Fwd: MRC Alert: ABC, NBC and CBS Mostly Ignore Obama's Recess Appointment of Pro-Health Care Rationing Doctor to Head Medicare

 

A daily compilation edited by Brent H. Baker, CyberAlert items are drawn from daily BiasAlert posts and distributed by the Media Research Center's News Analysis Division, the leader since 1987 in documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias.

 

Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Thursday July 08, 2010 @ 09:15 AM EDT

1. ABC, NBC and CBS Mostly Ignore Obama's Recess Appointment of Pro-Health Care Rationing Doctor to Head Medicare
Barack Obama's decision to make a recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick to run Medicare has been vastly ignored by the mainstream news media, despite the fact Berwick has made controversial statements favoring rationing of medical care. There was no mention of the President's decision to make the recess appointment on Tuesday night's NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News or ABC's World News. In fact the embargo on the information continued through Wednesday morning as there were zero mentions on ABC's Good Morning America and CBS's The Early Show. Only NBC's Today show mentioned the news as Lester Holt, in an 8am news brief on the July 7 show. (On Wednesday night, ABC, CBS and NBC again skipped Berwick, but all found time to mark Ringo Starr's 70th birthday.)

2. MSNBC Guest Host Absurdly Claims: President Obama More Conservative than Reagan
So is President Obama more conservative than the late Ronald Reagan? MSNBC substitute anchor Cenk Uygur thinks so. Filling in yesterday for Dylan Ratigan on his 4 p.m. show, Uygur moderated a segment based on the preposition that President Obama's policies have actually been more conservative than those of President Reagan. "That's the silliest thing I've ever heard," former Reagan White House political director Frank Donatelli said of the claims. "It's an incomplete and distorted picture of everything," he added. Uygur is a host of "The Young Turks," a left-wing internet political podcast.

3. MSNBC Fill-In Host: Conservative Liberal Media Claims Based On Racism
Cenk Uygur, host of the left-wing internet talk show 'The Young Turks,' filled in for MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan during the 4PM ET hour on Wednesday and decried the nation's "shift to the Right." He lamented: "...when I started out I was a liberal Republican. No such thing exists anymore." He wondered why the media hadn't reported on the supposed radical shift in American politics and quickly came up with this explanation: "Why the media didn't challenge it is because they [conservatives] kept calling them the liberal media, and why did they call them that? Because during civil rights, they [the media] said 'yeah, black people and white people are the same' and the conservatives at the time said 'damn liberal media,' and, you know, that intimidated the media into not recognizing this trend."

4. ABC's Jeremy Hubbard Hints at Conspiracy: Did Palins 'Get to' Levi Johnston and Make Him Recant?
World News Now co-host Jeremy Hubbard on Wednesday didn't accept the explanation that Levi Johnston has simply decided to apologize for his bad mouthing of the Palin family. The ABC anchor hinted at darker reasons: "You know, I'm a cynic. Did the Palins get to him, do you think?" Discussing Johnston's public apology in People magazine, Hubbard began, "Did they sit him down and-" He broke off and didn't finish the thought. What was Hubbard implying? The answer went unsaid.

5. After Promoting Levi Johnston in '09, CBS Ignores His Admission of False Statements
In an interview with People Magazine on Tuesday, Levi Johnston admitted: "I publicly said things about the Palins that were not completely true." On Wednesday, the CBS Early Show failed to make any mention of the admission, despite having provided a media platform for Johnston last year by conducting exclusive interviews with him. On the April 8, 2009 broadcast, co-host Maggie Rodriguez conducted her first interview with Johnston, and introduced the segment by proclaiming: "He [Johnston], along with his mother and sister, sat down with me last night for an interview to clear up the 'lies' they say the Palins have been telling about them."

6. ABC's George Stephanopoulos Hectors Netanyahu, Saddles Israel With Responsibility for Peace
Good Morning America's George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday repeatedly berated Benjamin Netanyahu as to what the Israeli Prime Minister will do for the peace process. Focusing almost entirely on Israel, while excluding the U.S. and the Palestinians, he hectored, "What are you prepared to do? More security autonomy for the Palestinians on the West Bank? Prisoner releases?"

7. CNN Again Omits Pro-Illegal Immigration Stance of 'Public Defender'
On Wednesday's Newsroom, CNN's Tony Harris omitted the pro-illegal immigration activism of guest Isabel Garcia, just as his colleague Suzanne Malveaux did more than two months earlier. Harris twice referred to Garcia as merely the "deputy public defender in Pima County, Arizona," and didn't mention her involvement in the beating and decapitation of a pinata effigy of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. The anchor brought on the activist, as well as Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce, the author of the state newly-passed anti-illegal immigration law, for two segments starting 10 minutes into the 11 am Eastern hour. After asking Senator Pearce's position on the federal government's new lawsuit against the enforcement of his law, Harris turned to the public defender: "Isabel, you've been patient. Weigh in here."

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