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. Politico again distorts Pelosi, Hoyer remarks on disruptive tactics In an August 12 Politico article, Andy Barr again falsely reported that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer "called the [town hall] protesters 'un-American' in an op-ed Monday in USA Today." In fact, referring to efforts to "disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue," Pelosi and Hoyer wrote, "Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American." Read More Why we need the media to focus on the facts In a conversation earlier this week about polls showing that large numbers of Republicans don't believe Barack Obama was born in the United States, I wondered how many of those respondents might not know that Hawaii is a state. That wasn't a shot at Republicans; I just think people in general know less about their country than we tend to assume. Read More Fox misleads on Obama interview to advance "death panel" fears Fox News' Bret Baier and Shannon Bream selectively cited an April interview to claim that President Obama's "own words may have contributed to the atmosphere of fear" surrounding "talk about possible government mandates in so-called end-of-life issues" or "what critics call 'death panels.' " But in the interview Bream cited, Obama made clear that an advisory panel that would issue guidance on end-of-life issues would "not [be] determinative, but I think has to be able to give you some guidance." Read More WSJ's Moore falsely claimed health bill requires employers to pay extra tax for every "new worker" On Fox News, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Stephen Moore falsely claimed that the House tri-committee health care reform legislation includes "an employment tax," under which, "[e]very time a business hires a new worker, they'd have to pay an 8 percent tax." In fact, the "8 percent tax" is a penalty on certain employers who do not provide health care coverage to their employees, requiring them to pay 8 percent of their payroll; businesses that provide health care coverage would be exempt from the tax. Read More USA Today provides platform for Boehner health reform falsehood USA Today published an op-ed by House Minority Leader John Boehner in which he claimed that a Democratic health care reform bill "would create a 'Health Benefits Advisory Committee' that would make determinations about what kinds of treatments, items and services can be covered within certain benefit classes" [emphasis added]. In fact, the provision Boehner cited sets minimum requirements for what "treatments, items and services" must be covered; moreover, Boehner's suggestion that the bill would create rationing ignores the fact that private insurers currently ration health care. Read More Beck falsely claims White House never takes questions from Fox News' Garrett Fox News' Glenn Beck asserted, "I know [Fox News White House correspondent] Major Garrett doesn't ask the questions at the White House, because he's never called on. Hmmm. I wonder why." In fact, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has responded to questions from Garrett during every press briefing Gibbs has held in August, including one earlier on the day of Beck's broadcast. Read More Watching Fox & Friends can be hazardous to your health reform knowledge Fox & Friends continued its pattern of consistently advancing falsehoods about health care reform when Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) -- whom the program hosted to take questions about the reform legislation from viewers and "dispel the myths" -- falsely claimed that under the House proposal, "the greatest number [of uninsured people] that will be picked up is by a substantial expansion of Medicaid." In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, 30 million uninsured people would receive insurance through the health care exchanges set up by the bill, while only 11 million people would receive coverage under Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) combined. Read More Conservative media ignore their own long history of invoking Nazis to smear progressives Numerous media conservatives have misrepresented House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's comments that protesters are "carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care" to express outrage that she would call the protesters "Nazis" -- even though she didn't. However, their outrage rings hollow -- the conservative media frequently invoke Adolf Hitler and the Nazis to smear the Obama administration, Democratic officials, and progressive policies, and such rhetoric has escalated in the past few days, largely due to Rush Limbaugh. Read More After previously debunking end-of-life falsehoods, ABC and AP portray them as he said/she said On August 13, ABC's Kate Snow and the Associated Press both characterized the established fact that end-of-life counseling under the House health care reform bill would be voluntary as simply something that President Obama "contends." But both ABC and the AP had previously reported that under the bill, such counseling would indeed be voluntary, and both had previously debunked Sarah Palin's false claim that the provision would create a "death panel." Read More You can help support our work; become a volunteer media monitor, or donate to Media Matters for America.