Slanting the War Coverage

[Glenn X]

Per two of Bill O'Reilly's Taking Points Memos from his Fox News Channel program this week:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,82211,00.html

Wednesday, March 26, 2003

Slanting the war coverage... That is the subject of this evening's Talking Points Memo.

Most military experts are saying the campaign in Iraq is an unprecedented success. The war is now six days old. The USA has losses of 20 dead and 14 captured or missing according to the Associated Press. The allies control most of the country and are knocking on the door of Saddam's bunker. But if you read The New York Times today, you might think Iraq was winning. The front page of the "Times" was full of ominous headlines. "Iraqis Repel Copters; One Goes Down." "GIs Regroup After Setback --Two Prisoners on Iraqi TV." "Hussein Rallies Iraqi Defenders." "The Goal Is Baghdad, but at What Cost?" All these headlines were on just one page. Unbelievable.

Contrast that to page one of The Boston Globe, also a very liberal newspaper. "Coalition nearing Baghdad." "War plan on course." "Hunt for banned weapons." "Strategy aims at heart of Hussein's rule." Quite a difference. The Globe is giving straight and honest war coverage.

So why is The New York Times spinning its coverage to the negative side? Well, there's a big reason. Everybody knows the USA will win the war, but if the victory is too overwhelming, the Bush administration wins big too. The Times definitely does not want that to happen. So its editorial position is shading its news coverage, and that's flat-out wrong.

The Times wants a pyrrhic victory, that's a win with consequences, so we can say that more diplomacy should have been tried. This kind of a game, playing with vital information makes me extremely angry. There's no question that today's front page of the nation's most powerful newspaper does not reflect the truth of the battlefield.

Here's how absurd the whole thing is. 20 Americans are dead. Nine of them were killed by cowardly Iraqis who faked a surrender. And the majority of those captured made a wrong turn, driving right into the Iraqi forces. There have been few major engagements between Iraqi units and American combat troops. The Iraqis are killing coalition soldiers by dressing up in civilian clothes, shooting from mosques and childcare centers, and generally violating every rule of warfare in the book. Yet the Times calls the resistance "fierce." Well, I call that kind of coverage farce. And I can back up my description with the facts, not misleading headlines.

There may indeed be vicious fighting before this war is over, but right now American troops have done incredibly well. Fighting against cowardly thugs, not using much of its arsenal in order to protect Iraqi civilians. So now you know the truth from the battlefield. Somebody call The New York Times and tell them...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,82435,00.html

Friday, March 28, 2003

We promised you that The Factor's coverage of the war would be the most honest in the country, and we hope we're living up to that. If not, let us know via e-mail. As a journalist for almost 30 years, I am angry and saddened by some of the newspaper coverage in the USA. In fact, this is some of the worst stuff I have ever seen.

If you read The New York Times Thursday, you will be confronted with once again with fierce fighting all across its front page. One problem with all that ferocity -- it's not being backed up by the stats. Eight days into the war, the U.S. military reports just 14 Americans killed in combat -- dead from Iraq fire -- 12 others killed in other circumstances. And the allies control three quarters of the country.

Now we grieve for everyone killed in this war. But the truth is that the allies are fighting a gang of thugs, not organized combat divisions yet. The thugs are dressed in civilian clothes, even U.S. uniforms. They hide in mosques. They hide behind women and children. They execute prisoners. Forget fierce, cowardly resistance is more like it.

Then there's The L.A. Times. On its front page Thursday is the headline: "Every Day Gets Worse and Worse". The sub-headline reads: "Along a busy Baghdad street struck by missiles, shocked residents mourn and curse the United States". The article was written by John Daniszewski, and the third paragraph tells the story:

"'Every day gets worse and worse,' Sahar, a 23-year-old with a birdlike voice, said with a sigh Wednesday. 'I can't imagine what will be next week.' Sahar, who did not want to give her last name, had been assigned by the Information Ministry to guide, translate and keep an eye on foreign journalists."

Can you believe it? This L.A. Times reporter is quoting a woman who works for Saddam about conditions inside Baghdad, and her quote is a page one headline! Unbelievable. Why don't you just put Saddam's latest press release on the front page, L.A. Times?!

As we explained yesterday, some American newspapers are trying to bolster their editorial opinions about the war by shading their hard news coverage. Absolutely awful.

Then there's the BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation. One of its own war correspondents has written a letter to the brass accusing his own company of dishonest reporting...

Millions of people all over the world are getting distorted war coverage and this, of course, hurts America. As far as The Factor is concerned, I have made one mistake so far. I failed to anticipate that the Pentagon would fight a political[ly correct] war in Iraq. {Glenn X's note: When O'Reilly says that "the Pentagon [is] fight[ing] a political[ly correct] war in Iraq," he's referring to his contention that the Pentagon is putting some of our troops in harm's way by trying too hard to minimize Iraqi civilian casualties.} I understand why they're doing it, and I should have foreseen it. I did not. I apologize for the mistake, but at least it was an honest mistake...

[Glenn X]

This thread died a pretty quick death here, but it fared far better in terms of poster response over at:

http://pub229.ezboard.com/fcpndhardcorefrm9.showMessageRange?topicID=241.topic&start=1&stop=20

[BG]

Well hey, I was just about to pose a question on the old forum asking where I can get straight non-biased coverage on the war and other world issues at this point.

I can't watch the TV. However, Bill O'Reilly is becoming more palpable. Problem is, I always catch the very end of it and try as I might, stomach the enraging Hannity and Colmes. God da*n man!!! I can't stand the slant on those m*therf*ckers!!!! I want the facts as straightforward as they come. If that means I should be prepared for a barage of details that I am to infer from, so be it. I don't want someones rhetoric preached to me and I don' t want to hear someone with a legitamate opinion get snuffed from the getgo just because some dumb f*cking anchorman wants to siddle up to the popular right wing sentiment right now.

Please, don't get me wrong. I believe I am as non-partisan as they come and I try my best to respect all sides of the issues at hand, but they are always so TWISTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Glenn X]

Oh, c'mon, guys. Click on the link already.

Yeah, I know that some of my posts over there can get a little long-winded, but they're worth a look-see. At least I think so.

Here are some noteworthy highlights:

...every so often something would be said at 'SC that would set off my own personal b.s. alarm. Like the time that Professor Todd Boyd, the instructor of my Race, Class & Gender in Cinema course, said: "The thing you gotta understand about the Cold War is that, after World War II, the United States needed a new enemy, needed somebody new to point its missiles at. So it picked the Soviet Union." While I was no history major, it did seem to me that Mr. Boyd's assessment of the Cold War was, at best, an extreme case of muddy-headed oversimplification and, at worst, a breathtaking exercise in out-there revisionist history...

...I was assigned to read in not one, not two, but three different film courses Robin Wood's Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan, a book in which Wood, a film studies professor, relates to the reader in his introductory chapter: "If I must have a label, I would [call myself a]... 'free-lance radical': with the proviso that any form of radicalism that wishes to have any substance or force must necessarily, given the available choices, gravitate toward Marxism." Wood goes on to assert: "Most people in our society would presumably concede that Marxism is the most formidable, and perhaps the only, alternative to capitalism." [Glenn X's note: This tactic of contrasting communism -- or "Marxism," as Wood terms it here -- with capitalism was the preferred propagandistic method of The (Communist) Party in Russia (which was the only political party allowed to exist in the U.S.S.R.), purposefully sidetracking the true contrast between the United States and the Soviet Union: the United States is democratic and the Soviet Union was communist.] Wood continues: "It is common knowledge that the Russian Revolution [a.k.a. the Red October Revolution of 1917] in its early phase made ideological and legislative advances (the liberation of women, the repeal of laws against homosexuality, the displacement of the family as central social value) that still leave the Western democracies far behind... The formidable nature of 'the enemy' is only now becoming widely recognized: not just capitalism, but patriarchy."

[Glenn X]

The hits just keep on coming from The L.A. Times:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,82936,00.html

Wednesday, April 02, 2003

By Bill O'Reilly

The war at home rages on... That is the subject of this evening's Talking Points Memo.

Another outrage in The Los Angeles Times. But before I get to it, I have to tell you that I am not a fan of that publication. It has attacked me personally and I took it personally. So in the interest of full disclosure, I'm not an objective source here. However, the facts in this case do speak for themselves.

In a column today entitled, "Terror as the Ultimate Excuse," radical Times writer Robert Scheer compares the killers in Saddam's Fedayeen to the American patriots who fought the British in our revolution.

Scheer writes, and we quote, "How easy to forget that our own war for independence was largely fought by 'irregulars' condemned as terrorists by the British because they would snipe from behind scattered trees rather than fight from the tight formations that were the civilized form of warfare in those days."

Now, as far as I know, the American patriots did not hide behind women and children, did not execute other Americans who remained loyal to the Crown and did not murder and torture, as the Fedayeen has done for years. Yet Mr. Scheer has the audacity, the sheer audacity, pardon the pun, to denigrate the patriots by comparing them to Saddam's killers.

But Scheer's column gets even worse. He actually calls America a terrorist nation. "America's is a long history of covert action, political assassinations, special ops, anti-democratic coups and dirty tricks that are, even today, being used in Iraq. And we claim that the ends of U.S. policy are so noble that even clearly illegal means, such as a preemptive invasion, are justified."

Can you believe this guy? Scheer omits the fact that the blood of Americans has freed millions of people all over the world.

In addition to defeating Hitler, Tojo, the Soviets and scores of other totalitarian villains, the people in Kosovo would still be getting murdered and raped if we had not stopped Milosevic, the people of Israel would have been driven into the sea a long time ago if not for American help, and the people in South Africa would still be enslaved by apartheid if not for American economic sanctions against that country's former racist regime.

Now, Robert Scheer is simply not worth anybody's time. He's a weasel. But The Los Angeles Times is another matter. That paper has gone way over the line. Next to Scheer's column today -- right next to that column -- is another column excusing the behavior of Peter Arnett.

And on page one of the Times is this headline: "As Bombs Fall, A Song Rises From the Mosques. Baghdad prayer callers answer attacks by singing, their voices carried by loudspeaker in hopes of rallying the city."

Well, isn't that nice. Singing hymns in the face of American bombs. The good people of southern California really have a problem. The L.A. Times is the only paper of record in that town. It has a strangle hold on the nation's second largest city.

And Talking Points believes the Times has abused its power by failing to provide balance and accuracy in this very vital time in U.S. history. The Times is owned by the Tribune company in Chicago. We have set up an Internet funnel directly to that company. If you go billoreilly.com, you can write your own column to the Tribune company brass. After all, if a guy like Scheer can condemn this country and denigrate it for what it stands for, then he can be held accountable by you...

[Glenn X's note: I've never heard of this Robert Scheer guy before, but a quick internet search on him turned up some interesting things, which can be accessed at two of the more compelling sites I discovered HERE and HERE.]