Media "Distortions"

"Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have."

-- Richard Salent, Former President CBS News.

"News is what someone wants to suppress. Everything else is advertising".

former NBC news President Rubin Frank

Asked to give a toast before the prestigious New York Press Club in 1880, John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff at the New York Sun, made this candid confession [it's worth noting that Swinton was called "The Dean of His Profession" by other newsmen, who admired him greatly]:

" There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes. "

Jayson Blair

Jayson Blair was a reporter with the New York Times. Despite a past history of exaggerations, he was assigned to the DC Sniper Case. One of his articles triggered a complaint from a competing newspaper to the effect that Jayson has stolen the story from one of their reporters. A subsequent investigation revealed that most of Jayson's work for the New York Times was either stolen or fabricated. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2cjtcuPFFkQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

As originally taken by AP As later posted by CNN Why the dehumanization?

Reuter's lies in a photo caption during the 2000 election.

The Reuter's caption reads, "WASHINGTON D.C. electoral college delegate Barbara Lett Simmons (L) signs papers certifying her vote for the 2000 U.S. presidential election December 18, 2000. Simmons decided not to cast a vote for either president or vice-president, protesting the election results./Khue Bui (Reuter's)"

Except that Simmons, a Gore delegate, was actually protesting the fact that DC does not have congressional representation, NOT the outcome of the election.

ABC's John Stossel apologizes!

On February 8th, 2000 20/20 broadcast a story by John Stossel claiming that foods sold at organic and health food stores were no more safe to eat than food bought at conventional supermarkets. Stossel claimed that tests commissioned by ABC TV showed that food purchased at organic markets had higher rates of E. Coli contamination and equivalent amounts of pesticides.

Investigation by the Environmental Working Group revealed that the experts cited by ABC's 20/20 for the story had never actually performed the tests ABC claimed in the story.

Despite the embarrassment, Stossel repeated the story on July 7, 2000, informing the EWG through an intermediary that he would not even respond to the allegations. ABC TV, however, embarrassed by the publicity, ordered Stossel to apologize.

Stossel has also been accused of mireporting in his story on Erin Brockovich, the California woman who found Chromium 6 in her town's drinking water.

Lies from the war in Kosovo!

The following frame is from a video shown on the mainstream media and captioned as being the wreckage of a downed Mig-29. Note the obvious english lettering.

Click for full size image

When the F117 went down, the Pentagon initially insisted that the plane had not been shot down, could not be shot down, and had crashed owing to a mechanical problem. Note the hole from a cannon shell to the right of the insignia.

Click for full size image

ABC News chickens out

Not exactly a lie, but clear evidence that ABC will not report the news they do not care for!

On Thursday, July 30, 1998, ABC News ran a story claiming that their polls showed that most Americans did not think that perjury was grounds for the President to be impeached. ABC took severe criticism over the fact that this claim was directly contradicted by several online polls which showed that (as MSNBC was reporting) 2/3 of Americans favored impeachment.

So, on Friday Morning, July 31st, 1998, ABC News placed the question of impeachment as their online poll at their website. By noon (Pacific time) the results were beginning to match those found everywhere else.

At 12:15 PDT, ABC removed the online poll regarding impeachment.

The following screen capture of the ABC website was grabbed at 12:27 PDT July 31,1998 and shows the left portion of the web page, where the day's online poll would normally be found, is blank.

Click for full size image.

Recent Disgraces

NBC is reported to have interviews on tape with Juanita Broaddrick, a.k.a. Jane Doe #5, the Arkansas woman who accused Clinton of raping her 20 years ago. Despite having four corroborating witnesses, and having actually run the story several months prior, NBC bows to White House pressure and spikes the on-air interview in January 1999 during the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton. ABC also had the story and likewise spiked it after calls from the White House. FOX News not only runs the story (sans interview) but outs White House Press Spokesman Joe Lockhart for threatening them!

Up again with a new host!

NBC Dateline defames a trucking company in a report which manufactured claims of unsafe driving. NBC had to pay a half million in damages.

CNN/Time - On June 7th, 1998, CNN reported that a Vietnam veteran had accused the Department of Defense of using nerve gas on it's own troops. While hardly the first time that the US has used chemicals against it's own people, this story proved to be un confirmable, and in the face of pressure from the Department of Defense, CNN retracted on July 2nd, 1998. Several reporters were fired, but CNN's Peter Arnett keeps his job by reminding everyone that he just reads what's given to him and has no way of knowing if it's true or not. At last report, Arnett, CNN and TIME have been sued for 100 million dollars for defaming the officers accused of the Sarin gas attacks.

Steve Brill - Long time DNC donor Steven Brill created a magazine called "Brill's Content" and then shot his own magazine down with the debut issue, which instead of criticizing media offered up a 22 page attack on Kenneth Starr which was then used by the White House to again try to impede the investigation. No sooner had the Brill article debuted than virtually everyone interviewed for the article came forward to claim they had been misquoted and in one case to deny totally the statements attributed to them. Brill's shrill insistence that his quotes were indeed accurate and checked fell apart when one of the interviewees produced a tape recording of the interview. Brill was then forced to retract and apologize.

Salon - An online magazine funded by Clinton donors, Salon, like Brill, was created to lend an air of credibility to some pretty silly accusations nobody else in the mainstream media would touch. Typical was the story Salon ran accusing Kenneth Starr of paying off witness David Hale. Upon examination, it turned out that Salon's sole source for the accusation was a woman who was a Clinton delegate, and had once worked for detectives trying to find dirt on Kenneth Starr. A (failed) professional psychic, she claimed she could control the rain with her mind and that it was she, not General Norman Schwartzkoppf, who had guided our troops to victory in Desert Storm. One of the reporters working for Salon is Jonathan Broder, who was fired from the Chicago Tribune for plagiarism.

Stephen Glass - A reporter at the New Republic, Stephen wrote several award winning articles which reinforced the liberal's preconceived notions about conservatives and the nation at large. One example involved a story of a conservative conference that degenerated into drug use and group sex. The story passed editorial review and ran without basic fact checking. The story turned out to be a fabrication, along with almost 1/3 of the total work product of Glass's career at New Republic.

Patricia Smith resigns her job at the Boston Globe after having to admit she fabricated characters for one of her stories. Later investigation shows that 52 of her articles for the newspaper cannot be verified as factual. Smith had been a finalist for a Pulitzer prize at the time of her disgrace.

Mike Barnicle refused to resign his job at the Boston Globe after having been caught plagiarizing, and was fired. It was not the first time he had been investigated for fraud in his articles. Barnicle was suspended without pay for two months, which prompted an accusation of racial bias from the NAACP due to the difference in treatment between the white Barnicle and the black Pat Smith.

The Weekly Standard settles a big lawsuit with Deepak Chopra.

Both CNN and Tom Brokaw settle out-of-court with Richard Jewell.