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. Hannity, Andersen advance discredited claim that Ayers helped Obama pen his autobiography During an interview on Fox News, Sean Hannity and author Christopher Andersen agreed that "Bill Ayers helped [President Obama] with his book" Dreams From My Father and that "literary devices and themes [in the book] bear a jarring similarity to Ayers' own writings" -- a conservative talking point during the 2008 election that Andersen also advances in his new book, Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage (William Morrow, 2009). However, an Oxford professor who conducted a computerized analysis of Obama's book and Ayers' memoir Fugitive Days at the suggestion of former Rep. Chris Cannon (R-UT) reportedly found that it was "very implausible" that Ayers helped Obama write his autobiography. Read More Beck, Fox News lead conservative media in uniformly decrying "McCarthy"-like violation of Humana's "free speech" rights After the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) instructed Humana and other Medicare Advantage (MA) organizations to cease sending health care reform mailings to Medicare beneficiaries, numerous conservative media figures -- including several Fox News hosts -- have advanced the talking point that the Obama administration is "threatening" or "suppress[ing] free speech" rights of reform opponents, in a manner Glenn Beck said "sounds like Joe McCarthy," often failing to note CMS' rationale. In fact, CMS expressed concern that the mailings -- which directed beneficiaries to contact Congress in opposition to Medicare Advantage payment cuts -- is "misleading and confusing to beneficiaries, represents information to beneficiaries as official communications about the Medicare Advantage program, and is potentially contrary to federal regulations and guidance." Read More Hannity demands Obama "turn this water on now" in Central California -- but pumps have been on for months Broadcasting live from California's Central Valley, Sean Hannity continued his oft-repeated attack on "radical" environmentalists and the Obama administration for supporting water pumping restrictions that protect threatened delta smelt, by claiming the restrictions are "drying up this once fertile area" and calling on President Obama to "turn this water on now." But according to the Department of the Interior, the pumping restrictions ended on June 30 and have been returning to capacity since; moreover, water resource issues in the valley persist for many reasons, including years of drought in California, despite conservatives' attempts to blame problems solely on the restrictions. Read More REPORT: ACORN OBSESSION: Beck, Hannity obsess over ACORN while virtually ignoring major corruption scandals In light of the recent attention Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity have devoted to a supposed corruption scandal involving ACORN, Media Matters for America reviewed the coverage each host has provided on his respective television programs to a selection of well-documented political scandals and instances of corruption by companies that have received thousands of times more money from the government than ACORN has in the past 15 years. Our findings show that both hosts have been obsessed with ACORN, devoting a massively disproportionate amount of attention to the story in comparison to their coverage of controversies involving military contractors that have received billions of dollars in federal contracts and instances of Republican corruption at the highest levels of the U.S. government. Furthermore, since Beck joined Fox News, the amount of attention he has devoted to ACORN has skyrocketed, while his interest in other corruption scandals has remained limit ed. Read More Beck ignores reported arrest to attack "Nanny State" road checks for drunken drivers In his new book, Arguing with Idiots, Glenn Beck attacks "Nanny State-ism" by criticizing drunken-driving laws, writing, "The Nanny State approach is to use the police department to set up roadblocks and spot-checks," and that stating since "[t]he largest percentage of vehicular deaths related to alcohol are from repeat offenders," the "commonsense solution is that you lose your license after a second DUI. Forever. Problem solved." In criticizing "roadblocks and spot-checks" and advancing his "commonsense solution," Beck did not address his reported arrest for "speeding in his DeLorean with one of the car's gull-wing doors wide open," after which a former colleague said Beck was "completely out of it." Read More Wash. Times enlists in Beck's crusade against FCC diversity officer Mark Lloyd In a Washington Times article, Amanda Carpenter promoted Glenn Beck-favored right-wing attacks on Mark Lloyd, the chief diversity officer at the Federal Communications Commission, by reporting that Beck, Andrew Breitbart, and conservative websites "unearthed" "provocative comments" Lloyd has made about Hugo Chavez, freedom of speech, minorities' access to leadership positions, and ways to promote liberal radio. Additionally, Carpenter wrote that "bloggers are questioning Mr. Lloyd's commitment to free speech" based on his writings about the First Amendment, but in fact, the text of Lloyd's writings make clear that he was criticizing distortions of the First Amendment, not the amendment itself. Read More Does Glenn Beck support the slave trade or is he just an "idiot"? In a chapter in his new book purporting to explain to "idiots" what "our Founding Fathers really intended," Glenn Beck praises an obsolete provision of the U.S. Constitution that prohibited Congress from outlawing the slave trade before 1808 and capped taxes on the slave trade at $10 per slave. In his explanation of the provision, Beck does not mention slavery, saying instead that the provision means that the Founders apparently "felt like there was a value to being able to live here" and lamenting: "Not anymore. These days we can't ask anything of immigrants -- including that they abide by our laws." Read More You can help support our work; become a volunteer media monitor, or donate to Media Matters for America.