Roger Aronoff

AP Chairman Comes Close to Endorsing Obama

The chairman of the Associated Press news agency (AP), Dean Singleton, left little doubt who he is supporting for president in 2012. From the tone and words of his introduction today of President Obama, who was speaking to an AP luncheon, to the softball questions he asked following the speech, there could be no doubt that he wants to see Barack Obama reelected.

Can Justice Survive Media Lynch Mob?

As more facts have come out about the tragic death of young Trayvon Martin, the news media have been confronted with the consequences of their rush to judgment when news of this story first broke nationally. The first week or 10 days of national coverage turned out to be more of a lynch mob than a sober take on an unfolding story. It had all the makings of “First the hanging, then the trial.” And then more facts began to emerge.

MSNBC Planning to Have Matthews & Co. Host This Year’s Election Coverage

Unlike in 2008, MSNBC is planning to have Chris Matthews, along with the rest of the primetime lineup of MSNBC, host the 2012 presidential election coverage. This includes the presidential debates in September and October, and election night itself.

Media Matters, or Does It?

The news for Media Matters keeps getting worse and worse. After weeks of stonewalling the excellent Daily Caller series that broke on February 12, Media Matters founder David Brock and his co-author Ari Rabin-Havt of the new book The Fox Effect have selectively responded to some of the allegations made in the series. Media Matters for America is the far-left, George Soros-backed organization that claims its purpose is to monitor and correct conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. But as characterized in The Daily Caller series, “Media Matters has in less than a decade become a powerful player in Democratic politics. The group operates in regular coordination with the highest levels of the Obama White House, as well as with members of Congress and progressive groups around the country. Brock, who collected over $250,000 in salary from Media Matters in 2010, has himself become a major fundraiser on the left. According to an internal memo obtained by The DC, Media Matters intends to spend nearly $20 million in 2012 to influence news coverage.”

CBS Proudly Accepts AIM’s Award, Despite Controversy

As reported in a recent posting, Accuracy in Media presented its annual Reed Irvine Media Awards for Investigative and Grassroots Journalism amidst a trumped up controversy reported in The Washington Post, Politico and Big Journalism. Awards were presented to Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News for her investigative reporting on Operation Fast and Furious as well as Solyndra and other "green energy" projects in which the Obama administration has invested Americans’ taxpayer dollars; and Dana Loesch, Editor-in-chief of Andrew Breitbart’s Big Journalism, for her tireless work as a grassroots journalist. The pro-Democratic Party media watchdog, Media Matters, led the effort to browbeat Attkisson and CBS into backing out of accepting the award. They claim her reporting was shoddy and that CBS shouldn’t allow her to accept an award from a partisan group, as they call Accuracy in Media. Yet as AIM’s Cliff Kincaid recently exposed, the head of Media Matters, David Brock, has created a so-called Democratic "Super PAC" specifically devoted to electing Democrats and defeating Republicans.

MSNBC’s Usual Suspects, and Plans for the Democrats to go “Nasty”

There are so many scurrilous, condescending and false charges on MSNBC on any given day, that it is tough to catalog all of them. The NBC brand, which used to have much higher standards, is being damaged on a daily basis by its cable news division. A few items from MSNBC’s Florida primary analysis demand retractions and corrections, which will likely never come. They don’t care. They are hit men for the Democrats. That’s who they are, that’s what they do.

CBS Exposes Obama’s Version of Venture Capitalism

Sharyl Attkisson has done it again. We have credited her for her excellent reporting on Operation Fast and Furious, the gunrunning operation in which Attorney General Eric Holder has been caught telling lies to Congress about what he knew and when he knew it. This has been one of the major scandals of the Obama administration that the mainstream media have largely ignored. But CBS News and in particular investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson have done some groundbreaking reporting on this story, while the rest of the mainstream media have largely ignored it.

Reminders of the Horrors of Communism

This past weekend, two stark reminders of the nightmare that communism was, and continues to be, left the world stage. These two people couldn’t be more different in their outlook and actions. One was Václav Havel, the Czech playwright, poet and intellectual, who spent years in prison, but whose willingness to stand up and tell the truth about the lies and brutality that were the essence of the Soviet Union and his own captive nation makes him a significant figure in the pantheon of those instrumental in defeating the Soviet Union. In 1993 he became the president of the Czech Republic. Here is a worthy obituary from The Telegraph.

The Media Obsession with and Abuse of Polls

Before a single vote has been cast for the Republican presidential nomination, “the lead” has changed hands five or six times. At one point or another, Rick Perry led, Herman Cain led, Michele Bachmann led, Mitt Romney led, and the current leader is Newt Gingrich. But the obsession with all of these polls serves to take the place of real journalism and analysis, and turns this very serious process into another reality show. We should be very skeptical of most polls, and observant of how the media try to use them to shape our opinions, rather than reflect them. In addition, the liberal media are eager to have a role in picking the candidate who they look most forward to pummeling in a general election against President Obama.

Killing Bin Laden: What Didn’t They Tell Us, and Why?

The explosive new book by former Navy SEAL, Chuck Pfarrer, has led to a reconsideration of what actually happened when SEAL Team 6 took out Osama bin Laden last May. The media coverage of the book has largely focused on the specific details of the operation, but there is much more to Pfarrer’s book, SEAL Target Geronimo: The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama Bin Laden, that has received little or no attention. Pfarrer recently gave an exclusive interview to Accuracy in Media, in which he talked about the culture and character of the SEALs, about his own unique story, and the so-called War Against Terrorism.

Chris Matthews: Gaffe Machine

One should always be careful, when criticizing and making fun of others, to not be guilty of the same offense. We try to be very careful, with a name like Accuracy in Media. It can come back to bite you. That is unless you’re some hotshot left-wing “news” person on MSNBC. Then it doesn’t matter. But let’s pretend it does.

Measuring Liberal Bias—By Numbers and By Examples

Liberal media bias is a subject we at Accuracy in Media confront on a daily basis. We identify examples, explain the significance, and present facts, figures and informed opinions that the media usually choose to ignore.

Media Coverage of China is Overlooking Significant Stories

China has been increasing its influence and presence in recent months, though it’s not getting a lot of attention in our media. One topic that was covered extensively was the issue of Congress attempting to pass a law to combat China’s currency regulation. It has passed in the Senate, and is being held up in the House. There is concern that the bill could start a trade war, and antagonize the Chinese, costing American jobs.

Olbermann and Letterman: Men of the People

Two extremely wealthy white American comedians, both who “earn” in excess of $10 million a year, gaggled last night CBS's The Late Show with David Letterman about the “two or three percent of the people [who] have all the money” in this country, while expressing their solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement.

MSNBC Promotes New Bush Bashing Book

Paul Pillar is the author of a new book on 9/11 and the Iraq War entitled, Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy: Iraq, 9/11, and Misguided Reform. In an appearance on Monday on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, Pillar said that the “the most important point to make is, that war decision was not driven by intelligence…if you look at what intelligence was saying to the Bush administration, they were not talking up Iraq as a threat before the decision was made. The infamous intelligence estimate about Weapons of Mass Destruction didn’t even exist when the President had made his decision and the selling of that decision to the American public by late summer 2002 moved into high gear, the President didn’t even read the estimate.”

Operation Fast and Furious: The Scandal that Can No Longer be Denied

The usual truism is that many politicians make the mistake of not coming completely clean when allegations of wrongdoing surface. The cover-up, it is said, is often worse than the underlying crime or ethical violation. This has often been cited as the mistake made by people including Richard Nixon (Watergate break-in), Bill Clinton (Lewinsky, not to mention Filegate and Travelgate), and John Edwards (love child and cheating on his cancer-stricken wife). More recently, Anthony Weiner. There is a long list.

Obama’s Charade Exposed

There was a very revealing segment on The Chris Matthews Show on Sunday. The discussion was about President Obama’s recent focus on jobs, jobs, jobs. Obama gave his much ballyhooed speech in Congress, right after everyone returned from their August recess. You will recall that Obama first tried to schedule it up against a long-planned Republican presidential debate, the first day Congress was back, but that was rejected in what was treated by the media as a show of disrespect. The President agreed to speak the next night, and had to carefully schedule it so as not to conflict with the opening game of the National Football League season.

The Deal is Done—Assessing Winners and Losers

The voting is in from the House and Senate, but opinions are sharply divided among both conservatives and liberals as to whether or not the debt ceiling deal was a good one for either party or country. Wall Street’s first response was quite negative, with the Dow down 265 points on the day the Senate sent the bill to the White House.

Media’s Disgraceful Coverage of Debt-Ceiling Debate

Events are moving fast toward the artificial deadline of August 2nd. President Obama has apparently given up on getting a tax hike, and thus balance, as he has called it. In his Friday morning (July 29th) announcement, he urged folks to keep the pressure on with phone calls and tweets. Speaker of the House John Boehner has revised his plan that failed to garner enough votes on Thursday night to include once again a balanced budget amendment. And Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid is reportedly planning to finally introduce Democrat-backed legislation sometime soon.

America’s Hidden Epidemic—An Interview with Arnold Mann

America is in the midst of a public health crisis that has received very little attention from the press or the medical community, yet it affects literally millions of Americans. In his new book, They’re Poisoning Us: From the Gulf War to the Gulf of Mexico, Arnold Mann, a prominent medical and environmental journalist, has documented and exposed this silent epidemic, with potentially enormous ramifications.