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http://www.politico.com/blogs/micha...eport_was_misleading_and_irresponsible__.html
Politico.com said:
May 19, 2008
Categories: White House

White House to NBC: Report was 'misleading and irresponsible'


Ed Gillespie, special counselor to President Bush, sent a strongly-word e-mail today to NBC News President Steve Capus claiming that the network engaged in "deceitful editing" of the president's interview with NBC correspondent Richard Engel.

Gillespie requested that the network air complete versions of the president's responses to two questions, which were broadcast on the "NBC Nightly News" and "Today." That said, NBC already put up the entire interview online before Gillespie's letter. (Here's what was broadcast on the evening news).

After the jump is the full letter, where Gillespie also takes the time to criticize NBC's coverage of the Iraq War (using the term "civil war") and the economy (by mentioning the word "recession").

Mr. Capus:

This e-mail is to formally request that NBC Nightly News and The Today Show air for their viewers President Bush's actual answer to correspondent Richard Engel's question about Iran policy and "appeasement," rather than the deceptively edited version of the President's answer that was aired last night on the Nightly News and this morning on The Today Show.

In the interview, Engel asked the President: "You said that negotiating with Iran is pointless, and then you went further. You said that it was appeasement. Were you referring to Senator Barack Obama?"

The President responded: "You know, my policies haven't changed, but evidently the political calendar has. People need to read the speech. You didn't get it exactly right, either. What I said was is that we need to take the words of people seriously. And when, you know, a leader of Iran says that they want to destroy Israel, you've got to take those words seriously. And if you don't take them seriously, then it harkens back to a day when we didn't take other words seriously. It was fitting that I talked about not taking the words of Adolf Hitler seriously on the floor of the Knesset. But I also talked about the need to defend Israel, the need to not negotiate with the likes of al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas. And the need to make sure Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon."

This answer makes clear: (1). The President's remarks before the Knesset were not different from past policy statements, but are now being looked at through a political prism, (2). Corrects the inaccurate premise of Engel's question by putting the "appeasement" line in the proper context of taking the words of leaders seriously, not "negotiating with Iran," (3). Restates the U.S.'s long-standing policy positions against negotiating with al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas, and not allowing Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.

Engel's immediate follow-up question was, "Repeatedly you've talked about Iran and that you don't want to see Iran develop a nuclear weapon. How far away do you think Iran is from developing a nuclear capability?"

The President replied, "You know, Richard, I don't want to speculate – and there's a lot of speculation. But one thing is for certain – we need to prevent them from learning how to enrich uranium. And I have made it clear to the Iranians that there is a seat at the table for them if they would verifiably suspend their enrichment. And if not, we'll continue to rally the world to isolate them."

This response reiterates another long-standing policy, which is that if Iran verifiably suspends its uranium enrichment program the U.S. government would engage in talks with the Iranian government.

NBC's selective editing of the President's response is clearly intended to give viewers the impression that he agreed with Engel's characterization of his remarks when he explicitly challenged it. Furthermore, it omitted the references to al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas and ignored the clarifying point in the President's follow-up response that U.S. policy is to require Iran to suspend its nuclear enrichment program before coming to the table, not that "negotiating with Iran is pointless" and amounts to "appeasement."

This deceitful editing to further a media-manufactured storyline is utterly misleading and irresponsible and I hereby request in the interest of fairness and accuracy that the network air the President's responses to both initial questions in full on the two programs that used the excerpts.

As long as I am making this formal request, please allow me to take this opportunity to ask if your network has reconsidered its position that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war, especially in light of the fact that the unity government in Baghdad recently rooted out illegal, extremist groups in Basra and reclaimed the port there for the people of Iraq, among other significant signs of progress.

On November 27, 2006, NBC News made a decision to no longer just cover the news in Iraq, but to make an analytical and editorial judgment that Iraq was in a civil war. As you know, both the United States government and the Government of Iraq disputed your account at that time. As Matt Lauer said that morning on The Today Show: "We should mention, we didn't just wake up on a Monday morning and say, 'Let's call this a civil war.' This took careful deliberation.'"

I noticed that around September of 2007, your network quietly stopped referring to conditions in Iraq as a "civil war." Is it still NBC News's carefully deliberated opinion that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war? If not, will the network publicly declare that the civil war has ended, or that it was wrong to declare it in the first place?

Lastly, when the Commerce Department on April 30 released the GDP numbers for the first quarter of 2007, Brian Williams reported it this way: "If you go by the government number, the figure that came out today stops just short of the official declaration of a recession."

The GDP estimate was a positive 0.6% for the first quarter. Slow growth, but growth nonetheless. This followed a slow but growing fourth quarter in 2007. Consequently, even if the first quarter GDP estimate had been negative, it still would not have signaled a recession – neither by the unofficial rule-of-thumb of two consecutive quarters of negative growth, nor the more robust definition by the National Bureau of Economic Research (the group that officially marks the beginnings and ends of business cycles).

Furthermore, never in our nation's history have we characterized economic conditions as a "recession" with unemployment so low – in fact, when this rate of unemployment was eventually reached in the 1990s, it was hailed as the sign of a strong economy. This rate of unemployment is lower than the average of the past three decades.

Are there numbers besides the "government number" to go by? Is there reason to believe "the government number" is suspect? How does the release of positive economic growth for two consecutive quarters, albeit limited, stop "just short of the official declaration of a recession"?

Mr. Capus, I'm sure you don't want people to conclude that there is really no distinction between the "news" as reported on NBC and the "opinion" as reported on MSNBC, despite the increasing blurring of those lines. I welcome your response to this letter, and hope it is one that reassures your broadcast network's viewers that blatantly partisan talk show hosts like Christopher Matthews and Keith Olbermann at MSNBC don't hold editorial sway over the NBC network news division.

Sincerely,
Ed Gillespie
Counselor to the President

(This post was updated after a second version of the White House's letter was made available, which corrected typos).

NBC once again shows that it can not be trusted as a news source, they have become a propaganda machine for the left.
 
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So what? George Bush is still evil. :whatever:

Seriously, though, great post exposing blatant media bias yet again. :up:
 
http://www.politico.com/blogs/micha...eport_was_misleading_and_irresponsible__.html


NBC once again shows that it can not be trusted as a news source, they have become a propaganda machine for the left.

I love how the right-wing nuts denounce the media as "left". It's not left. If it were left they would have asked the tough questions prior to the Iraq war instead of regurgitating whatever the administration fed them.

Why isn't the media covering the story of the British soldiers caught, dressed in "Arab" garb planting a car bomb? There's a myriad of other stories not being covered. Why was the media barred from filming the arrival of dead soldiers?

They'd ask even TOUGHER questions regarding Iran, if they were left. The American media is a joke. Infotainment!

Please ALL major Hollywood studios have a pentagon office that "reviews" scripts.

Left wing (or free) media, my ass!
 
So what did the final, aired interview entail? If anyone has links to a transcript, I'd like to see it, so I can make my own judgment on this. Mr. Gillespie isn't really the purveyor of objectivity himself.
 
They edited out 2 sentences that don't change anything, whatsoever. This whole argument is for people like Norman, who can be counted on to respond (in a predictable way) to the staple, rallying messages of the Right Wing. They fall back on these messages...when they get in trouble...in order to distract the masses from reading between the lines. They know that most people just don't have the time, nor inclination to pay attention to the details. It's much simpler and easier to just react to your own preconceived notions and assumptions. You think you're being skeptical and inquisitive, but you're really just following along behind someone else* who's thinking for you.

In this case, the message is that the liberal left-wing media is out to "deceive" us all, and undermine Fearless Leader's agenda of fighting the Global War on Terror. They give the appearance of objectivity and journalistic integrity, but in truth, they have their own (possibly subversive) agenda, which is demonstrated by the fact that they aired an interview with Fearless Leader which portrayed him in a false and unfair manner. This is what Ed Gillespie would have us believe.

Could it be that NBC has been infiltrated by al Qaeda? Or, possibly worse, the French?
:huh::oldrazz:



*Someone like Ed Gillespie, who speak up for Bush when he screws up, or can't defend himself, either because he lacks the ability, or simply because he's too inept...he can't be allowed to potentially make the situation worse.
 
The man gave up golf to cope with the thousands of lives being lost in Iraq...he has had enough media ****es......................................................................(I can't put enough dots sorry)
 
Moral of the story: Everyone in said story sucks all around. To hell with them all, they're all liars.
 
Another Non-Issue made up by the Neo-Cons.:whatever:
 
C'mon Norm, you're better than this.
 
It would be more accurate to describe media bias not as left or right, but as “corporate.” In that, I mean that the way in which the reporting of a story in the mainstream media will be ultimately shaped is determined, first and foremost, by what will maximize profit for whatever news organization reported the story. It’s a very simple idea and is really the only sensible interpretation of the situation. Think about it: Would some magic honor code prevent GE, Time-Warner, and News Corporation from acting in a self-interested manner like every other corporation on the face of the Earth? The very obvious answer to that question is a resounding NO.
 
They edited out 2 sentences that don't change anything, whatsoever. This whole argument is for people like Norman, who can be counted on to respond (in a predictable way) to the staple, rallying messages of the Right Wing. They fall back on these messages...when they get in trouble...in order to distract the masses from reading between the lines. They know that most people just don't have the time, nor inclination to pay attention to the details. It's much simpler and easier to just react to your own preconceived notions and assumptions. You think you're being skeptical and inquisitive, but you're really just following along behind someone else* who's thinking for you.

In this case, the message is that the liberal left-wing media is out to "deceive" us all, and undermine Fearless Leader's agenda of fighting the Global War on Terror. They give the appearance of objectivity and journalistic integrity, but in truth, they have their own (possibly subversive) agenda, which is demonstrated by the fact that they aired an interview with Fearless Leader which portrayed him in a false and unfair manner. This is what Ed Gillespie would have us believe.

Could it be that NBC has been infiltrated by al Qaeda? Or, possibly worse, the French?
:huh::oldrazz:



*Someone like Ed Gillespie, who speak up for Bush when he screws up, or can't defend himself, either because he lacks the ability, or simply because he's too inept...he can't be allowed to potentially make the situation worse.

Or it could mean that I find it outrageous a media outlet would doctor an interview to fit their own political agenda.

Another Non-Issue made up by the Neo-Cons.:whatever:

Yes, because changing the message of the President is nothing at all. If NBC can edit their interviews with anyone who disagrees with their political agenda, doesn't that give them a scary amount of control?

C'mon Norm, you're better than this.

I am better than being outraged by outrageous behavior?

Still better than Fox :O

:whatever:

So what did the final, aired interview entail? If anyone has links to a transcript, I'd like to see it, so I can make my own judgment on this. Mr. Gillespie isn't really the purveyor of objectivity himself.

"You know, my policies haven't changed, but evidently the political calendar has. People need to read the speech. You didn't get it exactly right, either. What I said was is that we need to take the words of people seriously. And when, you know, a leader of Iran says that they want to destroy Israel, you've got to take those words seriously. And if you don't take them seriously, then it harkens back to a day when we didn't take other words seriously. It was fitting that I talked about not taking the words of Adolf Hitler seriously on the floor of the Knesset. But I also talked about the need to defend Israel, the need to not negotiate with the likes of al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas. And the need to make sure Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon."

The bold is the bit edited out.
 
Or it could mean that I find it outrageous a media outlet would doctor an interview to fit their own political agenda.
It's not "doctoring." All they did was cut out a couple of throwaway lines. It happens all the time. It's called editing. You'd have a reason to complain if the lines that were cut actually added something worthwhile to his response, but they didn't.

On top of all that, the President completely evaded the question, which was very simple and straightforward. Now his handlers are turning the issue into a media bias question, in order to divert our attention from the fact that Bush can't support his position when challenged. This is called "bait and switch." You took the bait, and now you're focus is turned away from Bush's screw-up.

"You know, my policies haven't changed, but evidently the political calendar has. People need to read the speech. You didn't get it exactly right, either. What I said was is that we need to take the words of people seriously. And when, you know, a leader of Iran says that they want to destroy Israel, you've got to take those words seriously. And if you don't take them seriously, then it harkens back to a day when we didn't take other words seriously. It was fitting that I talked about not taking the words of Adolf Hitler seriously on the floor of the Knesset. But I also talked about the need to defend Israel, the need to not negotiate with the likes of al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas. And the need to make sure Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon."

The bold is the bit edited out.

-"We need to take the words of people seriously." True, except when they're coming from Bush's mouth. Seriously.

-"...the need to defend Israel..." Israel is our ally. Of course we will defend them. That's always been our government's policy.

-"...the need to not negotiate with the likes of al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas..." We don't negotiate with terrorists. That's government policy. I guess it makes you look tough to people who don't realize this, though...

-And, of course we don't want Iran to get nukes! Are we finished pretending to be dense, now? I mean, these policies haven't changed. Stating them now is irrelevant to the question of what (who) exactly was the aim of this attack. To me, it's basically like calling someone a traitor, without explicitly stating their name. It's made worse by the fact that it was done on foreign soil.
 
haha did anyone bother to watch the interview? it really doesn't change the context or makes anyone seem biased at all.
maybe the letter should address the fact that Bush never answers the simple question

"Were you referring to Senator Barack Obama?"

and they get outraged? Bush never says a simple yes or no.
hahaha the nerve!
 
Just for lulz I should go look up Normie's resposne to when the media edited Reverend Wright's entire career as a preacher down to four sentences. I'm sure he was really super concerned about media bias and presenting a fair and balanced accounting of the man's merits.
 
Yes, because changing the message of the President is nothing at all. If NBC can edit their interviews with anyone who disagrees with their political agenda, doesn't that give them a scary amount of control?
Oh get a grip.:whatever:

If you bothered to actually watch the damn thing you would know that what they took out didn't change a thing as far as Bush's double-talk response.

Like I said, Another Non-Issue made up by the Neo-Cons.:whatever:
 
Just for lulz I should go look up Normie's resposne to when the media edited Reverend Wright's entire career as a preacher down to four sentences. I'm sure he was really super concerned about media bias and presenting a fair and balanced accounting of the man's merits.

:grin:
 
Firstly, Norm, I said you're better than this because the supposed media bias is a load of crap. It's a great ploy by Republicans, though, to get those who want to to believe that reality is shaded to their side and that the even though you see on the news that Republican policies for the most part suck; they really don't. More of the "don't look at the man behind the curtain" messaging from a group that is great at it. I envy you guys and your ruthless precision. I pray every day that the Democrats will eventually "get it."

Secondly, without seeing both the edited and unedited versions and only reading a letter from the White House, I can't help but be skeptical.

Thirdly, nothing goes together like the words "Bush" and "recession". They're like hot dogs and baseball, baby. I mean, the unemployment figures would be relevant if the jobs that were being created were either full time or decent paying or both. But they're clearly not.

Here's where my original point gets so interesting. I'm going to link to an article that backs up what I'm saying. But because the press has such a liberal bend to it, this article can easily be discounted. Genius! Whichever think tank came up with the liberal press (which is controlled by giant corporations) is horribly underpaid and overpaid all at once. :up:

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Business/2008/04/02/unemployment_rate_misleading_analysts_say/6746/
 
Firstly, Norm, I said you're better than this because the supposed media bias is a load of crap. It's a great ploy by Republicans, though, to get those who want to to believe that reality is shaded to their side and that the even though you see on the news that Republican policies for the most part suck; they really don't. More of the "don't look at the man behind the curtain" messaging from a group that is great at it. I envy you guys and your ruthless precision. I pray every day that the Democrats will eventually "get it."

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Business/2008/04/02/unemployment_rate_misleading_analysts_say/6746/

Media Bias Is Real, Finds UCLA Political Scientist
By Meg Sullivan| 12/14/2005 5:36:31 PM
While the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal is conservative, the newspaper's news pages are liberal, even more liberal than The New York Times. The Drudge Report may have a right-wing reputation, but it leans left. Coverage by public television and radio is conservative compared to the rest of the mainstream media. Meanwhile, almost all major media outlets tilt to the left.

These are just a few of the surprising findings from a UCLA-led study, which is believed to be the first successful attempt at objectively quantifying bias in a range of media outlets and ranking them accordingly.

"I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican," said Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and the study's lead author. "But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are."

"Overall, the major media outlets are quite moderate compared to members of Congress, but even so, there is a quantifiable and significant bias in that nearly all of them lean to the left," said co‑author Jeffrey Milyo, University of Missouri economist and public policy scholar.

The results appear in the latest issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, which will become available in mid-December.

Groseclose and Milyo based their research on a standard gauge of a lawmaker's support for liberal causes. Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) tracks the percentage of times that each lawmaker votes on the liberal side of an issue. Based on these votes, the ADA assigns a numerical score to each lawmaker, where "100" is the most liberal and "0" is the most conservative. After adjustments to compensate for disproportionate representation that the Senate gives to low‑population states and the lack of representation for the District of Columbia, the average ADA score in Congress (50.1) was assumed to represent the political position of the average U.S. voter.

Groseclose and Milyo then directed 21 research assistants — most of them college students — to scour U.S. media coverage of the past 10 years. They tallied the number of times each media outlet referred to think tanks and policy groups, such as the left-leaning NAACP or the right-leaning Heritage Foundation.

Next, they did the same exercise with speeches of U.S. lawmakers. If a media outlet displayed a citation pattern similar to that of a lawmaker, then Groseclose and Milyo's method assigned both a similar ADA score.

"A media person would have never done this study," said Groseclose, a UCLA political science professor, whose research and teaching focuses on the U.S. Congress. "It takes a Congress scholar even to think of using ADA scores as a measure. And I don't think many media scholars would have considered comparing news stories to congressional speeches."

Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS' "Evening News," The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.

Only Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume" and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter.

The most centrist outlet proved to be the "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer." CNN's "NewsNight With Aaron Brown" and ABC's "Good Morning America" were a close second and third.

"Our estimates for these outlets, we feel, give particular credibility to our efforts, as three of the four moderators for the 2004 presidential and vice-presidential debates came from these three news outlets — Jim Lehrer, Charlie Gibson and Gwen Ifill," Groseclose said. "If these newscasters weren't centrist, staffers for one of the campaign teams would have objected and insisted on other moderators."

The fourth most centrist outlet was "Special Report With Brit Hume" on Fox News, which often is cited by liberals as an egregious example of a right-wing outlet. While this news program proved to be right of center, the study found ABC's "World News Tonight" and NBC's "Nightly News" to be left of center. All three outlets were approximately equidistant from the center, the report found.

"If viewers spent an equal amount of time watching Fox's 'Special Report' as ABC's 'World News' and NBC's 'Nightly News,' then they would receive a nearly perfectly balanced version of the news," said Milyo, an associate professor of economics and public affairs at the University of Missouri at Columbia.

Five news outlets — "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," ABC's "Good Morning America," CNN's "NewsNight With Aaron Brown," Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume" and the Drudge Report — were in a statistical dead heat in the race for the most centrist news outlet. Of the print media, USA Today was the most centrist.

An additional feature of the study shows how each outlet compares in political orientation with actual lawmakers. The news pages of The Wall Street Journal scored a little to the left of the average American Democrat, as determined by the average ADA score of all Democrats in Congress (85 versus 84). With scores in the mid-70s, CBS' "Evening News" and The New York Times looked similar to Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who has an ADA score of 74.

Most of the outlets were less liberal than Lieberman but more liberal than former Sen. John Breaux, D-La. Those media outlets included the Drudge Report, ABC's "World News Tonight," NBC's "Nightly News," USA Today, NBC's "Today Show," Time magazine, U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, NPR's "Morning Edition," CBS' "Early Show" and The Washington Post.

Since Groseclose and Milyo were more concerned with bias in news reporting than opinion pieces, which are designed to stake a political position, they omitted editorials and Op‑Eds from their tallies. This is one reason their study finds The Wall Street Journal more liberal than conventional wisdom asserts.

Another finding that contradicted conventional wisdom was that the Drudge Report was slightly left of center.

"One thing people should keep in mind is that our data for the Drudge Report was based almost entirely on the articles that the Drudge Report lists on other Web sites," said Groseclose. "Very little was based on the stories that Matt Drudge himself wrote. The fact that the Drudge Report appears left of center is merely a reflection of the overall bias of the media."

Yet another finding that contradicted conventional wisdom relates to National Public Radio, often cited by conservatives as an egregious example of a liberal news outlet. But according to the UCLA-University of Missouri study, it ranked eighth most liberal of the 20 that the study examined.

"By our estimate, NPR hardly differs from the average mainstream news outlet," Groseclose said. "Its score is approximately equal to those of Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report and its score is slightly more conservative than The Washington Post's. If anything, government‑funded outlets in our sample have a slightly lower average ADA score (61), than the private outlets in our sample (62.8)."

The researchers took numerous steps to safeguard against bias — or the appearance of same — in the work, which took close to three years to complete. They went to great lengths to ensure that as many research assistants supported Democratic candidate Al Gore in the 2000 election as supported President George Bush. They also sought no outside funding, a rarity in scholarly research.

"No matter the results, we feared our findings would've been suspect if we'd received support from any group that could be perceived as right- or left-leaning, so we consciously decided to fund this project only with our own salaries and research funds that our own universities provided," Groseclose said.

The results break new ground.

"Past researchers have been able to say whether an outlet is conservative or liberal, but no one has ever compared media outlets to lawmakers," Groseclose said. "Our work gives a precise characterization of the bias and relates it to known commodity — politicians."

-UCLA-

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