November 06, 2009 4:40 pm ET
Media continue to misrepresent abortion provisions in health reform bill
Media figures continue to falsely claim that a proposed anti-abortion amendment to the House health care reform bill would only have the effect of prohibiting government money from being used to pay for abortions, echoing a myth previously advanced about a proposed amendment to a prior version of that legislation. In fact, language in the current House bill already segregates federal money so it cannot be used directly to fund abortions, and the proposed amendment would effectively ban abortion coverage for some who have it now.
November 06, 2009 3:18 pm ET
Right-wing media respond to Fort Hood shooting by attacking American Muslims
Right-wing media figures have used the shooting at Fort Hood as an excuse to attack Islam and American Muslims in particular, with Debbie Schlussel, for example, urging readers to think of the alleged shooter "whenever you hear about how Muslims serve their country in the U.S. military." Additionally, commentators have blamed the shooting on "political correctness," with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade suggesting the implementation of "special debriefings" for Muslim American soldiers to prevent future attacks.
November 06, 2009 3:17 pm ET
Farah falsely claimed official "confirm[ed]" WND falsehood that alleged shooter "advised Obama transition"
WorldNetDaily CEO and editor-in-chief Joseph Farah claimed that WND's false report that alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan "advised" the "Obama transition" -- previously debunked by Media Matters for America -- had been subsequently "confirm[ed]" by an official with the Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) at George Washington University, which had listed Hasan as a member of its Presidential Transition Task Force "Event Participants." But the updated article reported only that the official confirmed that the Hasan listed as a "participant" was the alleged shooter, not that he had advised the "Obama transition" -- a falsehood undermined by WND's own reporting that there is no evidence that "the group played any formal role in the official Obama transition."
November 06, 2009 1:05 pm ET
Fox News advances false claim that "House Call" protest was "spontaneous"
Fox News has repeatedly advanced, and in Sean Hannity's case adopted, Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) false claim that her November 5 House Call protest in opposition of health care reform was "organic" and "spontaneous." In fact, the protest was organized by House Republicans in collaboration with conservative activist groups, and was promoted by right-wing media outlets in advance of the actual event.
November 06, 2009 12:24 pm ET
Fox Nation, conservative media launch political attack on Obama's shooting remarks
Following the shootings at the Fort Hood Army Post, the Fox Nation and right-wing blogs launched political attacks on President Obama's remarks at a the Tribal Nations conference at the Interior Department, in which he addressed the tragedy after making introductory remarks.
November 06, 2009 12:05 pm ET
Right-wing media falsely claim Pelosi broke pledge to post health care bill online 72 hours in advance
Right-wing media are claiming Speaker Nancy Pelosi broke a pledge to post the "final" House health care bill online 72 hours before it comes to a vote, echoing a Weekly Standard blog post that claimed amendments allowed by the House Rules Committee the day prior to the vote will change the bill. However, Pelosi's office posted both the text of the bill and the "manager's amendment" -- which The Sunlight Foundation called an "extra final version of legislation" -- 72 hours in advance; those actions meet guidelines set by a House transparency measure that Pelosi told the Weekly Standard she "absolutely" supported.
November 06, 2009 11:03 am ET
WND falsely claimed alleged Fort Hood shooter "advised Obama transition"
WorldNetDaily falsely claimed that alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan "advised Obama transition" in the headline of an article by Jerome Corsi highlighting his listing as a "participant" in a report for the Homeland Security Policy Institute (HSPI) at George Washington University's Presidential Transition Task Force. However, Corsi himself acknowledges that there is no evidence that "the group played any formal role in the official Obama transition" -- indeed, the Task Force was initiated in April 2008. Moreover, while Hasan was listed as one of approximately 300 "Task Force Event Participants" in the report's appendix, HSPI has reportedly said he was not a "member" of the Task Force, and was listed because he RSVP'd for several of the group's open events.
November 05, 2009 8:10 pm ET
Citing no evidence, Hannity estimates that 20,000 attended Fox-promoted GOP health care protest
Citing no evidence, Sean Hannity twice stated that 20,000 people gathered to protest health care reform at a GOP rally on Capitol Hill -- a claim he later walked back drastically -- while MSNBC reported that Capitol police estimated the crowd at only 4,000; prior to the rally, Hannity said crowds at the event -- which he and other Fox News figures heavily promoted -- would be "massive." Conservative media previously inflated crowd estimates for the 9-12 March on Washington.
November 05, 2009 7:27 pm ET
Fox News owns the extremist images featured at Capitol Hill rally it promoted
In aggressively promoting Rep. Michele Bachmann's November 5 anti-health care reform rally on Capitol Hill, Fox News has chosen to associate itself with the offensive and extremist rhetoric emanating from that event. This rhetoric includes the disturbing signs -- such as one of a pile of Holocaust victims' bodies captioned "National Socialist Health Care, Dachau, Germany - 1945" -- displayed at the event.
November 05, 2009 6:27 pm ET
Beck, Breitbart witch hunt targets White House official Buffy Wicks
Fox News' Glenn Beck, Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, and other right-wing media figures have targeted White House official Buffy Wicks in their ongoing witch hunt against President Obama's administration officials. Beck and BigGovernment.com have repeatedly attacked Wicks, and he and BigGovernment.com's Mike Flynn have made the baseless charge that Wicks was engaged in preventing prosecutions of those involved in the alleged beating of a tea party protester.
November 05, 2009 6:22 pm ET
Fox News figures endorse ABC's V as an attack on "Obama-mania"
Fox News' Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Glenn Beck have all endorsed the new ABC television show V, citing the show's depiction of aliens seeking to conquer Earth who offer to provide universal health care as a critique of "Obama-mania" and "Obamacare." This is not the first time Fox News personalities have promoted a television show to buttress their right-wing world view; many of them cited Fox's 24 to defend the use of torture by U.S. authorities, among other conservative positions.
November 05, 2009 5:54 pm ET
Fox News' La Jeunesse attacks Obama for not spending billions more on Yucca Mountain
During a report about President Obama's decision to stop funding a nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain, Fox News' William La Jeunesse referred to Obama's decision as "$13 billion of your money down the drain" and said that the facility is, "from an engineering standpoint," "complete" but "just waiting for a license" -- suggesting that Obama's decision cost taxpayers billions of dollars for no reason. However, even if Yucca Mountain were to receive a license -- which could be several years -- experts say it may not be safe, would not be able to receive radioactive fuel for a "long time," and the costs to build, operate, and receive the fuel have reportedly ballooned to more than $96 billion.
November 05, 2009 3:41 pm ET
IBD misrepresented Gore on hurricane frequency
An Investor's Business Daily editorial falsely claimed that Al Gore "still claims" hurricanes "are increasing in frequency and intensity" as a result of global warming and that "[w]hat has happened in the past three years is that such claims have been thoroughly debunked as the earth has cooled, possibly for decades hence." In fact, Gore has said that there is no consensus that warming is causing more frequent hurricanes, and the author of the study IBD claims has "debunked" predictions about the effect of warming on tropical cyclone (TC) intensity has stated that his findings "do not contradict the recent climate change/TC linkage literature."
November 05, 2009 2:11 pm ET
Fox News advances false GOP claim that premiums under their plan would be $5,000 lower than Dems' plan
In reports on Fox & Friends and America's Newsroom, Fox News advanced the false House Republican claim that "[t]he CBO estimates that health insurance premiums would be nearly $5,000 cheaper under the Republican reforms than the Democratic ones," in Fox News' Martha MacCallum's words. But the GOP's calculation ignores the premium caps included in the Democrats' plan to assist middle-income families purchasing insurance through the exchange, and the purported premium savings that Fox News highlighted apply to only 5 percent of private premiums.
November 05, 2009 1:13 pm ET
Limbaugh switches stance on "moral" victories following NY-23 defeat
In 2006, Rush Limbaugh accused Democrats of "redefin[ing] victory" by claiming a "moral victory" in elections they lost by small margins. However, reacting to Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman's loss in New York's 23rd Congressional District, Limbaugh touted Hoffmann's "good showing" and applauded conservatives for having "kept a horrible Republican from possibly winning" in defending his and Sarah Palin's support of Hoffman.
November 05, 2009 7:57 am ET
Fox News personalities aggressively promote Bachmann's protest against health care reform bill
In recent days, following its pattern of advocacy, Fox News and its personalities' have repeatedly promoted Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) November 5 anti-health care reform protest, to be held on Capitol Hill and in the halls of Congress. Fox News has previously promoted numerous other rallies such as the April 15 tea party protests, health care town hall protests, and the 9-12 march on Washington.
November 05, 2009 7:05 am ET
Right-wing blogs falsely suggest Owens opposes public option
Following Democrat Bill Owens' November 3 victory in the contested NY-23 Congressional race, right-wing bloggers have sought to highlight the "under-reported fact" that Bill Owens "campaigned against the public option." However, while Owens modified his position on the public option during the course of the campaign, he has expressed support for a public option since September, and on October 30 Owens endorsed the public option in the House health care reform bill.
November 04, 2009 7:23 pm ET
Right-wing talkers go down in defeat in NY congressional race
Right-wing media figures enthusiastically endorsed and boosted the failed Conservative Party candidacy of Doug Hoffman in the race to fill a vacant seat in New York's 23rd Congressional District, with several of them hosting Hoffman on their radio or television shows. Media figures who boosted Hoffman include Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Mike Huckabee, Michelle Malkin, and Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com.
November 04, 2009 5:04 pm ET
WSJ op-ed distorted right-wing poll of women to attack health care reform
An op-ed in The Wall Street Journal falsely claimed that a poll conducted by conservative pollster Kellyanne Conway for the right-wing Independent Women's Forum (IWF) found that two-thirds of women are "less likely to back candidates who support government care." In fact, the poll asked whether respondents would be "more likely or less likely to support a candidate for Congress knowing he or she favored moving people from their private healthcare plans to government-run healthcare plans" [emphasis added].
November 04, 2009 1:29 pm ET
Right-wing media ignore weeks of open debate, GOP actions in accusing Democrats of legislating "behind closed doors"
Right-wing media have repeatedly advanced the claim that Democratic lawmakers have shown a lack of transparency while crafting legislation on health care reform, often claiming that the legislation is being decided "behind closed doors." But these assertions ignore both the weeks of open debate in committees both in the House and Senate, and examples of Republican lawmakers forgoing transparency while in the majority.
