CNN: Unfair, Unbalanced, and Worse than Fox

According to Jeffrey Toobin of CNN, “Obama clearly broke the law” in his effort to free American POW Bowe Bergdahl. My gripe about this report. I watched another segment aired on CNN earlier yesterday, and there was an opinion expressed by a Law professor (whose name I failed to note at the time) who questioned the constitutionality of the law requiring President Obama to notify Congress within 30-days of any prisoner release from Guantanomo.

The language of Article Two ("command of the military") in the U.S. Constitution clearly states:

“The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”

Clearly, the 30-day Congressional notice requirement encroaches upon the powers of the executive branch. President Obama and Defense Secretary Hagel had reason to believe that American POW Bergdahl faced immediate danger – necessitating quick and preemptive action. More than justified under such circumstances, any constitutional challenge in court of his command authority would far more than likely favor the president.

Meanwhile, why did CNN fail to include the “other” opinion? More to the point, why was this constitutional issue withheld from public discussion?

Sensationalism as usual, inflaming public controversy for ratings and audience share, prescribing 'shrink wrapped' news instead of reporting it - this is garbage journalism at its worst and unworthy of CNN.

Afternoon Update: Be prepared for Benghazi Part II and the art of politicizing everything you can)! Related stories:

GOP dispatches hit team to interview angry former members of Bergdahl's platoon (IOW, how to hold kangaroo court by gossip on FaceBook instead of practicing due process in a court of law).

From Zero to Impeachment in One Day. I have only one regret. Too bad President Obama didn’t trade all Tea Party Republicans to the Taliban for one prisoner of war.

CNN’s Bachmann Debacle: How Mainstream Media Fails the American Public

Last night, Rachel Maddow questioned the integrity behind CNN’s decision to air Michelle Bachmann's Tea Party Express speech, citing this arrangement with a PR operative:



This PR placement hardly qualifies as a legitimate news story; yet CNN gave Bachmann a national stage for blaming chronic unemployment on the Obama administration. More than merely a false narrative and a propagandist revision of recent events, it offends our sense of cause and effect.  Consider this sequence of events:

The most severe recession since the Great Depression DID NOT begin in the Obama administration. It started in 2007 - in the Bush administration. The first warning was sounded by then Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson - of the Bush administration. The TARP bill was rushed through Congress and signed into law - by the Bush administration.

When a speeding car runs out of gas in one administration and coasts to a dead stop in the next administration, who is at fault? The fault is with the administration that forgot, through lack of oversight, to put gas in the car - NOT with the administration that got stuck calling the tow truck.

Mainstream media lets lies such as these go unchallenged. In giving national exposure to Bachmann, CNN allowed a falsehood to go viral without making even a token effort to fact check the speech or offer a critical analysis. This is how CNN dumbs down the American public and lets political hacks get away with factitious murder.

There is more at stake behind this story. When propagandists and hacks game the system, how can the American public rely on accurate news? Junk journalism such as this puts our democracy at risk.

Your media narrative is going kill us all (part 2 - updated)

The current media narrative is that the elections in November are going to be a disaster for the Democrats, with massive numbers of Republicans getting elected. (This message is often accompanied by metaphorical battlefield narrative, with the victorious conquerors striding over the bleeding bodies of their fallen foes.)

And this has many people panicked about the fate of America, with teabaggers coming into office and strengthening the obstructionist Republicans who are doing their best to ensure that the first black president's term in office is an abject failure. Because, after all, Americans have notoriously short memories and will always choose instant gratification over long-term gains: it actually sounds plausible that, since Obama did not immediately create untold wealth and prosperity, the small-minded people will decide to give the keys back to the people who drove the car into the lake in the first place.

What they're failing to rememeber, of course, is that the media narrative is usually wrong. For one thing, it's being driven by people who are motivated to tell you that the Republicans will save us all.

While right-wing media chooses stories that serve its political agenda, progressive media increasingly covers the same "news." True, the focus is on disproving right-wing accounts, but from the "death panels" for granny to the alleged "Ground Zero" mosque, the right wing is setting the agenda for the progressive media.

No wonder Americans are unaware of President Obama's many accomplishments, or think that he, rather than President Bush, signed the unpopular bank bailout bill. With progressive media primarily focused on rebutting conservative "news," little time is left to promote stories that build support for progressive policies.
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And, unlike progressive media, Fox and right-wing radio feel no obligation to cover stories that boost their opponents. The right-wing media avoids news that does not serve their cause, which limits stories from echoing through the broader public.

That's why so few Americans know about the Ensign, Vitter and other Republican political scandals, but everyone knows about Charles Rangel's problems. And why so many are unaware of the jobs created and preserved by the Obama stimulus, or about the many positive actions Obama officials at the EPA have taken to improve the environment.

Many noted how the media never connected former President Bush to the Exxon Valdez spill, but directly associated Obama with BP's reckless conduct. That's because Fox News and others made Obama the issue from the start, and traditional media either parroted this line or joined progressives in noting that the Bush Administration imposed lax oil drilling regulations; either way, Fox's framing of Obama as a central figure in the spill prevailed.

The slant even makes itself apparent in who they choose to tell the narrative. A new study from George Mason University School of Law shows that among the panel guests making up the Sunday Morning talk shows, "diversity" is a myth. The most common panelist is overwhelmingly an older, white, male Republican.

The study, of the five network Sunday shows from February to December 2009, found that while 14.6 percent of members of Congress were minorities, just 2.5 percent of the Congressional TV guests were minorities; and that while 16.9 percent of members were female, 13.5 percent of the guests were female.

A supplement to the study also singled out a group of “30 white, male U.S. senators in office six plus years” who represented 5.6 percent of the Congressional populace, but 61.4 percent of the TV guests.

Other fine examples of media compliance with promoting a false narrative can be found with allowing Republicans to call the act of allowing the Bush tax cuts expire a "tax increase." Or the continual references to a community center as the "Ground Zero Mosque." Despite the fact that it's partly modeled on the 92nd Street Y, which is a Jewish community center, which nobody ever calls "the Upper East Side Temple".

So, where does that leave us? Where should we turn?

Perhaps to the facts.

Flash back with me to February, 2008. Check out the headlines. If you alter the search terms from "Clinton leads" to "McCain can win", you get results like this. I love that first headline, don't you? October 29, 2008, just a couple of days ahead of the election, and the headline from the Seattle Times and others around the country is "McCain can still win..." Just for more fun, look at the news results for August-September 2008 when Palin came onboard -- she was a "game-changer".

We don't know what will happen. But really, we almost never do.

In the end, all we can bring away with us is that things are probably not as cut and dried as the "liberal media" would like us to believe.
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Update (9/16): So meanwhile, if you're looking for more reasons to doubt the media's narrative about the unstoppable GOP machine, perhaps you should consider that the Republican party is currently curled up in the corner, trying to gnaw its leg off. And as for the public, well, it turns out that while they don't like the Democrats much, they like the Republicans even less, and they believe the Democrats have a better chance of fixing the mess we're in. So, you know, calm down. And don't forget to vote.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE AFTER THE FORT HOOD MASSACRE

Inspiration for this post comes from a close friend, Lindsay at Majikthise, who questioned the journalistic integrity of one of our major news gatherers in: AP trafficks in innuendo over Ft. Hood shootings.

My interest in the Fort Hood story is more than causal. My daughter is a career military officer who was once stationed there, and it was from Fort Hood where she deployed on the first of four missions to the Middle East.

Years ago, I received one of those telephone calls that parents dread: “Dad, I am shipping out, and if you want to see me before I go, the time is now.” Immediately, I booked a flight to Dallas with a transfer to Killeen to spend what few precious days I could with my daughter. As the years passed, I would repeat this drama again and again.

Military life can be almost as hard on families as on soldiers. Holidays are less than festive when there is an empty place at the table. There is always the missing person at family milestone events … the succession of births and funerals that mark our days … and the skipped heartbeat before answering unexpected knocks on the door.

There were times when the telephone rang in the middle of the night, and it was the voice of my daughter who said: “Dad, in case you haven’t heard the news yet, there was a rocket attack but we are okay.”

Lucky for me, my daughter always returned home, shaken by flashbacks never discussed, but otherwise unharmed. Thousands of other families have been less fortunate. To date, there have been 4,362 deaths in Iraq and 918 in Afghanistan … the sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles of someone, but not everyone.

I repeat “not everyone,” because less than a third of one percent of our citizenry has a family member in the military. Most Americans bear witness to war from afar … from the comforts of home in front of televisions that report frontline news from thousands of miles away. Flip the channel. On any given day, the voice of Wolf Blitzer hawking headlines segues into the voice of Billy Mays plugging OxyClean, which merge into one continuous deafening screech. Accounts of war interspersed with crass commercialism create an aura of banality that deadens the senses … until some strange act of violence takes place on native soil and shakes Americans from their stupor.

Mass murder has become so commonplace, we are almost too numb to be shocked. Scarcely a day after the Fort Hood massacre, a disgruntled ex-employee entered an office building in downtown Orlando and opened fire, killing one and wounding five. How quickly we forget the carnage at Virginia Tech that left 33 dead or this massacre at Fort Hood 18 years ago that left 23 dead.

What makes this bloodbath different from others? It occurred on a military base deep in the heart of Texas, and the shooter is an Army Major with a foreign name: Malik Nadal Hasan.

MSNBC: “At least three gunmen involved.”

CNN: “One gunman “neutralized” and one cornered.”

FOX: “Three gunmen dressed in fatigues.”

CNN: “One shooter dead, two in custody.”

FOX: “M-16s used.”

ABC: “Gunman was a convert to Islam.”

TWITTER: “Hasan handed out Korans before the shooting.”

In retrospect, the headlines of the day were riddled with hearsay, and none of these accounts proved accurate or true. Have we grown so accustomed to junk journalism that we fail to notice anymore?

All too often, there are opinion makers willing to jump to conclusions and spin certitudes and platitudes before all facts are known. And all too often, there are bigots, demagogues, and political opportunists willing to spin false reports and half truths into inflammatory cants, such as the infamous Jerome Corsi, who writes:

“Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged shooter in yesterday's massacre at Fort Hood, played a homeland security advisory role in President Barack Obama's transition into the White House, according to a key university policy institute document.”

This statement was so outrageously false, Frank Cilluffo, Director of the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University, issued an immediate disclaimer:

"[Nidal Hasan] has no role on the task force, other than the fact that he attended these meetings as an audience member, as did hundreds of others."

The American Family Association, a conservative Christian group, posted a website article (caution: this link crashed my browser four times) calling for Muslims to be barred from military service. According to their spokesperson, Bryan Fischer:

“It is time, I suggest, to stop the practice of allowing Muslims to serve in the U.S. military (…) Yesterday’s massacre is living proof [sic].”

The infamous Islamaphobe, Dave Gaubatz said in this interview:

“ Politicians, Muslims, and law enforcement are concerned about a 'backlash' against Muslims. Now is the time for a professional and legal backlash against the Muslim community and their leaders. ”

Even more ominous and disturbing, four Republican members of Congress … Sue Myrick [R-NC], John Shadegg [R-AZ], Paul Broun [R-GA] and Trent Franks [R-AZ] … want to bypass a formal FBI inquiry and conduct their own investigation, an initiative supported by the undead Senator from Connecticut whose image no longer reflects in Democratic mirrors.

There are compelling reasons for conducting a non-politicized inquiry through proper channels. Is Malik Nadal Hasan really an Islamic terrorist (a forgone conclusion in the minds of Islamaphobes), or does he fit the profile of other criminally disturbed personalities who have committed past mass murders?

The hype and hysteria in the aftermath of the Fort Hood massacre concern me. There are thousands of Muslims serving in our military. Some are bullied, subjected to ridicule and scorn, called “towel heads” and “sand n***ers” by fellow soldiers. Muslim-Americans serve as soldiers, translators, and military liaisons with our allies in the Middle East, which include the Arab Emirate States, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, and Turkey, as examples. Muslim-American families make the same sacrifices and suffer the same anxieties as my family when their soldiers deploy overseas.

How does our country appear in the eyes of the world and our allies when bigots and hate-mongers insinuate themselves into the public debate? My question is more than rhetorical. These malevolent voices dishonor the service of our soldiers and sabotage their efforts.

A blogger who calls herself an American Black Chick in Europe puts this issue into proper perspective:

“Why do some elements of American society attribute the actions of an individual to an entire group of people? I'm tired ... tired of generalisations thrown out at folks who have a different name, different religion, different skin color, different look, different ideas than what's considered "mainstream America.”

I raised similar concerns at the blog of our esteemed colleague, Robert Stein of Connecting.The.Dots, when a fly-by troll steeped in Fuzzy Logic said this to me:

“ Well, thank goodness you spoke up and aligned yourself with the mass murderer at Fort Hood instead of with my comment.”

How smug and offensive! These days, hyper-partisanship respects no boundaries. Sometimes I feel as if we are at war on two fronts: The terrorists who attack us from abroad and the lunatic fringe that assails us at home. We have turned into a nation at war with ourselves when our most cherished beliefs and values, including civil liberties and the rule of law, are no longer considered sacred and sacrosanct, but must be defended on all fronts.