[CLUE-Talk] [Fwd: MRC Alert Special: ABC's War News Touts Doubt and Dissent]

Mon Mar 24 21:42:12 MST 2003

Hi all,

Thought some of you might be interested in this.  I saw tonight that a
poll of the British people have now moved from 29% approval of the Iraq
conflict to above 50% for Blair.

Kevin

-----Forwarded Message-----

> From: Media Research Center <mrccyberalert at topica.email-publisher.com>
> To: kevincu at orci.com
> Subject: MRC Alert Special: ABC's War News Touts Doubt and Dissent
> Date: 24 Mar 2003 13:13:51 -0700
> 
>          ***Media Research Center CyberAlert Special***
>                5:15pm EST, Monday March 24, 2003
> 
> Media Reality Check. "ABC's War News Touts Doubt and Dissent: The
> Most Biased Network During the Pre-War Months Now Offers the Most
> Biased Iraq War Coverage"
> 
>     Below is the text of a Media Reality Check written this
> afternoon by Rich Noyes based on CyberAlert items about ABC News
> since the war began last week. So, this will be familiar to
> CyberAlert readers, but it provides a compact presentation of the
> worst material.
> 
>     This Media Reality Check is online at:
> http://www.mediaresearch.org/realitycheck/2003/fax20030324.asp
> 
>     For the Adobe Acrobat PDF version:
> http://www.mediaresearch.org/realitycheck/2003/pdf/fax0324.pdf
>     
>     (There was no CyberAlert today, but I did produce ones on
> Saturday and Sunday. They are now online at:
> http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2003/cyb20030322.asp
> http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2003/cyb20030323.asp )
> 
>     For a complete rundown of the biased war coverage by Peter
> Jennings, see a special page updated daily by the MRC's Tim Jones:
> http://www.mediaresearch.org/mrcspotlight/jennings/welcome.asp    
> 
> 
>     Now the text of the March 24 Media Reality Check:
> 
> Peter Jennings may have been late for the war -- while Tom Brokaw
> and Dan Rather were reporting the first U.S. air strikes last
> Wednesday, ABC viewers had to wait a half-hour for Jennings'
> arrival -- but the anchor's bias has been far more problematic
> than his tardiness. ABC's coverage of the first days of Operation
> Iraqi Freedom have revealed the network's pattern of boosting
> anti-war protesters while denying the benefits of U.S. action:
> 
> > Thursday, March 20: During mid-afternoon coverage, Jennings
> conveyed how he was "very struck" by "huge" anti-war ads in
> newspapers, bemoaning how "history tells you that it's going to be
> very difficult for people who are opposed to the war to debate it
> now that the forces are in combat." Minutes later, Jennings
> pleaded with Democratic Senator Joe Biden: "A large number of
> people in the country are opposed to this...but look to members of
> the Democratic party, particularly, to be sort of their port in a
> storm, their place to manifest their dissatisfaction." Biden
> retorted that protesters should not look to him to denounce U.S.
> policy during wartime: "They've got the wrong port....The
> decision's been made."
> 
> A few hours later, rumbling through the Iraqi desert with the U.S.
> Army's 3rd Infantry Division, ABC's Ted Koppel pontificated to
> Jennings: "I just think, Peter, we ought to take note of the
> significance of what is happening here, because this is an
> invasion that in this particular case, of course, was not prompted
> by any invasion of the United States."
> 
> > Friday, March 21: Shortly after major air attacks on key
> buildings in Baghdad, ABC's Terry Moran asked Ari Fleischer if the
> President cared about the deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians:
> "Have you heard him talk about this responsibility, which may
> weigh on him heavily today, and that is for the deaths of
> innocents, for Iraqi moms and dads and children who may, despite
> our best efforts, be killed?"
> 
> During ABC's prime time coverage, Jennings decried Bush's lack of
> responsiveness to anti-war demonstrators. He wondered to former
> Ford, Reagan and Clinton aide David Gergen: "Seeing the people in
> the streets of Washington today right across from Lafayette Park,
> people in Chicago, San Francisco, New York, demonstrating against
> the war, there's a tendency, I think, in the administration to --
> pretend is not quite the right word -- pretend it isn't
> happening." 
> 
> Jennings spent much of Friday night's coverage doing his part to
> make sure the anti-war side was heard, including an eight-minute
> interview with two far-left leaders of anti-war groups in which
> Jennings tossed softball questions such as, "Why do you feel so
> strongly about this war?" 
> 
> > Saturday, March 22: In the morning, ABC reporter Chris Cuomo
> (son of the former New York Governor Mario Cuomo) picked up where
> Jennings left off. Previewing new protests, he insisted that anti-
> war activists represented more than the tiny fraction of the
> country that shares their views: "In American history, protests
> like this have been prescient indicators of the national mood, so
> the government may do well to listen to what's said today."
> 
> Later, Jennings doubted whether celebrations from freed Iraqis
> were even genuine: "Yesterday we saw images of a jubilant
> reception in the southern Iraqi town of Safwan where...people tore
> down a picture of Saddam Hussein and jumped in the streets, at
> least for the cameras." ABC's John Donvan, who's not embedded with
> any U.S. unit, went to Safwan and found angry Iraqis. "What I saw
> was a lot of hostility towards the coalition forces, towards the
> United States, towards George Bush."
> 
> Other networks are satisfied to factually convey the war's
> developments. ABC has apparently chosen to continue its months-old
> anti-war crusade into coverage of the conflict itself.
> 
>     END Reprint of Media Reality Check
> 
> 
>     > Tonight on the Late Show with David Letterman guest-hosted
> by Paul Shaffer: Bob Dole.
> 
> -- Brent Baker 
> 
> 
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-- 
Kevin Cullis <kevincu at orci.com>