Media Scandals

The mainstream media remains perfect-- 7 bogus reports in 7 weeks. Another exaggerated slaughter story made the news this weekend just like the bogus al-Kawwaz family "slaughter" made headlines last month.There was another gruesome report from Diyala Province in Iraq this weekend. Reportedly, Al-Qaeda and local villagers suffered dozens of casualties in a massive attack.Up to 51 Iraqis were…

Washington Post Ombudsman Deborah Howell served up a flimsy excuse to a concerned reader wondering why the Post doesn't have Post staffers reporting on the Bilal Hussein controversy, rather than just running AP wire stories. Hussein worked for AP as a photographer. Blogger Scott Johnson shared the reader's e-mail and Howell's reply, then added that even if one accepts Howell's excuse, there's no…

Far too often, the media folds under pressure from Hillary and Bill Editor's Note: Originally published December 12th, 2007 by Human Events.DistressThe latest edition of Gentleman's Quarterly -- GQ for short -- has just hit the stands.  On its cover is an in your face photograph of former President Bill Clinton, as he "Leads (Their) Men of the Year Issue". "Bill Clinton - Public Citizen" is the…

There is one current story in Iraq that has attracted the full attention of the Associated Press, and that is the case of Bilal Hussein, an AP photographer and terrorism suspect. The AP report on Hussein's hearing yesterday leaves out the fact that Hussein was arrested with a known al Qaeda terrorist... one of but many troubling aspects of the news organization's decision to forego objective news…

Whitewash, written by MRC's very own President L. Brent Bozell III with Director of Media Analysis Tim Graham and the tome for all your Christmas giving needs, was reviewed most excellently by Phil Brennan of and for the most excellent publication NewsMax. Behold some of the many extraordinary excerpts therefrom:In the book "Whitewash: What the Media Won't Tell You About Hillary Clinton, but…

Director's Note: In my rush to get to a meeting, I neglected to give credit where credit is due.  David G., you are indeed the Man.  -- SM(Yet Another) Smarter Than the MediaAs wily and wary as we have come to know the media to be, the many members of Team Clinton just keep out-Foxing them (apologies for the mention of the Hellish network). In a great many of the media's post-game analyses of the…

The TNR saga is slowly seeping into the media, with posts this morning at the Washington Post and the New York Times, in addition to last night's mention in the New York Observer. Not a single one of these outlets discusses the fact that Franklin Foer spent the better part of 13 pages alleging a military conspiracy spanning four bases in three countries involving dozens of soldiers, from…

It took fourteen pages--13 of those geared towards Franklin' Foer's attempt to keep his job--but here's the punchline: When I last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to stand by his stories. Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine require more than that. And, in light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the…

1/18 Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division, rotated out of Iraqi several weeks ago to their home base in Schweinfurt, Germany. This included noted fabulist Scott Thomas Beauchamp. Whether Beauchamp is still in Germany or has been allowed home on leave is rather irrelevant; he matters quite little now that he has established that he will not support his dark fantasies on…

First published in Human Events on November 27th, 2007.Wash, spin, rinse, spin. Phone, spin, report, spin, poll, spin. The similarities between the work of the mainstream media and a laundry machine are striking. Yet there is nothing about the cycle -- the spin-report-poll-spin cycle -- that does for political events what detergent does for your boxers or briefs. The media, as One, spend days…

On Monday, NewsBusters reported the ironic occurrence of a Missouri newspaper firing a former journalism professor for plagiarism. At the time, I wrote, "I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry."Well, new information suggests the latter, as the piece which started the brouhaha, a November 3 column by professor emeritus John Merrill, was critical of a new department for women's and gender studies at…

Shouldn't the media cover the debunking of an event which stirred violent anti-Israel sentiment and even became a talking point for Osama Bin Ladin? Instead, the media ignored a French judge's investigation into whether France2's 2000 report that claimed Israel shot and killed a 12-year-old Palestinian boy is “a hoax.” The famous picture of a terrified Mohammed al-Dura hiding behind his father…