Media Bias

Here is a jaw-dropping summary of journalistic lies, obvious bias, doctored photos, plagiarism, etc.

The stunning part is that the list is actually an understatement, overlooking many of the greatest examples of anti-Israel libels, such as:

-Mohammed al-Dura, the Biggest News Scandal of All Time

-The front page picture in the New York Times showing a "Palestinian being beaten by an Israeli policeman," when really it was the rescue of a Jew from an Arab lynch mob.

-A federal court decision finding claims by TIME Magazine to be false and defamatory regarding Ariel Sharon's role in the Sabra and Shatila massacre. One federal panel declared TIME employees to have behaved "negligently and carelessly" in the incident.

Admittedly, it is difficult to track Arab propaganda against Israel and America because it is the norm, rather than the exception. Here is a funny recent example.

What could be better than an Axis of Evil member engaging in nuclear disarmament? Nearly every news outlet reported that this week. One small problem, however: it's a fraud.

Here is a sample of the ebullient headlines:

North Korea to disarm in energy deal

Korea to disarm nuclear ambition

North Korea Agrees to Halt Nuclear Program

North Korea yields; gives up N-plan

Caroline Glick, in yet another must-read, punctures the fantasy with her annoying proclivity toward logic. She also ties it to this week's massive US failure on the Palestinians which also being spun as a success:

It is impossible to guess the consequences of the approaching showdown between the US and Iran. But if the events of the past week are any guide, the future does not look promising.

President George W. Bush asserted Wednesday that the deal the State Department achieved with North Korea in the six-party talks "will bring us closer to a Korea Peninsula that is free of nuclear weapons." But it is hard to see how this is so.

Reached seven months after North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile and four months after it conducted an underground nuclear test, the accord makes no mention of Pyongyang's nuclear or missile arsenals. Indeed all it does is pay North Korea handsomely for a promise that within 60 days it will temporarily seal its nuclear installation at Yongbyon. For this promise, the Americans agreed to supply the North with 50,000 pounds of heavy fuel oil; conduct direct talks with the North Koreans towards the normalization of diplomatic ties; and cancel banking sanctions that have effectively barred the North Koreans from international capital markets.

The last US payoff is the kicker. In 2006 the US Treasury took action against a bank in Macau that was laundering North Korean counterfeit dollars. That action was the first truly effective step the US has taken toward destabilizing Kim Jung Il's Stalinist regime.

Kim understands that the only way he can remain in power is to force the international community to subsidize his tyranny. The only way he can get foreign powers to do that is by using nuclear blackmail. By removing its banking sanctions, the US effectively destroyed its only effective bargaining chip against North Korea and so ensured that Kim's brinkmanship will continue. In light of this, as former US ambassador the UN John Bolton's noted, the message the US sent by acceding to the agreement is that "if you hold out long enough and wear down the State Department negotiators, eventually you will get rewarded."

Aside from capitulating to North Korea, this week the US took an initial step towards accepting Hamas as a legitimate actor. The unity deal between Fatah and Hamas negotiated under the aegis of the supposedly moderate Saudi King Abdullah is a stunning rebuke of US Palestinian policy. By effectively demoting the Fatah to the status of junior partner to Hamas, the agreement is a slap on the face to the Bush administration which for the past four years has based its Palestinian policy on its blind faith in Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas.

Since 2003 the administration has put all its eggs in Abbas's basket. No amount of evidence of Fatah's direct involvement in terrorism against Israel could convince Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to change their view that Abbas is a "moderate" who is willing to make peace with Israel.

The US has showered him with money, arms and legitimacy and forced Israel to do the same. And in Mecca last weekend, Abbas showed that he has played Bush for a fool. Not only did he agree not to fight against Hamas or disarm it. By accepting an agreement which does not include recognition of Israel's right to exist, Abbas demonstrated that there is no significant difference between Fatah and Hamas in terms of their commitment to bring about Israel's destruction.

Yet as with North Korea, here too, the Bush administration has chosen to pretend that in failing it has succeeded. Rather than distance herself from Abbas, Rice insists on going ahead with the scheduled three-way summit with Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday.

The Democratic spin machine that proved so successful in enabling a low-life president has now recrafted scientific skepticism from a virtue to a slur. Climate specialists throughout the nation are now branded "climate change deniers," which is evocative of Holocaust revisionism. Humorously, we are for the first time hearing about the industry support of certain scientists, when nearly all academics receive third-party research funding. The fact that criminal trials can find paid expert witnesses on either side of most scientific questions has rarely been considered notable by the mainstream media.

Hear are two examples from today's news:

Governor Plans To Fire Oregon Climatologist for Skeptical View of Warming

Delaware Scientist's Contrarian Stand Criticized, Ties to Big Oil, Industry-Funded Lobbies Draw Fire

Notice the use of the pejorative term "Big Oil" in the sub-headline above.

Of course, in each of these stories there is an attempt to paint these scientists as alone in their views, when a number of other climate specialists concur. Here are some examples:

There's No "Consensus" on Global Warming

Global Warming: 'The Greatest Deception in the History of Science'

Scientists: Pollution Could Combat Global Warming

Here is the AP actively disseminating a ludicrous anti-Semitic libel:

In this photo released by the Hezbollah?s media office, green balloons with Hebrew writings were found in the southern market town of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon Sunday, Jan. 28, 2007. Mysterious balloons drifting in from Israel to Lebanon are unnerving people, with some south Lebanon villagers reportedly feeling ill and authorities warning residents against touching them. Hebrew on the balloons reads ?Ha-Ir? which is the title of a Tel Aviv weekly magazine. (AP Photo/Hezbollah Media Office, HO)

Notice that the AP is now involved in distributing propaganda that they receive from the Hezbollah media office. The balloons are hardly "mysterious." They contain a single Hebrew word, the name of a newspaper that released them as part of a marketing promotion.

Here is the version of the DFP, the largest news wire in Germany:

Israel Planes Dump "Suspicious Green Balloons" On Southern Lebanon

Israeli planes violated Lebanese airspace Saturday and dumped green balloons over the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanese security sources said.

This is pure fiction. A check of any Israeli newspaper could have uncovered the truth, as could a simple phone call to the newspaper Ha-Ir.

Lebanese troops cordoned off the area around the coast of Tyre and prevented people from touching the "suspicious balloons" after reports indicated that some people were poisoned when they did.

The 'reports' were from the same kinds of sources that were exposed innumerable times staging false news during the latest Lebanon War.

According to a hospital source in Nabatiyeh, similar green balloons were dropped over the market-town of Nabatiyeh, 54 kilometres south of Beirut.

Five people suffering from nausea and dizziness were brought into hospital after they touched the "suspicious green balloons," the source said.

Israel violates Lebanese airspace on a daily basis despite the fact that the attacks on Israel from southern Lebanon by the radical Hezbollah movement have stopped after a beefed-up UN force along with the Lebanese Army were deployed to the area in accordance with a UN resolution.

Of course, neither news source reports on the ubiquity of anti-Semitic libels throughout the Muslim World.

Why do they do it?

1. Almost no Muslim source will state the truth about anti-Semitic libels.

2. There has been a successful campaign throughout the Muslim World to demonize Jews in order to justify genocide.

After one anti-Semitic publication by the French news agency AFP, I predicted "This highly dubious charge will likely lead to the murder of Jews." The following day, the news was announced that Ilan Halimi was tortured to death, with the complicity of dozens of Muslim neighbors. There were acid burns on 80% of his body, multiple stab wounds and severed body parts.

3. Israel routinely drops leaflets from airplanes prior to military maneuvers to warn civilians to leave the area. If the population can be spooked into avoiding reading them, perhaps Hezbollah will win the propaganda victory of pinning another 'war crime' on Israel.

The mainstream news media increases its bias despite accelerating losses:

U.S. media job cuts surged 88 percent in 2006 from the previous year, a downsizing trend expected to continue this year, a survey said Thursday.

The media industry slashed 17,809 jobs last year, a nearly two-fold increase from the 9,453 cuts in 2005, outplacement consultancy Challenger Gray & Christmas said....

"A sea change in the way people get and read news, not to mention the way they search for jobs, used cars and consumer products, was the primary contributor," the company said.

Nice spin. I wonder how it is that each of the handful of conservative newspapers managed to buck the trend, as well as the rapidly growing Fox News and profitable conservative talk radio?

Media companies, including the New York Times Co. and Time Inc., have already laid off 2,000 employees in 2007, Challenger noted, saying the cuts suggested the downsizing trend would continue.

AP poll: Americans Optimistic for 2007

By NANCY BENAC, Associated Press Writer Sat Dec 30, 7:22 PM ET

Seventy-two percent of Americans feel good about what 2007 will bring for the country, and an even larger 89 percent are optimistic about the new year for themselves and their families, according to the poll.

That fits with a long-term trend suggesting that Americans are generally an optimistic lot. Polling over recent decades is replete with optimism, and with a tendency for people to feel more positively about their own situations than that of the country overall.

Poll: Americans See Gloom, Doom in 2007

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press Writer 12/31, 8:36 am

Another terrorist attack, a warmer planet, death and destruction from a natural disaster. These are among Americans' grim predictions for the United States in 2007.

Six in 10 people think the U.S. will be the victim of another terrorist attack next year, more than five years after the Sept. 11 assault on New York and Washington. An identical percentage think it is likely that bad guys will unleash a biological or nuclear weapon elsewhere in the world.

There is plenty of gloom to accompany all of that doom.

Seventy percent of Americans predict another major natural disaster within the United States and an equal percentage expect worsening global warming. Fewer than one-third of people, or 29 percent, think it is likely that the U.S. will withdraw its troops from Iraq.

The problem is that the mainstream media has become so ideologically driven that facts are simply collected to support predetermined conclusions. The other day my son asked me to see one news organization's photos of the year. I told him that I bet that there would be one of Palestinian victims of Israelis, which, of course, there was.

(Hat tip: Dan Friedman)

Here's the headline:

Nearly Half of Americans Uncertain God Exists: Poll

I assume that most people would read this title as I did, that America was becoming more agnostic.

It turns out that the actual poll result is 16% (not sure whether or not there is a God).

The survey actually confirms all previous studies that America is a very religious nation, with 73% listed in the believe in God category. A great majority of those fall in the absolutely certain subcategory while a small portion are only somewhat certain.

Here's how the bogus number was calculated:

15% Somewhat certain there is a God
11% Believe there is no God
16% Not sure whether or not there is a God
-------
42% Total

An accurate headline would be 42% of Americans not 'absolutely certain' God exists.

Here is the raw data:



Update: Drudge has now listed this bogus headline as one of the top stories of the day.

Here is an analysis of today's widely reported news that newspaper subscriptions fell by the largest amount ever this year (cf: Big Metros Show Severe Declines in Latest Circ Report).

I did the research after noticing an anomaly in the data: the conservative New York Post was the only major paper to record any significant rise in circulation this year, and it was quite large. I then looked at the trend over a number of years and detected an extraordinary trend: every newspaper consistently lost subscribers, except for four which experienced solid growth. Three of those four are the nation's only conservative dailies, while the fourth is arguably the least partisan paper, USA Today.

While the trend is consistent across all newspapers, I will list below the data for the largest papers, which have the most statistically significant time range (2002-2006).

Liberal Newspapers:

Publication	2002	2006	% Loss
NY Times	1,113,000	1,086,798	-2.35%
LA Times	965,835	775,766	-19.7%
Washington Post	747,066	656,297	-12.1%
Chicago Tribune	596,667	576,132	-3.4%
NY Daily News	714,127	693,382	-2.9%
Houston Chronicle	551,914	508,097	-7.9%
Newsday	578,911	413,579	-28.6%

Centrist Newspaper:

Publication	2002	2006	% Gain
USA Today	2,135,321	2,269,509	6.3%

Conservative Newspapers:

Publication	2002	2006	% Gain
Wall Street Journal	1,801,087	2,043,235	13.4%
NY Post	589,897	704,011	19.3%

The only reliable Internet data for the conservative Washington Times shows nearly 3% annual growth in 2005.