***Media Research Center Special and Viewing Alert***
5:30pm EDT, Friday June 10, 2005
Dan Rather Speech on C-SPAN on Saturday Night; PBS's Biased 'Now'
> On Saturday night, C-SPAN will carry Dan Rather's June 4
address to the conference in Denver of the Investigative Reporters
and Editors organization.
The June 6 CyberAlert recounted: Dan Rather "received standing
ovations at the start and end of his 45-minute appearance" Saturday
night in Denver as the keynote speaker at the Investigative Reporters
and Editors conference, Dave McNary reported for Variety. Jim Hughes
of the Denver Post recounted how "Rather left the room surrounded by
star-struck, snapshot-taking reporters." Apparently, the reporters
were unfazed by Rather's bad journalism. Daniel Zwerdling of NPR told
Hughes: "Every journalist in this room, including me, makes mistakes.
The question is, do we acknowledge them and learn from them? He has."
See: mrc.org
C-SPAN, the MRC's Michelle Humphrey alerted me, will run the hour-
long address at about 10pm and 1am EDT Saturday night.
The Poynter Institute has posted the text of Rather's prepared
remarks: poynter.org
> The text of a June 9 Media Reality Check, "PBS on Tom DeLay:
Favors 'Virtual Slavery'? Replacement for Bill Moyers Is Becoming the
New Poster Boy for Blatant Liberal Bias on Public TV," put together
by the MRC's Tim Graham.
It reviews the agenda of Now, mostly aired on Friday nights, in
recent episodes. Another Now will air tonight on many PBS stations,
but not in Washington, DC where WETA-TV Channel 26 will, during a
pledge drive week when they want to get people to watch so they can
raise money, replace it with John Denver: The Wildlife Concert.
For the Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the Media Reality Check:
mediaresearch.org
The text in the box in the middle of the faxed page
PBS, Not Fox, is Fair and Balanced?
"[I]t is clear that PBS does not belong to any single constituency,
no one political party or activist group or foundation or funder or
serves an agenda of any kind....this country needs one media
enterprise where education comes first; where fair and balanced isn't
just a slogan or a goal, but a way of life; where partisanship is
checked at the newsroom door."
-- PBS President Pat Mitchell in a National Press Club speech, May 24.
Now, the text of the June 9 Media Reality Check:
Exhibit A of a liberal bias at PBS is still the program Now, first
hosted by Bill Moyers, and now by David Brancaccio. On Friday night,
the blatantly partisan ghost of Moyers was still hanging over the
broadcast as Brancaccio led off by linking House Majority Leader Tom
DeLay to slavery: "The ethical questions dogging Majority Leader Tom
DeLay continue to grow. Have his favors to lobbyists led him from
family values to supporting virtual slavery?"
The program dealt with DeLay's relationship with lobbyist Jack
Abramoff, who lobbied for the Mariana Islands and their low-wage
clothing makers. Brancaccio's opening echoed liberal Rep. George
Miller, who said conditions in the Marianas were close "to indentured
servitude, to slavery." PBS had no DeLay defenders on the program.
The DeLay critics were bipartisan: Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.)
told PBS DeLay needs to resign. It was a one-sided get-DeLay program.
(Now hasn't tackled the ethics of Hillary Clinton.) Even when the
program is "balanced" with conservatives and liberals, it's really
fake balance:
# May 20: LaRue vs. Ivins. In a program on judicial nominations,
Brancaccio interviewed conservative Jan LaRue of Concerned Women for
America and liberal Molly Ivins, a syndicated columnist. He
introduced LaRue as "one part of a sprawling coalition of
conservative groups who are taking no prisoners in their efforts to
get President Bush's nominees on to those federal benches." He
treated LaRue like a hostile witness: "How far do you take this? Do
you think that the traditional separation between church and state is
a good thing or a bad thing?" And: "So in my efforts here to
understand, sort of, where your limits are on this, you wouldn't
support a state that wanted to establish an official religion, would
you?"
Ivins was not described as liberal, or as an author of two anti-Bush
books, Shrub and Bushwhacked. She was treated like a respected
expert. "The naked power plays in the U.S. Senate this week come as
no surprise to anyone who knows their way around certain state
capitals. The one in Texas comes to mind... Molly Ivins has been
following this posse out of Texas since long before its members rode
into Washington." His idea of a tough question: "This issue about the
judicial nominees if you take a look at Washington now, what are some
of the things that bother you the most that are being bandied about?"
[For much more on this edition of Now, see the May 31 CyberAlert:
mrc.org ]
# May 6: Garofalo and Barr. Brancaccio touted interviews with Janeane
Garofalo ("An outspoken liberal says as media conglomerates get
bigger and bigger, the audience is deserting them") and former Rep.
Bob Barr ("an outspoken conservative says as the government is
getting bigger it's trampling on the rights of citizens").
Brancaccio had a chummy talk with Garofalo on how the country's
political chatter is sullied by conservative euphemisms: "You're not
supposed to say taking prisoners and sending them to countries that
torture, you're supposed to say 'rendition.' And whatever you
do....do not say drilling for oil, you're supposed to say,
'responsible energy exploration.' I mean, the list goes on... you
have to hand...you are handing it to the conservative movement.
They're very, very good at it."
Barr came to criticize the Patriot Act, and drew softballs: "What
needs to go away in your view?" But Brancaccio pushed him on judicial
nominations: "What about this crazy scenario? The Bush administration
says: 'Okay let's end this stuff by proposing some more moderate names.'"
[For more on this episode of Now, see the May 11 CyberAlert:
mediaresearch.org ]
Liberal defenders of public broadcasting hate the idea that anyone
inside the system should watch for fairness and balance. But
Brancaccio's show proves that taxpayers are still being forced to
underwrite one-sided liberal propaganda that mocks PBS claims of
balance.
END of Reprint of the June 9 Media Reality Check
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