Smoking Gun: Update…
(video via J$)
This morning Jon Scott addressed the Republican Press release that wound up as a segment on FNC flap. However you really have to parse this. The only thing that Scott directly addressed was the typo. If you hadn’t seen the segment yesterday, you wouldn’t have known that the fact this was based on a Republican press release was not mentioned originally. Here’s the transcript for yesterday’s segment from Media Matters…
SCOTT: So in that series of votes, the Senate is expected to pass the $838 billion stimulus plan — its version of it, anyway. We thought we’d take a look back at the bill, how it was born, and how it grew, and grew, and grew.
On September 25 of last year, just a few months ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced a $56.2 billion stimulus package.
It hit $61 billion a day later when the House passed a $60.8 billion economic stimulus package.
By October 10, it had more than doubled. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for a new $150 billion economic stimulus package.
About a week later, another 50 billion was added when Speaker Pelosi vowed Wednesday decided to hold a lame-duck session to pass a $200 billion economic stimulus package.
It doubled again in the beginning of December when, according to The New York Times, the programs will be part of a larger economic stimulus package whose outlines are faint but which is expected to cost 400 to $500 billion.
Well, it took another huge jump about a week later. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has increased the size of the economic stimulus package she will support, saying it’ll need to be 500 to 600 billion.
Well, it hit 775 billion soon after, The Wall Street Journal reporting that President-elect Barack Obama’s economic team is crafting a stimulus package to send to Congress worth between 675 billion and 775 billion over two years.
Which brings us back to today and the Senate’s vote on that $838 billion bill.
This is what makes today’s apology fall short. Only today is the viewer told it was based on a Republican press release. But there’s no apology for not mentioning that very important fact yesterday. Instead there’s only an apology for a typo and, by extension, bad research. I could care less about the typo or the bad research. Mistakes happen. I do care very much about process and FNC is being extremely disingenuous here. They still owe the viewer an accounting of why yesterday’s segment was not attributed to a Republican press release.
February 11, 2009 at 9:59 am
Well correct me if I’m wrong, Media Matters is a left wing activist watchdog organization. Something like the right’s Media Research Group? (MRC)
If that is the case, I hope we will be giving the MRC the same respect, credibility and report /blog sourcing opportunities. Lots of great material and quotes there.
I repeat, will liberals also require the same journalisms tandard of the MSM? Can we agree on that?
Why the silence?
February 11, 2009 at 10:15 am
The silence comes from reading your repetitious posts. You can’t defend FNC’s actions, but you choose to comment anyway by questioning if “us liberals” are going to use similar standards for our “liberal MSM”. You have a pre-determined argument which any reader of ICN for more than a week can state in his sleep.
I think any intelligent discussion of cable news involves taking each event on a case-by-case basis. FNC is not always right-wing, MSNBC is not always left-wing and CNN doesn’t always suck…well, the last one is debatable. Most news organizations have some good journalism, some shoddy, and some bias at times. Blanket generalizations are innacurate and, even worse, boring.
February 11, 2009 at 10:19 am
I have a dim view of both the MRC and Media Matters (you might as well toss in AIM too). But every once in a while a stopped clock is right. Just because they have the transcript doesn’t mean the transcript is wrong.
If I’m presented with evidence that CNN or MSNBC or whoever else takes a DNC press release and turns it into a segment without referencing that it was a based on a DNC press release, I’ll be all over it. But you have to have proof. You can’t say, these are DNC talking points because…well…they’re DNC talking points…without showing that they came from a DNC source. Same thing applies for the RNC. In this case we have the proof in the form of a typo.
And FNC is part of the MSM now. Deal with it.
February 11, 2009 at 10:21 am
I dare say the standard they used for correction was far better than MSM reporting errors. Can anyone even imaging NBC or CNN making a similar correction for a left wing talking point. For example, when is Jeff Zucker and the entire NBC organization going to apologize and correct the miss labeling the Iraq war as a civil war? Talk about getting it wrong and being proud of it! Which error shows more bias and which network corrects the errors more?
Example #2, during the campaign Andrea Mitchell would literally read the DNC talking points like they were her own questions.
February 11, 2009 at 10:27 am
The only thing they corrected was the typo. They never corrected the far bigger gaffe of not attributing the source for yesterday’s segment.
You can’t use the NBC/Iraq Civil War example because that’s debatable with good arguments on both sides of the issue. And if you’ve been reading the blog for that long you know I took them down for the way they went about announcing the change.
I would agree that they should revisit the issue however.
Regarding #2, can you prove that they were DNC talking points and what is your source for this? Give me evidence and I’ll jump on it. I want a smoking gun like what happened yesterday, not your opinion.
February 11, 2009 at 10:58 am
I plead guilty to being repetitive (I’ll work on that) but also passionate. Joe, I always do my best to provide examples so that my statements are not generalities.
You make some good points Spud. Yes of course FNC is part of the MSN. However, everyone know what I mean when I say MSM. It’s short hand (widely accepted word) for a list that is a mile long.
February 11, 2009 at 11:03 am
MSM is shorthand for a right-wing talking point that ignores the reality of the true mainstream press.
February 11, 2009 at 11:17 am
Talk about being in denial Joe “ignores the reality of the true mainstream press”
The conservatives give you example after example, week after week, of bias and you simply can’t acknowledge the evidence. You get one example of a FNC bias error, we conservatives agree it was wrong, and you’re still not satisfied. All I’m asking is for you to apply your standards to yourself.
February 11, 2009 at 1:22 pm
I’ve acknowledged plenty of liberal bias in the media including Shuster, Andrea Mitchell’s “Republicans forced Daschle out” comment, and MSNBC using Mathews and KO for straight news coverage. To say I don’t acknowledge evidence disregards my previous comments on this blog. The reality of the true mainstream press is as I said before: All organizations display some bias and crappy journalism at times. It’s human nature. But this fantasy that there’s a liberal monolith dominating news coverage in this country is ridiculous. FNC is the ratings leader on cable and Rush leads on the radio. They both have a conservative ideology editorially and are very much a rather loud part of the mainstream.
On top of that, in the last 38 years we’ve had 7 Republican and 3 Democratic Presidential terms in office. This country is hardly a bastion of rampant liberalism. To the contrary, it’s probably the most conservative democracy in the world. Your assertions of victimhood would generate a little more sympathy if you actually were the underdog.
February 11, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Make that 40 years. Nixon started in ’68….I knew that.
February 15, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Oh well. Now the score is:
1,500 screw-ups by the Liberal, Drive-by Media;
1 for us Conservatives.
When our team gets into the half-time locker room, Coach will lambaste for not having a winning attitude.