By
Neal Boortz @ May 13, 2009 8:32 AM Permalink | Comments (33) | TrackBacks (0) The Media Research Center did an analysis of the lamestream media's coverage of Obama's first 100 days. Guess what? Turns out that they have done a great job of sending tingles up their legs but a lousy job acting as watchdogs.
MRC analysts looked at all 982 broadcast evening news stories about Obama and his administration from Inauguration Day (January 20) through April 29. Here are some of the interesting, though not surprising, things that they found:
- Obama's first 100 days were defined by massive spending, aggressive intervention in the private sector and proposals for a huge expansion of the federal government. Yet none of the networks aired a single story on whether Obama's policies were pushing the U.S. toward socialism, and no reporter used the term "socialist" to describe Obama.
- Not only that, network reporters never used the word "liberal" to describe either Barack Obama or his agenda during the first 100 days.
- The networks lavished good press on every major initiative of the early Obama administration, including the massive stimulus package, all of the various bailouts, health care, stem cells, the environment and foreign policy.
- In the days before the President unveiled his unprecedented $3.5 trillion budget -- with a record-shattering $1.75 trillion deficit -- four out of five statements on the evening newscasts parroted the White House spin that Obama was a deficit fighter.
- Reporters treated Obama's hugely expensive $787 billion stimulus bill to mainly positive coverage (58 percent positive, 42 percent negative).
- The networks applauded Obama's decision to use taxpayer money to fund embryo-destroying stem cell research (82% positive coverage).
- Network coverage of Obama's mortgage bailout was also positive -- 59% of statements supported the bailout or wanted even more intervention, compared to 41% who opposed the bailout as unfair to responsible homeowners.
- Reporters heavily skewed their coverage in favor of the President's actions on global warming (78% positive).
- President Obama's decision to send thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan was greeted by nearly unanimous (91%) positive coverage -- a far cry from the highly negative coverage of President Bush's successful troop surge in Iraq two years ago.
- Like Obama and the Democrats, the networks went on a feeding frenzy against big corporate bonuses. The networks aired six times more statements forwarding the "infuriated" reaction to business (104) than criticized politicians' grandstanding (16).
- The networks spent days decrying AIG's $165 million bonuses, but hardly mentioned the $210 million in bonuses handed out by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the bailed-out mortgage giants with strong Democratic ties). ABC and NBC completely ignored the Fannie and Freddie bonuses, while the CBS Evening News gave it 27 seconds.
Two days ago, journalist John Ziegler was arrested for trying to ask questions at an event where Katie Couric of CBS News received an award for her interview with Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin last fall. The Couric/Palin interview is a central subject in Ziegler's "Media Malpractice" documentary about the slanted coverage of the 2008 presidential race. He wanted to ask people why Couric won an award for a biased interview.
The journalism school at the University of Southern California would have none of that. They refused to let Ziegler practice journalism on their journalism campus. They handcuffed and manhandled himand forced him off the campus.
Ed Morrissey put the story in context yesterday at Hot Air: "Would Walter Cronkite have approved of police locking up reporters for merely covering an event and walking on property that is very obviously open to the public in doing so?" Quin Hillyer at AmSpecBlog said the incident "is quite literally the sort of thing that calls for a public rebuke from the highest levels of both journalism AND government." He also wondered aloud what Couric thinks.
That's a good question, and you can put it to her yourself on Twitter. Couric uses the mini-blog service and "tweeted" about her award Wednesday. Everyone who uses Twitter should let Couric know that Ziegler was unfairly prevented from doing the kind of work she does every day. Ziegler had a right to ask questions, and if Couric and the people trying to educate the next generation of journalists can't appreciate that, none of them should be giving or getting awards.
- The last time we saw CNN correspondent Susan Roesgen, she was arguing with folks at the April 15 Tea Party in Chicago claiming the event was "anti-government, anti-CNN [and] highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network Fox."
THE VAN JONES STORY THE TEA PARTIES THE ACORN CORRUPTION STORIES
QUESTION! Why is it that the "Mainstreem Media" is refusing to cover