identify Smith as a Republican former Federal Election Commission chairman. Smith was identified only as "chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics," "whose group promotes the deregulation of elections." Read more

Media ignore key details in Obama/Rezko letter story
On June 13, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), while serving as an Illinois state senator in 1998, "did a political favor" for Chicago Democratic fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko by writing letters to state and local government officials in support of a Chicago housing project proposed by Rezko's company, New Kenwood LLC. The Sun-Times asserted that the "letters appear to contradict a statement last December from Obama, who told the Chicago Tribune that, in all the years he's known Rezko, 'I've never done any favors for him.' '' In reporting on this story, however, several media outlets omitted statements included in the Sun-Times article that challenge the paper's assertion that Obama performed a "favor" for Rezko -- specifically, Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton's claim that "I don't know that anyone specifically asked him to write this letter," and Rezko's attorney's claim that Rezko "never spoke with, nor sought a letter from, Senator Obama in connection with that project." Read more

Propaganda/Noise Machine

Broder still won't admit that Dem senators' letter of support rebutted his attack on Reid
In a June 14 nationally syndicated Washington Post column about the performance of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), David S. Broder stated: "When I wrote in April about his shortcomings as majority leader, The Post received a protest letter signed by the other 50 senators in the Democratic Caucus, attesting to their devotion to their leader." In fact, the Democratic senators' letter did more than that -- it refuted Broder's contention in his April column that there is a "long list of senators of both parties who are ready for" Reid's "springtime exhibitions of ineptitude to end." Read more

Savage on the "progressive movement": "the brownshirts of today ... the same rabble that brought Hitler to power"
On the June 12 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program, Michael Savage compared the "progressive movement" to the Nazi storm troopers who aided Adolf Hitler's rise to power, saying, "[T]hey are the brownshirts of today." Savage added: "[M]ake no mistake about it, it's the same rabble that brought Hitler to power, and we have them today -- and they're all on the left." Read more

Domestic spying

On NBC Nightly News, Williams failed to ask Bloomberg about spying during 2004 convention
In an interview on the June 12 edition of NBC's Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams asserted that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) "is getting high marks for how he's running this city," but Williams did not ask Bloomberg about a significant controversy concerning his tenure as mayor: the New York Police Department's surveillance of nonviolent anti-Bush activists and protesters prior to the 2004 Republican National Convention -- a story that, as Media Matters for America noted, has been covered several times in recent months. Read more

Ethics

ABC's World News only network news broadcast to report on subpoenas for former Bush aides
Of the three network evening news broadcasts on June 13, only ABC's World News reported on the June 13 subpoenas issued by the House and Senate judiciary committees to two former aides to President Bush, former counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor, for their testimony about the firings of former federal prosecutors. During the June 13 broadcast of World News, ABC News legal correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg described the issuance of the subpoenas as "the most significant clash between the White House and Congress since President Bush took office." Read more

War in Iraq

To Russert, only Dems' vote against funding bill "would be seen ... as not supporting the troops"
Discussing the congressional debate over Iraq policy on the June 14 edition of NBC's Today, NBC News Washington bureau chief Tim Russert echoed a position uncritically reported by NBC congressional correspondent Chip Reid -- that a vote against the recently passed supplemental war spending bill was tantamount to voting to cut off funding for the troops. However, Russert did not voice the same view of Republicans who voted "no" on an earlier version of the bill. Russert said that "the Democratic leadership realizes to vote against funding for the troops would be seen in a general election as not supporting the troops." Neither Russert nor Today co-host Matt Lauer pointed out that President Bush vetoed the earlier version of the Iraq funding bill, which most Republican members of Congress voted against, as Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted. Read more

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