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.

Propaganda/Noise Machine

Citing Investor's Business Daily, Hannity repeated Soros funding falsehoods
On Hannity's America, Sean Hannity asserted: "The left-wing group Media Matters denies that Soros gives them any funding, but IBD [Investor's Business Daily] suspects they may be getting his money indirectly through third parties." As Media Matters has repeatedly and exhaustively demonstrated, philanthropist George Soros has never given money to Media Matters, either directly or through another organization. Read more

LA Times falsely suggested inconsistency in Clinton denunciation of Swift Boat ads and vote on MoveOn legislation
A Los Angeles Times editorial asserted that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton "savaged President Bush in 2004 over his failure to condemn the Swift boat ads, yet the Democratic presidential front-runner voted 'no' on the Senate's condemnation of MoveOn." However, Clinton voted in favor of an amendment proposed by Sen. Barbara Boxer that cited MoveOn's advertisement as "an unwarranted personal attack on General [David] Petraeus," as well as criticizing the Swift Boat ads attacking Sen. John Kerry and Republican-backed ads attacking former Sen. Max Cleland. Read more

Will NBC once again help Ann Coulter sell books?
On October 2, 2007, If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans (Crown Forum), the latest book by right-wing pundit Ann Coulter, is scheduled to be released. As Media Matters for America documented, in the weeks following the release of her last book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism (Crown Forum, June 2006), Coulter made numerous appearances on MSNBC, CNBC, and their parent network, NBC, where she unleashed a stream of attacks on the widows of victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. As Media Matters also documented, while NBC continued to provide Coulter an open platform with which to spew her inflammatory and offensive rhetoric, several NBC hosts and anchors -- including Tonight Show host Jay Leno, Today co-host Matt Lauer, and Nightly News anchor Brian Williams -- expressed disapproval of Coulter's "harsh" and "nasty" statements. On June 26, 2007 -- the date Godless was released in paperback -- Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC's Hardball, claimed that Coulter forces him to "go to confession." Matthews, however, has a history of inviting her on his show. Following an appearance on Today in June 2006 -- during which Coulter criticized the 9-11 widows for "speak[ing] out using the fact that they're widows" and "using their grief" and "the fact that [they] lost a husband" to make "a political point while preventing anyone from responding" -- Williams devoted a segment of the Nightly News to the subject of "civility in American life," highlighting Coulter's comments. And yet NBC and its cable affiliates have continued to invite her on the air. The upcoming release of Coulter's new book gives rise once again to the question of whether NBC programs will keep hosting her. Read more

ABC's Greenburg cast Anita Hill's allegations as charge that Thomas simply "pressured her to date him"
In a report on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, ABC News' Jan Crawford Greenburg stated simply that Anita Hill "told the FBI that, 10 years before, Thomas pressured her to date him." However, Hill has said she told the FBI agents who interviewed her "about Thomas' descriptions of pornography, the pressure for dates, [and] the discussions of his sexual activities."
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Limbaugh's AFN audience has heard only misrepresentations of his "phony soldiers" comment on his show
During the first hour of the October 1 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, in response to a Media Matters for America item documenting his recent description of service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as "phony soldiers," Rush Limbaugh said: "I want to apologize to all of the members of the United States military, both in uniform and out, active duty and retired, for Media Matters for America." Limbaugh continued: "They will not apologize to you, and they will not apologize to me. I want to apologize to you on behalf of them." Limbaugh later asserted: "The bottom line to all this is that, last week, with this smear and this phony accusation regarding something I had not said about active duty military personnel, or even those who opposed the war, was that, once again, the integrity of the U.S. military was brought into question when the integrity of the sourcing group, Media Matters for America, should have been brought into question." But Limbaugh has misrepresented his "phony soldiers" comments; indeed, listeners to Armed Forces Network (AFN), which broadcasts only the first hour of The Rush Limbaugh Show, heard only a spliced version of Limbaugh's remarks in which he edited out 1 minute and 35 seconds of discussion, while falsely claiming that he was providing the "entire transcript." Read more

O'Reilly falsely asserted Media Matters added to the audio clip of his controversial comments after posting initial item
On the September 28 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, during a discussion with conservative blogger La Shawn Barber about his controversial comments following his visit to Sylvia's restaurant in Harlem, Bill O'Reilly falsely asserted that Media Matters for America made additions to the audio clip of his remarks after posting the item. Responding to Barber's statement that "to credit Media Matters a little bit, they posted enough of your audio that you could even listen to their clips and understand what you were saying," O'Reilly claimed that Media Matters added content to the audio clip of his September 19 comments after a September 26 appearance by Media Matters Senior Fellow Paul Waldman on NBC's Today. O'Reilly told Barber, "[T]hey only did that after ... they were busted, and after they were on the defensive, and after [Today co-host] Matt Lauer took the guy apart on the Today show." O'Reilly added: "Lauer slaughtered the Media Matters guy. ... Killed him. And then, they say, 'Oh, we better put up a little bit more.' " In fact, Media Matters added no additional audio of O'Reilly's original discussion about Sylvia's after the first item highlighting his remarks posted on September 21 -- five days before Waldman's appearance on Today. Read more

2008 Elections

Hannity again mischaracterized Obama's "air-raiding civilians" comment
On Hannity's America, Sean Hannity stated that it is "amazing" how the Iraq war "has become so politicized" and attacked Sen. Barack Obama, claiming that "one of the worst things ... we could ever have happen is have people like Barack Obama say that our troops are air-raiding villages and killing civilians." But in Obama's August 13 comments to which Hannity was referring, Obama was talking about Afghanistan when he said, "We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there." Read more

Gregory again suggested inconsistency in Dem candidates' statements on Iraq withdrawal
Discussing remarks by Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, and former Sen. John Edwards, that they would not commit "by January of 2013, to have all American troops out of Iraq," NBC's David Gregory described this as "a really measured position," and asserted, "Edwards particularly, who was embracing the left wing of the party's view that you have to end the war now, and the others even voting for cutting off funding." But Gregory's suggestion that Clinton's and Obama's current positions are inconsistent with their having "even vot[ed] for cutting off funding" -- an assertion that is itself misleading -- is false. And Gregory offered no evidence that Edwards has shifted position either.
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NRO's 2007 "webathon" slogan: "Help Us Stop Hillary!"
National Review Online announced its 2007 fundraiser -- or "webathon" -- on October 1 under the slogan: "Help Us Stop Hillary!" The website features a photo of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) inside a red octagon with a slash through it and links to an October 1 article by National Review Online editor Kathryn Jean Lopez, who wrote of the fundraiser: "This year, you'll notice, we have Hillary Clinton's picture on the homepage. The message is: 'Help us stop her.' No one here is pining for the Clinton drama's return to the White House. And neither, I suspect, are you." Read more

War in Iraq

Gibson aired edited Limbaugh clip to "prove" Media Matters had edited Limbaugh clip
Discussing Rush Limbaugh's recent description of service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as "phony soldiers," John Gibson asserted on his radio show: "Rush was specifically talking about a particular one, Jesse MacBeth, who had pled guilty in court to lying about even being in Iraq." To support this claim, Gibson aired a clip in which Limbaugh purported to air the "entire" segment in question. In fact, that segment did not include a full 1 minute and 35 seconds of the 1 minute and 50 second discussion that occurred between Limbaugh's original "phony soldiers" comment and his subsequent reference to MacBeth.
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Double standard? Media provided extensive coverage of MoveOn ad, but largely ignore Limbaugh's "phony soldiers" controversy
Many major media outlets that covered the controversy surrounding MoveOn.org's "General Betray Us" ad have yet to cover the bipartisan outcry over Rush Limbaugh's remarks characterizing service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as "phony soldiers."
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Race/Affirmative Action

Radio host John DePetro: White people go to Harlem for "either" drugs or prostitutes
On MSNBC Live with Dan Abrams, discussing Bill O'Reilly's recent controversial comments about his visit to Sylvia's restaurant in Harlem, Rhode Island radio host John DePetro stated: "It was a discussion on race and we're talking about Harlem. And by and large -- I lived in New York for years -- white people don't go to Harlem." He continued: "If Dan Abrams and John DePetro, Bill O'Reilly, some white guys are sitting around a table, and Dan Abrams said, 'Yeah, I was up in Harlem last night.' We would think you were either, a) looking for drugs, or, b) looking for a prostitute." Read more

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