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. The Washington Times' history of anti-gay rhetoric The Washington Times' anti-gay onslaught against Department of Education official Kevin Jennings -- which has featured anti-gay rhetoric, falsehoods, and distortions -- is only the most recent offense in the newspaper's long history of publishing anti-gay rhetoric and smears. Media Matters for America has compiled an extensive -- though by no means all-inclusive -- list of such rhetoric since the late 1980s, including the paper's warnings against the "gay agenda," attacks on the possibility of gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military, minimizing of the AIDS epidemic, and attacks on gay relationships and gay rights. Read More Fox News' Emanuel advances Lieberman's dubious claim about public option increasing debt On Fox & Friends, correspondent Mike Emanuel advanced the falsehood that a public option will increase the national debt by adopting Sen. Joe Lieberman's claim that it "could rack up major debt, sending the country into a recession worse than the one we're currently in." In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that health care bills with a public option reduce or have no major impact on the deficit; moreover, every proposed bill with a public option thus far has required enrollees to cover its costs through premiums, rather than have the plans be paid for through federal revenues. Read More Drudge advances false claim that Rep. Owens "broke four promises in one hour" by voting for House health care bill A Drudge-hyped article claimed that Rep. Bill Owens (D-NY), in his first day in office, broke four campaign promises at once by voting for the House health care bill. In fact, in accusing Owens of breaking campaign promises, the article misrepresented both Owens' campaign positions and provisions of the House's health care bill. Read More After repeatedly publishing his misinformation, Wash. Post gives Will space to brag about global warming poll After repeatedly publishing and failing to correct George Will's false and misleading claims about global warming, The Washington Post published Will's November 8 column bragging that "a Pew poll shows that only 57 percent of Americans think there is solid evidence of global warming, down 20 points in three years." Will has previously misrepresented sea ice data and forwarded other global warming misinformation in the pages of the Post. Read More In WSJ op-ed, Lomborg issues faulty claim about global warming's impact on rainfall In arguing against the pursuit of global warming policies, Bjorn Lomborg wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that "[c]utting carbon emissions will likely increase water scarcity, because global warming is expected to increase average rainfall levels around the world." In fact, Lomborg's argument ignores that while scientists predict that climate change may increase precipitation globally, they believe some areas will experience more flooding because of the rainfall, whereas others will be disproportionately affected by drought. Read More In Newsweek, Will employs falsehood to attack Newsweek article on warming In a November 7 Newsweek column, George Will claimed that global warming "has not increased" for 11 years and suggested that the world may be cooling in order to attack an October 31 Newsweek profile of former Vice President Al Gore. Scientists and statisticians reject Will's claim that recent temperatures are evidence that there is no global warming as they have rejected many of Will's previous claims about global warming. Read More Quick fact: Beck fill-in Bolling falsely claimed House health bill puts us "$1.2 trillion further in debt" Filling in for Glenn Beck, Fox Business Channel host Eric Bolling falsely claimed of the House health care reform bill, "if the Congressional Budget Office is right and the government program actually costs what they tell you it will cost", then we "woke up Sunday morning $1.2 trillion further in debt." Read More Having attacked Obama for overseas "apology tour," conservative media now attack him for not going to Berlin Members of the conservative media, including Fox News, are attacking President Obama for not attending the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But when Obama has traveled abroad in the past -- including a trip in which Obama commemorated D-Day -- Fox News and figures at other media outlets have criticized him for supposedly going on an "apology tour." Read More Laughing hysterically, Fox News media criticism show repeats fake HBO story that Fox apologized for starting During the November 8 edition of Fox News Watch -- Fox News' media criticism and analysis program -- host Jon Scott repeated the fake story that President Obama watched an HBO documentary about himself on November 3 instead of election returns. However, Fox News White House correspondent Major Garrett said on November 4 that the story -- which Fox News started -- was incorrect and apologized for what he said was his "mistake." Read More Quick fact: Hume says if Obama had included tax cuts in stimulus, GOP would have supported it -- but he did and they didn't Brit Hume claimed that if President Obama included tax cuts with the stimulus bill's "spending extravaganza," it "would have attracted Republican votes." Read More Quick fact: Matthews dismisses abortion fund segregation allowed under status quo as an "accounting trick" Chris Matthews dismissed as an "accounting trick" a proposed amendment to the House health care bill that would segregate funds to make sure that federal subsidies are not used to pay for most abortions. But under the status quo, such abortion fund segregation is currently allowed for Medicaid. Read More Quick fact: Morris falsely claimed under House health bill, "[Y]ou can actually go to jail for not having health insurance" Dick Morris falsely claimed that under the House health care bill, "[Y]ou can actually go to jail for not having health insurance." Read More Hannity concocts smear that Obama at fault for Ft. Hood shooting Sean Hannity speculated that "there is a chance our government knew all about" alleged Fort Hood shooter Malik Nadal Hasan "and did nothing because nobody wanted to be called an Islamophobe," and asked, "What does it say about Barack Obama and our government?" But there is no evidence that Obama was aware of the emails between Hasan and an imam with alleged ties to Al Qaeda; moreover, Hannity did not address what the incident says about President Bush, who was in office when the authorities reportedly first intercepted the emails. Read More You can help support our work; become a volunteer media monitor, or donate to Media Matters for America.