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. Echoing Fox News, Dobbs downplays Bush's use of czars Lou Dobbs stated that prior to the Obama administration, "the highest number of czars that we were able to document in our own reporting ... was during the Clinton administration, and he had only 10 czars." However, according to The Washington Post, former President Bush "had 36 czar positions filled by 46 people during his eight years as president." Read More NY Times article disappears conservatives' charges of racism against Obama The New York Times reported that "several conservatives ... accused their liberal counterparts of unfairly tainting them as racists for engaging in legitimate criticism of the White House" and quoted Rush Limbaugh saying, "Today, it's all based in racism -- the criticism of Obama's health care plan or whatever." But the Times article ignored Limbaugh's statement that "in Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering"; the paper also ignored charges of racism by other conservatives, including Glenn Beck, who has stated that President Obama is a "racist" and has "exposed himself as a guy" who has "a deep-seated hatred for white people." Read More Fox runs wild with "not scientific" IBD poll Several Fox News media figures highlighted a recent Investor's Business Daily/TIPP poll which found that "[t]wo of every three practicing physicians oppose the medical overhaul plan under consideration in Washington, and hundreds of thousands would think about shutting down their practices or retiring early if it were adopted." However, according to statistician Nate Silver, the poll is "simply not credible," and Fox News itself acknowledged that the poll is "not scientific." Read More Police report filed by ACORN exposes false claims by individuals behind videos In recent days, Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe, the conservative filmmakers who made the widely circulated ACORN videos, as well as Andrew Breitbart and Mike Flynn, who have been promoting the videos for BigGovernment.com, have claimed that the filmmakers were never rebuffed by any of the ACORN offices they visited in their attempts to get ACORN to assist them in improper activities. However, in a newly released video, ACORN Housing Corp.'s Katherine Conway Russell directly rebuts those claims, citing a police report ACORN filed as evidence that she asked the filmmakers to leave the ACORN office in Philadelphia and called the police after the filmmakers asked suspicious questions. Read More How Time magazine enables Glenn Beck's lies Four years ago, Time magazine devoted its cover story to a puff-piece profile of Ann Coulter, the right-wing ideologue best known for serial lies and wishing death upon those she disagrees with (journalists included). Only, Time forgot about the lies and the bloodlust and portrayed Coulter in a remarkably kind light. Read More Conservative media advance CEI effort to attack cap-and-trade with irrelevant Treasury memos Numerous conservative media figures have seized on outdated Treasury Department memos obtained September 11 by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) to falsely suggest that the Obama administration estimates that cap-and-trade legislation recently passed by the House of Representatives would cost up to $200 billion per year or $1,761 per household, and that, in Sean Hannity's words, "they didn't tell you the truth." However, the Treasury memos do not address the current House climate change bill but, rather, a proposal that would auction 100 percent of the emissions allowances; the bill under consideration spends revenue created by the program to offset costs to households and businesses. Read More Network news largely silent on Fox News' role in hyping, distorting ACORN story In their coverage of recently released videotapes showing ACORN employees allegedly giving advice to conservative activists posing as a pimp and a prostitute on how they could skirt laws, all three network evening news broadcasts -- ABC's World News, NBC's Nightly News, and the CBS Evening News -- left out substantive facts about the incidents that mitigate the accusations, exonerate ACORN employees, or undermine the credibility of the filmmakers. Moreover, none reported that Fox News, in its aggressive promotion of this story, repeatedly falsely reported that a San Bernardino ACORN worker murdered her former husband; only ABC News even mentioned that Fox News has been the major force promoting the story. Read More Not just ACORN: O'Keefe previously taped distribution of "good wife's guide" to women's studies class Over the past week, media outlets have given significant coverage to conservative filmmaker James O'Keefe, who, with Townhall.com columnist Hannah Giles, dressed up as a pimp and prostitute and secretly videotaped ACORN employees providing them with counseling. But this is not the first time O'Keefe has engaged in such activities in support of conservative causes; as a Rutgers University undergraduate, O'Keefe videotaped a classmate distributing to a Women in Culture and Society lecture a handout that emphasized that a "good wife always knows her place." 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