March 24, 2005

The Shame of ABC - A bogus poll to back up the sneering.

The Shame of ABC: I hadn't realized that the surprising ABC poll about the Schiavo case--showing overwhelming anti-tube sentiment--was so badly worded and biased. (For one thing, it deceptively tells pollees that Terri Schiavo is on "life support." For another, it leads with the flat assertion that "Doctors say she has no consciousness and her condition is irreversible.") Michelle Malkin and "Captain Ed" Morrissey are onto the ABC poll. ... Malkin, Morrissey and Powerline also raise doubts about that clumsy Republican talking points memo that ABC's Linda Douglass first trumpeted. I'm not so sure that you'd expect a letterhead on such a hastily-drawn memo, or even the correct bill title. It's not like it's a blog or something formal! It's less clear that the memo was written by anyone in the GOP leadership as opposed to a pro-life lobbying group, as Malkin points out. Yet unless you listened very carefully to Douglass' slyly worded report you got the distinct impression that it was a Republican leadership document. (ABC's own web site headlined the story "GOP Talking Points on Terri Schiavo") ... Anyway, why should it be news--obscuring the actual merits of the case--that politics is involved in federal legislation? The civil rights movement was a political constituency too. ... ABC's performance during this whole story --starting with its sneering Friday coverage--has been pretty much a disgrace. ...

Looks like Mickey Kaus just woke up!
Of course, this biased, untruthful--to put it politely!--reporting about the Terri Schiavo disaster is nothing new for the MSM, but when a media maven (who's no GOP-er!) like Kaus points it out, America should know without a doubt that we have a huge problem of credibility and reliability in "Old Media."
When will my fellow citizens realize that they must read blogs, watch FoxNews and listen to Conservative talk radio to find out what's really going on?
This is the new "Rathergate," Beltway version.
When you get to Powerline, just keep scrolling down because they've been all over this fake GOP talking points memo for the last few days, as has Josh Claybourn over at In the Agora.
Same drill (Go there, scroll up and down) for Michelle Malkin's blog and her attempt to herd the cats in the MSM!
The fine American Spectator also has an excellent piece on Memo-"gate" II:
Dirty Democrat Pool

As my favorite VRWC media maven Lucianne Goldberg said in regards to this fake "GOP" memo, "ABC picks up where CBS left off."
Unbelievable!