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

On Fox News, "pro-reform" means favoring CA Republicans' electoral initiative, not Democrats'
On Fox News Live, correspondent Anita Vogel reported on a ballot initiative proposed by a Republican organization that would "divvy up" California's "55 coveted electoral votes to the winner of each congressional district, rather than the winner-take-all system currently in place." On-screen text during Vogel's report identified a spokesman for the GOP group as "pro-reform" and an opponent of the initiative as "anti-reform." However, the spokesman has criticized two other initiatives on California's electoral vote that have been proposed by Democrats. Read more

Wash. Times again falsely claimed Clinton said "the surge is clearly 'working' "
The Washington Times falsely claimed that "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton [D-NY] ... told the VFW [Veterans of Foreign Wars] conference on Monday that the surge is clearly 'working.' " In fact, Clinton never said that President Bush's troop "surge" policy in Iraq "is clearly 'working.' " Instead, she linked the improvements in Iraq's Al Anbar Province to new "tactics," not Bush's troop escalation. Read more

Scarborough: Military groups, like the VFW, give the GOP "standing ovations" but are "very cool" to Dems
On Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough stated that "you always have the [Veterans of Foreign Wars], and you always have military groups, giving Republicans standing ovations and being very cool to people like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton." However, several news outlets have reported that both Obama and Clinton received "standing ovations" at the VFW convention. Read more

Hannity claimed it was "not true" that "our troops are killing civilians, air raiding villages" in Afghanistan
Fox News' Sean Hannity asserted that Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) statement that "our troops are killing civilians, air raiding villages" is "not true." However, U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan -- and accounts of resulting civilian casualties -- have been widely reported in the media and have reportedly provoked criticism from Afghan President Hamid Karzai and others.
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CNN's Sylvester again cropped Michelle Obama comments
A day after CNN's Lisa Sylvester cropped Michelle Obama's recent statement about "run[ning] your own house" to suggest that the comments were an attack on Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sylvester again failed to provide the full context of Mrs. Obama's remarks, which shows she was talking about her own family and did not refer generally or specifically to any other candidates.
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Wash. Post's Mosk ignored Giuliani's previous support for federal gun legislation
In an August 21 entry on washingtonpost.com's The Trail blog, Washington Post staff writer Matthew Mosk wrote of Rudy Giuliani's attempts to reconcile his support of gun control as New York City mayor with his criticism of federal gun control laws as a Republican presidential candidate. But Mosk did not note that Giuliani supported federal gun control laws as mayor, including a nationwide ban on assault weapons. Read more

USA Today: Giuliani is "half Woody Allen, half Rambo and 100% cerebral"
In an August 23 article on former New York City mayor and Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani's recent campaign swing through New Hampshire, USA Today reporter Jill Lawrence wrote: "Suffice it to say Republicans have never had a presidential candidate like this -- half Woody Allen, half Rambo and 100% cerebral." Read more

War in Iraq

Media reports on Freedom's Watch advertisements don't note misinformation
Media outlets including CNN, NBC, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times reported on a recent advertisement buy in support of the war in Iraq but ignored that two of the four advertisements link the Iraq war to 9-11. Read more

Reporting on Bush's VFW speech, media failed to note his previous disavowal of Iraq-Vietnam parallels
In reports on President Bush's speech arguing that withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq would, as The Washington Post noted, "lead to widespread death and suffering as it did in Southeast Asia" following the Vietnam War, numerous media outlets failed to point out Bush's previous statements disavowing parallels between Iraq and Vietnam, while other reports did not note any criticism of the speech. Read more

On MSNBC, Zuckerman claimed that "the consensus is that the surge is working"
On Tucker, U.S. News & World Report Editor-in-Chief Mortimer B. Zuckerman asserted: "[T]he fact is that, by far, the consensus is that the surge [in Iraq] is working." Zuckerman did not offer any evidence to support this claim. In fact, members of Congress, administration officials, and experts have all stated that political reconciliation, which the Bush administration identified as a key to the success of its escalation strategy, has not occurred. Read more

Propaganda/Noise Machine

Broder asserts Rove drank from Atwater's "magic potion," but doesn't provide its ingredients
Washington Post columnist David Broder asserted that "[Karl] Rove had drunk deeply of the magic potion dispensed by Lee Atwater, the South Carolina whiz who had absorbed the anger and frustration of the white Southern blue-collar families with whom he was raised." But Broder did not mention Atwater's repeated attempts to play on white voters' sentiments about race. Read more

Limbaugh claims Dems' interest in Darfur is securing black "voting bloc"
On his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh claimed that Democrats "want to get us out of Iraq, but they can't wait to get us into Darfur." He continued: "There are two reasons. What color is the skin of the people in Darfur? It's black. And who do the Democrats really need to keep voting for them? If they lose a significant percentage of this voting bloc, they're in trouble." A caller responded, "The black population," to which Limbaugh said, "Right."
Read more

Ethics

CNN failed to ID Rep. Young as Republican in report on his alleged actions on earmark
During a Situation Room report on the allegation that, in 2005, then-chairman of the House Transportation Committee Don Young (R-AK) changed the language of a $10 million earmark for Florida after the bill had been passed, correspondent John Zarrella failed to identify Young as a Republican. Additionally, neither he nor host Wolf Blitzer noted that Republicans controlled Congress when Young allegedly made the change to the bill. Read more

Kornblut on Hardball: "Republican crowds are a little different. They still want to be supporting the troops"
During the August 21 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, Washington Post staff writer Anne E. Kornblut asserted that, in contrast with Democratic crowds who applaud Democratic candidates when they say, "I'm going to start ending this war in Iraq," "Republican crowds are a little different. They still want to be supporting the troops." A Post reader flagged Kornblut's remark during an August 23 washingtonpost.com online chat, asking chat host and Post White House reporter Peter Baker: "Is this a commonly held belief amongst Washington reporters? Given that the majority of Americans favor ending the war, do you believe that they don't support the troops?" Baker defended the comment, replying that Kornblut "was saying that Republicans see the issue as supporting the troops. She wasn't saying that's her view." Read more

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