Media Matters Daily Summary

Here are today's news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story. NBC Nightly News ignores Goolsbee rebuttal in reporting GOP "power grab" attack Reporting that Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke appeared before a House committee hearing "with a request for more authority that some critics are already calling a power grab," NBC's Kelly O'Donnell did not note White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee's response that had "we had resolution authority now, we could have dealt with the issue of bonuses." Read More Media find Obama news conference insufficiently entertaining Several media outlets echoed the assertion of a Drudge Report headline that President Obama's March 24 press conference was "boring." Read More Fox's Carlson repeated executive pay claim that Gibbs told her was false the day before Fox & Friends' Gretchen Carlson falsely claimed that the Obama administration advocates regulating "executive pay at any financial institution." In fact, restrictions on employee compensation would be placed only on "financial institutions that are receiving government assistance." Read More Suggesting inconsistency on Obama's part, Todd expands on his flawed "sacrifice" analogy Referring to a question he asked at President Obama's press conference, on Morning Joe, Chuck Todd suggested Obama was being inconsistent in not asking the American people for sacrifice -- during a recession, with millions recently unemployed -- after having criticized President Bush for failing to ask for sacrifice following 9-11. Read More Fox's Cavuto, Baier repeat falsehood that Employee Free Choice Act would eliminate secret ballot Neil Cavuto and Bret Baier falsely claimed that the Employee Free Choice Act would, in Baier's words, "do away with the secret ballot in votes to unionize." In fact, as The Christian Science Monitor noted, EFCA would give "workers a choice of forming a union through majority sign-up ... or an election by secret ballot." Read More LA Times erased word "torture" in describing Obama nominee's criticism of Bush administration The Los Angeles Times reported that State Department general counsel nominee Harold Koh "call[ed] a 2002 [Bush administration] memo justifying harsh interrogation methods a 'stain on our national reputation.' " But Koh has repeatedly referred to the conduct sanctioned in the memo as "torture" -- a word the Times did not use. Read More Conservative media run with dubious SkyNews claim of Obama "teleprompt blunder" Conservative media figures uncritically highlighted a SkyNews.com report that a "teleprompt blunder has led to Barack Obama thanking himself in a speech at the White House in a St Patrick's Day celebration." In fact, a pool report of the event released at the time indicates Obama was, in the words of the Telegraph's Toby Harnden, making "a good-natured and well-received joke" at the expense of Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen, who earlier in the event had mistakenly read from the teleprompter displaying Obama's speech. Read More You can help support our work; become a volunteer media monitor, or donate to Media Matters for America.