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The Whoppers of 2011

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson - Dec. 21 (Fact Check) - Despite what you may have heard in 2011: The new health care law won’t cost many jobs (and they’ll be poorly paying jobs at that). Republicans aren’t proposing to “end” Medicare (and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden has signed onto a modified version of the GOP plan). Most of the “millionaires” who would pay higher tax rates under a Democratic proposal aren’t job-creating small-business owners. President Obama’s mother didn’t really fight to get health insurance coverage as she was dying. And there was plenty more spin and deception in 2011. Obama claimed he pays a lower tax rate than a teacher. Michele Bachmann endorsed a claim that HPV vaccine causes mental retardation. Joe Biden claimed rapes quadrupled in Flint, Mich., after police layoffs. And that’s just some of the nonsense we debunked.

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Romney’s Ad ‘Deceitful & Dishonest’?

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson - Nov. 23 (Fact Check) - The Obama campaign is in a lather over Mitt Romney’s first TV spot, calling it “a deceitful and dishonest attack” because of an edited quote from 2008. That’s a matter of opinion. We find a far more consequential issue is the ad’s exaggerated claim that the new health care law … More >>

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‘Government-Run’ Nonsense

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson - Nov. 22 (Fact Check) - The U.S. Chamber of Commerce puts a new twist on a tired old falsehood about “government-run health care” in one of its new ads attacking Democratic lawmakers. We noted other dubious claims as well. An ad against Sen. Jon Tester in Montana accuses him of favoring “government-run health care”

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As ‘Daily Show’ turns 15 years old, Jon Stewart’s best media criticism moments

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Poynter Institute - By Julie Moos - Jul. 23 (News Analysis) - The longest-running show on Comedy Central debuted July 21, 1996 — 15 years ago this week. Jon Stewart became host of “The Daily Show” in 1999, and has been commenting on the media ever since. Stewart, who has often been compared to broadcast news icon Edward R. Murrow, insists he is not a journalist but holds accountable those who are. Stewart and his staff are serious about media criticism, as they told Mallary Tenore in 2009. Here are highlights of the show’s media criticism through the years.

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Jon Stewart says those who watch Fox News are the "most consistently misinformed media viewers"

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

PolitiFact - By Louis Jacobson - Jun. 20 (Research) - The way Stewart phrased the comment, it’s not enough to show a sliver of evidence that Fox News’ audience is ill-informed. The evidence needs to support the view that the data shows they are "consistently" misinformed -- a term he used not once but three times. It’s simply not true that "every poll" shows that result. So we rate his claim False.

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Donald, You’re Fired!

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Brooks Jackson, Eugene Kiely, Michael Morse - Apr. 09 (News Analysis) - If Donald Trump worked for us, we’d have to say: "Donald, you’re fired — for incompetence." The successful developer and TV celebrity says he’d make a good president, and maybe he would — we take no stand either way about that. But when it comes to getting facts straight, he fouls up again and again on the basics of President Barack Obama’s birth. As a rookie reporter, he just wouldn’t make it. He claims the president’s grandmother says Obama was born in Kenya. In fact, the recording to which he refers shows Sarah Obama repeatedly saying through a translator: "He was born in America." He claims that no hospital in Hawaii has a record of Obama’s birth. Hospital records are confidential under federal law, but Honolulu’s Kapi’olani Medical Center has published a letter from Obama calling it "the place of my birth," thus publicly confirming it as his birthplace. He insists that the official "Certification of Live Birth" that Obama produced in 2008 is "not a birth certificate." That’s wrong. The U.S. Department of State uses "birth certificate" as a generic term to include the official Hawaii document, which satisfies legal requirements for proving citizenship and obtaining a passport. He claims that there’s no signature or certification number on the document released by Obama. Wrong again. Photos of the document, which we posted in 2008, clearly show those details. He says newspaper announcements of Obama’s birth that appeared in Hawaii newspapers in 1961 "probably" were placed there fraudulently by his now-deceased American grandparents. Actually, a state health department official and a former managing editor of one of the newspapers said the information came straight from the state health department. He claims "nobody knew" Obama when he was growing up and "nobody ever comes forward" who knew him as a child. "If I ever decide to run, you may go back and interview people from my kindergarten," Trump said. Well, two retired kindergarten teachers in a 2009 news story fondly recall teaching a young Barack Obama.

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Obama at Zeitgeist Rumors Dominate San Francsico Twittersphere

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

thefeast.com - By Kevin Meenan - Feb. 18 (News Report) - President Barack Obama enjoying a #SFbeerweek brew with at the newly reopened Zeitgeist, and pics to prove it?! Rumors swirled late night Thursday that the Commander in Chief - in town for a quick meal with the Silicon Valley elite -- had made a post-dinner detour to the famed hipster hang, presumably to celebrate the bar's grand reopening. San Francisco tweeters please, are we really that gullible? Sigh. Our morning net sleuthin' skills traced the origin of the rumor back to Techmeme's Gabe Rivera, who first tweeted a fake Zeitgeist Foursquare check-in with "@barackobama @dickc @ericschmidt @scobleizer" and later linked to a apparently believable Instagram pic of Obama boozing it up at a similarly divey haunt.

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How Truthy is the Twitter Torrent?

Thu, 07 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Miller-McCune - By Emily Badger - Oct. 07 (Special Report) - Memes divide and replicate on the Internet in a way they never did through old-fashioned media or word of mouth. In a matter of mouse clicks, the government is planning death panels. The president is a Muslim. There are headless bodies in the desert, medical microchips under our skin and IRS agents are coming for our guns.

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A Final Weekend of Whoppers?

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Lori Robertson - Mar. 19 (News Analysis) - With the House preparing for a final vote on the Senate health care legislation, with revisions, Sunday afternoon, we thought we’d give our readers a wrap-up of the top falsehoods of late. The debate over this bill has stretched on almost as long as a presidential campaign, and we suspect this weekend will be filled with politicians and third-party groups making their final — and faulty — pitches. There’s little doubt they’ll repeat wrong and misleading statements about premium costs, a government takeover, keeping your plan, Medicare cuts and more. Keep reading for details.

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The Washington Post Lets Pete Peterson Write The News On The Deficit

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

OurFuture.org - By Roger Hickey - Jan. 01 (Investigative Report) - The [article published in the Wash Post], entitled "Support grows for tackling nation's debt," appeared to be one of those background news pieces common in newspapers like the Post. But article was written not by the newspaper’s reporters – and not by an objective wire service, like the Associated Press – but by a new organization called The Fiscal Times, whose founder and major backer, Peter G. Peterson, has a long-term ideological commitment to convincing Americans that “support is growing for tackling the nation’s debt.”

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In Iraq, Colbert shaves head, declares victory

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

airforcetimes.com - By By Kim Gamel - The Associated Press - Jun. 08 (News Report) - Celebrities have frequently traveled to Iraq to entertain the troops. But the series of half-hour shows — dubbed “Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando” — mark the first time anyone has broadcast a taped show from Iraq from a tour intended to entertain U.S. troops.

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McCain And Obama Criticize New Coal Plants — Right Wing Goes Insane

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Think Progress - By Brad Johnson - Nov. 02 (Special Report) - Both presidential candidates, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) have called for a mandatory cap on carbon emissions in the United States. Coal-fired power plants, which produce about 49 percent of U.S. electricity, account for 83 percent of power-sector emissions. Because of the global warming footprint, the cheapness of coal-fired electricity is illusory.

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Top Troubling Tropes of Campaign '08

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

FAIR - Oct. 23 (News Analysis) - Not only do journalists organize the election story around the question--not terribly helpful to voters--of who's up and who's down, they largely base their evaluation of the race on shallow image-based narratives that the media construct themselves: Barack Obama is an "elitist" who might not "get the way we live" (Extra!, 7=8/08), while John McCain is a straight-talking "maverick" (Extra!, 5=6/08). Though these tropes are treated by establishment news outlets as self-evident, they usually fail to stand up to any kind of scrutiny.

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Deceiving Images

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Link TV - By Nicholas Lemann, George Lakoff, - Oct. 05 (Special Report) - (VIDEO 1 hour 24 mins.) This special panel features experts in the field of communication in a discussion about the escalating use of manipulative techniques in American political life. The panel is moderated by Nicholas Lemann, Columbia University dean of its Journalism School, and George Lakoff, UC Berkeley professor.

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Liddy guest Walid Shoebat falsely claimed that Obama is "definitely a Muslim"

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media Matters - Sep. 12 (News Analysis) - On his radio show, G. Gordon Liddy hosted self-described former terrorist Walid Shoebat to advance the false claim that Sen. Barack Obama, whom Shoebat said would be "extremely dangerous" as president, is a Muslim. Liddy also did not challenge Shoebat's false claim that Hamas supports Obama.

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NECN video posted on Boston Globe website falsely suggests "lipstick" comment immediately followed Palin reference

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media Matters - Sep. 12 (News Analysis) - In a New England Cable News video posted on the Boston Globe website, two comments by Sen. Barack Obama are spliced together, falsely suggesting that his comment that "[y]ou can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig" immediately followed a reference to Gov. Sarah Palin. In fact, the "lipstick" comment immediately followed Obama's comments about Sen. John McCain's policies and political tactics.

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Quinn & Rose's Rose, whose co-host referred to NOW as the "National Organization for Whores," called Obama a "sexist pig"

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media Matters - Sep. 11 (News Analysis) - On the Quinn & Rose radio show, co-host Rose Tennent claimed that Sen. Barack Obama's remark regarding Sen. John McCain's policies, "[Y]ou can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig," was directed at Gov. Sarah Palin. After saying she was "offended" and "appalled" by Obama's remark, Tennent stated, "You know what, you're a pig, you're a chauvinist pig is what you are, Barack." On previous shows, Tennent's co-host Jim Quinn introduced a segment about Sen. Hillary Clinton by playing the song "The Bitch Is Back" and referred to the National Organization for Women as the "National Organization for Whores."

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Boston Globe ignored Swift backtrack from charge that Obama compared Palin to a pig

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media Matters - Sep. 11 (News Analysis) - : The Boston Globe reported that former acting Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift "led the Republican charge" that Sen. Barack Obama's "lipstick" comment regarding Sen. John McCain's policies was "an echo of [Gov. Sarah] Palin's joke during her convention speech." But Swift did more than charge that Obama's statement was "an echo" of Palin's joke; she actually accused Obama of calling Palin a pig. Then the next day, she backtracked from that accusation. The Globe reported neither the direct accusation nor the backtrack.

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Limbaugh distorted NBC report to baselessly suggest audience chanted, "No more pit bull," in response to Obama's " 'lipstick on a pig' joke"

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media Matters - Sep. 11 (News Analysis) - A September 9 post on the washingtonpost.com blog The Trail reported that, at an event in Dayton, Ohio, that day, "Killing time while waiting for Sen. Barack Obama to start a speech on education policy this morning, a clutch of students in the bleachers at Stebbins High School" chanted "No pit bull! No pit bull! No pit bull!" Obama appeared at separate events in Farmington Hills, Michigan, and Flint, Michigan, on September 8. Regardless of which campaign event Cowan was describing when he mentioned "an Obama rally we were at earlier today in Michigan," it was clearly one that occurred before Obama made his "lipstick" remarks.

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Hannity accuses Obama of "outright falsehood" in saying Fox News -- home of the "terrorist fist jab" smear -- has suggested he is Muslim

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media Matters - Sep. 10 (News Analysis) - In fact, Fox News hosts -- one of whom asked if an affectionate gesture by the Obamas was "a terrorist fist jab" -- have repeatedly promoted false reports about Obama's religion, including the false report that Obama was educated in a madrassa.

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Conservative radio hosts seize on Obama comment to revive false rumors about his faith

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media Matters - Sep. 10 (News Analysis) - Conservative talk radio hosts have recently seized on comments Sen. Barack Obama made during a September 7 appearance on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos in order to suggest that the comments prove Obama is really a Muslim, not a Christian.

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NY Post editorial falsely claims Obama "once insisted that U.S. forces invade Pakistan" and "opposes sanctions" against Iran

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media Matters - Sep. 10 (News Analysis) - Obama has never said he would "invade Pakistan." Also, he has stated that he favors sanctions on Iran and introduced legislation to enable state and local governments to divest from Iran.

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Fox's Cameron: Obama "run[s] the risk of appearing a little bit arrogant" if he doesn't offer "lipstick on a pig" apology

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Media Matters - Sep. 10 (News Analysis) - Cameron made the comment even though he twice stated during the program that the McCain campaign's complaints about Obama's comment may amount to "crocodile tears."

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Journalists, their lying sources, and the anthrax investigation

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Glenn Greenwald - Aug. 03 (News Analysis) - The death of government scientist Bruce Ivins has generated far more questions about the anthrax attacks than it has answered. I want to return to the role the establishment media played in obfuscating the anthrax investigation for so long and, at times, aiding in what was clearly the deliberate deceit on the part of Government sources. This is yet another case where the establishment media possesses -- yet steadfastly conceals -- some of the most critical facts about what the Government has done, and insists on protecting the wrongdoers. Obtaining these answers from these media outlets is as important as obtaining them from the Government.

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The "MyBarackObama" Experiment

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Taking Note - By Michael Cornfield - Jul. 01 (News Analysis) - ...a majority...worried about what other people are learning online, it means that they possess a modicum of skepticism, and may be amenable to adopting a best practice for dealing with rumors on a regular basis. That practice consists of using the net to consider, first, the source of a disputed and/or disturbing truth-claim (via Google); second, the prevalent pattern of interpretation (partisan/bipartisan, easily scanned for national news via Memeorandum), and, third, the best available evidence (a matter of recognizing authenticated documents). Truth claims anchored in viewable evidence and attributable to a source acknowledged as credible on a bipartisan basis stand a decent chance of being valid. That's a practice worth spreading.

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