"Swift Boat Veterans
John Kerry has made his four months
of military service in swift boats in Vietnam the centerpiece of his
campaign. His campaign has purchased tens of millions of dollars in
commercial advertising promoting it. He authorized a biography on the
subject. And he speaks of his brief service 35 years ago every time he
gets a chance. No one's dragged this out of him. He alone has been
promoting it.
More than 200 Vietnam vets who
served alongside Kerry in swift boats including 19 of his 23 fellow swift
boat commanders signed a letter declaring him unfit to be president. All
of Kerry's commanding officers signed the letter. This is humongous news.
On May 4th, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, made up of Democrats and
Republicans, held a press conference to release the letter. The group
notes that Kerry is using one Vietnam era photograph in his campaign
despite the fact that 12 of the eighteen people in the picture have
signed the letter. Pretty strong stuff.
But ABC, NBC and CNN think
otherwise. It never made their evening newscasts. It's as if the group
and their letter never existed. Which is the goal of these liberal
networks. They don't want you to know that nearly every single Vietnam
vet who served alongside Kerry has condemned him. Guess which candidate
for president ABC, NBC and CNN support?
To see the letter go to
http://www.swiftvets.com/Index2.htm.
And that's the Point.
I'm Mark Hyman." 5-27-04
First of all, Mark Hyman is
either a liar, or a shoddy reporter who did very little research before
making this The Point. He says, "But ABC, NBC and CNN think
otherwise. It never made their evening newscasts. It's as if the group
and their letter never existed." It took me 5 minutes on the
internet to discover that CNN conducted an interview with John O'Neill,
leader of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, on Wolf Blitzer Reports,
April 20th 2004. Since this program airs on TV at 5pm ET, I guess one
could say it made CNN's evening newscast. Likewise, MSNBC TV conducted an
interview with John O'Neill on Scarborough Country, May 4th, 2004. This
program airs at 10pm ET, which I suppose could also be considered evening
news. ABC news mentioned the group on This Week with George
Stephanopoulos, on The List segment, on April 25th, 2004. This airs on
some stations in the morning, so my brief research indicates this news
item may indeed not have reached ABC's evening news.
But why would Mark Hyman want you to think that ABC,
NBC, and CNN completely ignored this story? First, he wants you to think
all other media is liberally biased so that you will only pay attention
to him and those he approves of. If you ignore all other news and only
listen to him, then he can make you believe whatever he wants you to
believe so that you will re-elect Bush and SBG (see below) can grow
bigger and make more money. Second, he doesn't want you to see what CNN,
NBC, and ABC had to say about the issue. CNN and NBC held fairly
balanced interviews where they presented both sides of the issue. For
example, NBC had someone who opposed the SwiftVets agruing Kerry's case
against O'Neill. ABC, on the other hand, just poked fun at the whole
thing by quoting Jon Stewart of the Daily Show (a comedy show that spoofs
the news):
Stewart: "Kerry's 33-year-old
charges continue to raise the hackles of fellow veterans, like John
O'Neill, who served in the same division as Kerry and told CNN's Wolf
Blitzer he is still angry about his [Kerry's] war crime
accusations."
O'Neill on CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports:
"Because we were there, we know the truth that this guy's
unfit to be the commander-in-chief."
Stewart: "So Kerry's behavior in
1971 makes him unfit to be commander-in-chief. Hmmm. I wonder if Bush's
behavior in 1971 would hold up to that kind of scrutiny."
John Belushi, Animal House: "Food
Fight!!"
"The Point" is a
segment by Mark Hyman who also happens to be the Vice President of
Corporate Communications for Sinclair Broadcasting Group. Before we take
a look at this group.... let's first take a general look at media bias.
(Or skip on to
The Point)
I feel myself qualified to discuss media bias for three reasons. One, every day I get my news from a broad range of sources. I start by reading CNN online, then I check out the online news coverage at MSNBC and FOX. Then I go to Aljazeera's online english site to get the Arab perspective on world news. I also listen to Air America Radio (AAR) all afternoon while I work. When I have time, I stop by CBS and ABC online, as well as British online sources such as BBC NEWS and The Gaurdian Unlimited. Occassionally I will watch CNN, ABC, CBS, or NBC news coverage on TV at home or at the gym. Two, I am a liberal and I feel that I can recognize liberal media when I see or hear it. Three, I believe I can be at least mostly objective in rating news sources that don't fit in with my personal bias.
Now let's consider a media bias continuum as follows. Let's say that 0 is neutral, dead-center, just-the-facts-Ma'am reporting. Then we extend the numbers 1-10 in both directions to the left (L) and right (R). Let's call 2L-2R middle of the road reporting, 3L-5L and 3R-5R traditional liberal/conservative reporting, 6L-8L and 6R-8R ultra-liberal and ultra-conservative reporting, and 9L-10L and 9R-10R liberal and conservative extremism.
In my news gathering experience, I think CNN comes closest to middle of the road reporting, and that's why I start there. I rate CNN 2L-2R. MS/NBC, CBS, and ABC also tend to stay in the middle, but they foray to more bias in both directions now and then. I rate them 3L-3R.
The only liberal media I've encountered on TV news or Radio is AAR, a new radio network that came on at the end of March and which features the comedian Al Franken (from 11-2p in the midwest). I can get on board with most of what I hear there, and I rate them 4L-8L depending on the show. If you think that CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS are not centered reporting, then I challenge you to listen to AAR and see what actual liberal media really sounds like. You can stream them online with Real Player at http://www.airamericaradio.com/main.cfm.
Michael Moore, maker of political documentaries such as Roger and Me (documenting the downfall of Flint, MI after factory outsourcing), Bowling for Columbine (covering gun violence in America compared to the rest of the world), and his new film Fahrenheit 9/11 coming out this summer (which documents the 2000 election, terrorist warnings before 9/11, and the Bush-Saudi connection) would be ultra to extremist liberal. I rate him 7L-9L. I would give 10L to groups that make news by doing things like piling bodybags in front of tobacco coorporations to illustrate how many people have died that month from cigarette poisons.
FOX news, on the other hand, has a conservative bias that ranges from traditional to ultra-conservative. I rate them 4R-8R, or basically the opposite of AAR. Rush Limbaugh, who said the torture of Iraqis (90% of whom were innocent people pulled off the street, according to the Red Cross) was nothing worse than frat boy hazing parties, gets a 7R-9R from me. Ann Coulter who says John Walker should be executed to physically intimidate liberals by letting them know they too can be killed, and Michael Savage who says we should stick dynamite up Iraqi butts and drop them from planes onto Fallujah... they get 9R-10R ratings from me. Groups that do things like bomb abortion clinics get 10R.
Let me give just one example to illustrate this continuum that I see every day in comparing news sources. In April, pro-choice groups held a protest march in D.C. AAR and the groups that participated reported 1-1.15 million participants in the march. CNN, ABC, CBS, and MS/NBS reported between 500,000 and 800,000. FOX reported that there were "more than 100,000" participants in the march. Again, I would claim that this is illustrative of typcial news reporting bias from AAR, CNN, ABC, CBS, MS/NBC, and FOX, based on my observations and comparisons.
What I'm trying to show here is that there is a wide diversity of media bias, including both liberal and conservative bias, depending on the station or the host. Anyone who claims that the whole media (except them) is liberal (or conservative) isn't looking at the continuum in a balanced way.
And this brings me to
The Point. One of the main themes of The Point is that mainstream media
is liberally biased. They manage to sneak that accusation into nearly
every issue they address. Given my analysis above, the very fact that
they make this "liberal media" claim, renders their views
suspicious to me... but let's take a closer look.
The Point is brought to you everyday by Mark Hyman,
who is a Vice President at Sinclair Broadcasting Group (SBG). SBG is a
media empire that runs 62 stations broadcasting ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, WB,
and UPN. They garner 24% of the national TV viewing audience.
(http://sbgi.net/).
SBG provides "local news" by a
"revolutionary news model" they call Central News. They
provide prepackaged world and U.S. news coverage for local stations to
stick in with their local coverage of weather and sports. The Central
News anchors are all in Baltimore, MD, but their banter is coached so
that it sounds like a continuation of the local news.
SBG claims that their centralized news is more
efficent because this way you don't have to have all these different
people all over the U.S. reporting on the same news. In one way that may
sound nice -- no more Iowans talking about how Iowans feel about world
news. On the other hand, this scheme eliminates all alternate views
except those held by SBG. Think of what that does to a democracy where
people are supposed to hear the news from every angle so that they can
make informed decisions when electing our nation's governing body. Now
24% of the TV market is only hearing the news that Central News thinks is
important, and that news is only presented with the SBG bias.
This is part of a growing trend in the U.S. media.
For example, Clear Channel owns over 1200 radio stations, 43% of the
radio market. Rupert Murdoch's media empire includes local television
stations reaching more than 44% of the country, FOX NEWS, Fox Sports,
National Geographic TV, newspapers, magazines, a production company, and
20th Century Fox movie studios. He also recently aquired DirectTV's 11
million subscribers.
Where do these media giants fall on the media bias
spectrum? SBG refused to let its ABC affiliates air a Nightline show
honoring the dead in Iraq by reading their names, claiming this was a
political move to put the Iraq war in a bad light. SBG requires its
affiliates to air statements that convey full support for the Bush
administration. SBG has forbidden affiliates from airing DNC ads, while
airing ads from the Bush administration. Sinclair executives have
contributed over $16,500 to Bush since 2000, and $130,000 to his
political allies before soft money became illegal. I would rate them
7R-9R.
Clear Channel forced their radio stations to boycott
the Dixie Chicks when they made a statement critical of Bush. Clear
Channel board members and executives have donated tens of thousands of
dollars to Bush. I would rate them 3R-6R. Murdoch's News Corp. spent
nearly $10 million on lobbying between 1999 and 2002, and they've
contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Bush administration
for the 2004 election. (The contribution figures are obtained through
http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/, a non-partisan, non-profit research
group based in Washington, D.C. that tracks money in politics, and its
effect on elections and public policy). I would rate all of his groups
as I did FOX, 4R-8R.
Now wait a minute here. The
liberals have a radio network that started a few months ago, and Michael
Moore struggling and fighting to get his movies out. But the
conservatives have huge media mega-conglomerates expressing conservative
views and contributing large sums of money to Bush. One might almost be
tempted to believe that there's a conservative bias in the media! If you
are a conservative, you might be tempted to heave a sigh of relief, the
media is on your side! But wait, are SBG, FOX, and Clear Channel really
on your side? Do they really support your conservative values? Or are
they perhaps more concerned with their own skewed ideology -- and money?
And if so, what does this mean for the veracity of the news you are
getting, even if you like the conservative bent?
These media giants have only been able to form because
of deregulation of the media. How is this happening? In 1996,
Republican controlled Congress eliminated rules limiting the size of
companies owning radio stations. Clear Channel went from 25 stations to
over 1200. According to Common Cause, a nonpartisan citizens' lobbying
group designed to keep power accountable, "media companies and their
allies have given more than $29 million in political contributions since
1995, and spent nearly $95 million lobbying Washington during that same
period." In return, the FCC approves big mergers and deregulation
despite their charge to protect the public interest. Once again this
summer, the FCC proposed huge degregulation changes to media ownership
rules. Polls show the public strongly disapproves of this move and FCC
commissioner Jonathan Adelstein noted, "We've now heard from nearly
2 million people, almost all opposed to the decision." Even
advocacy groups including the NRA and feminist groups have joined
together to oppose this deregulation. The FCC's final decision comes out
soon and is predicted to favor media corporations over public interest.
Note that, as president, Bush got to appoint the chairman of the FCC (who
happens to be Colin Powell's son, Michael Powell) who in turn gets to
hire other FCC workers who influence policy-makers.
Why is there so much protest against deregulation?
Well first off, as I mentioned before, we can't have an informed
democracy when a few media giants get to determine what news we hear and
how it will be presented. But that's not the only concern. When a
mega-corporation corners a market, they have pricing control, and there's
no reason to believe that savings from eliminating the competion are
going to be passed down to the consumer.
My contention is that media deregulation is bad for
the public because our news is being manipulated. SBG, FOX, and Clear
Channel will say whatever the Bush administration wants them too because
the Bush administration sees to it that the media continually becomes
more deregulated so that they can become bigger and make even more
money. Your news is being twisted and distored to fit political agendas
so that mega-corps can profit financially.
Why do you think that so many American's still believe
that there's a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, that Saddam had WMD,
or even that we actually found WMD in Iraq? Despite all the evidence I
can show you that these ideas are false, and were contested strongly even
before we invaded Iraq, the American public believes they are true
because they have been dupped. Most Americans crash after work and watch
FOX NEWS or a "local" station (which is really controlled by
SBG) or they turn on the radio (and likely end up listening to a Clear
Channel station, whether they know it or not). They hear the money
biased news presented to them and they believe it because hey trust their
news to be the old fashioned media ideal -- fair and balanced.
Most American's don't have time to spend hours a week
researching the news like I do. They don't have time to compare news
sources and check out the stories that don't match up between liberal,
moderate, and conservative sources, or to read international news. So
most American's aren't able to separate the wheat from the chaff... and
they don't even know it. (Actually, I don't have time to do this
either! But I do it anyway because I think it's so important.)
Fair and balanced media is a thing of the past -- back
when media was regulated and thousands of voices could be heard
presenting the news from all sorts of perspectives. In today's world,
the American who wants truth in news reporting has to carefully consider
the news source.