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. In latest "czar" witch hunt, Wash. Times ignores data undermining industry criticism of OSHA nominee A September 15 Washington Times article on the latest "hunt" against advisers to President Obama cited a 2005 paper that Dr. David Michaels -- Obama's nominee to head the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) -- wrote on the success of "corporate interests" in "shaping science policy" and quoted the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) saying of Michaels: "[H]is approach in every case seemed to be to paint employers as a whole as malevolent actors." But in laying out the case against Michaels, the Times ignored evidence from the paper it cited that undermined this claim, as Michaels also wrote that "the denial of scientific evidence and the insistence on an impossible certainty are not limited to business interests," citing opposition by "zealous environmentalists" to food irradiation as an example. Read More ABC's Sawyer whitewashes 9-12 protesters' extremism During an interview with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Good Morning America, Diane Sawyer whitewashed the extremism on display during the 9-12 protests by asserting that people at the protests were "saying things like, look at the reality. We're facing a $1.6 trillion deficit. If you're facing IOUs to other countries, where suddenly they own America, our children are imperiled." In fact, far from simply complaining about the deficit, numerous protesters at the 9-12 rallies held signs featuring inflammatory attacks on Obama and other Democrats, and Good Morning America itself previously interviewed 9-12 protesters who said that "every Democratic politician is working for the mafia" and that Obama is a "communist." Read More Beck relies heavily on Drudge protégé Andrew Breitbart in recent attacks on NEA, Jones, and ACORN In recent weeks, Fox News' Glenn Beck has been credited with precipitating the resignation of White House "green jobs" adviser Van Jones, the reassignment of National Endowment for the Arts communications director Yosi Sergant, and the amplification of an anti-ACORN video produced by a conservative filmmaker. In all three instances, Beck has credited the "instrumental" work of conservative columnist and Web publisher Andrew Breitbart, who has a history of smearing progressives and making inflammatory statements. Read More Kurtz only CNN figure to note role Beck, Fox played in promoting 9-12 protests While much of CNN's coverage of the September 12 protest in Washington has made clear that the event included accusations of Nazism and communism, unsavory references to Sen. Edward Kennedy's death, and what Campbell Brown described as "really ugly, vicious, racist imagery," CNN has largely ignored a central facet of the event -- the role Glenn Beck and Fox News played in organizing and promoting it. Indeed, according to a Media Matters for America review of the Nexis database, media critic Howard Kurtz is the only CNN figure to have noted that role, stating that the protest was "something that Glenn Beck practically conceived, promoted." Read More For major papers, 9-12 march -- but not Iraq war protest -- warranted front-page coverage In their September 13 editions, several major newspapers gave coverage of a September 12 "March on Washington" by conservative activists more prominent placement than they had an October 26, 2002, protest in Washington, D.C., against the Iraq war -- which reportedly featured a similar or greater turnout. The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times featured articles about the September 12 protest on their front pages, after the Post had provided only a photo of the Iraq war protest on its front page while printing its article on C1 and the Times had provided its only coverage of the Iraq war protest on page A17; The New York Times and Houston Chronicle both put photos of the September 12 protests on their front pages after providing no front-page coverage of the 2002 Iraq war protest. Read More At "hate group" event, Dobbs embraces discredited birther Jerome Corsi On his radio show -- broadcast from the anti-immigration organization Federation for American Immigration Reform's "Hold Their Feet to the Fire" legislative advocacy event -- Lou Dobbs interviewed WorldNetDaily staff reporter Jerome Corsi, who Dobbs described as "a pretty good guy to talk to" about immigration issues. Corsi is a consistent promoter of the conspiracy theory -- previously advanced by Dobbs -- that President Obama has yet to produce a valid birth certificate; the author of falsehood-laden books about Obama and Sen. John Kerry that Dobbs' CNN colleagues panned as "discredited;" and has a history of making bigoted comments, some of which he later apologized for. Read More You can help support our work; become a volunteer media monitor, or donate to Media Matters for America.