Letters to the Editor
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Regarding the 'Christmas' store thing...
On CSPAN yesterday they had live coverage of the White House Christmas tree being delivered. I noticed that Laura Bush exclusively and repeatedly used the greeting "Happy Holidays" to the crowd (instead of "Merry Christmas"). I would LOVE to see O'Reilley go after Mrs. Bush! ROTFL!!!
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It's not just Fox
This morning's top-of-the-hour capsule reports on NPR also failed to mention Cunningham's party affiliation. Is NPR moving to the right, or is this par for the course in short, capsule stories? I honestly don't know.
I'd give Fox the benefit of the doubt, if that hadn't already proven themselves to be craven partisans. But what do we make of NPR's failure to mention Cunningham's party affiliation in their capsule? It should be noted that NPR did mention his party affiliation in a longer story on the subject.
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NPR As Guilty as Fox For Omission
I was listening to NPR's All Things Considered yesterday afternoon and I heard the report about Rep. Randy Cunningham admitting to taking bribes and then resigning. At no point during the report did they mention Cunningham's party affiliation either. I don't know what their motive was behind this, but I found it infuriating and a little patronizing that NPR wouldn't share that information with their listeners. I expect that sort of slant from Fox "News", but not from NPR.
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NPR also downplayed Cunningham's party affiliation
NPR also didn't make much of Cunningham's Republican affiliation. In the main news story (the 5 minutes at the top and bottom of the hour) they did not mention party at all. The in-depth story after the news summaries did mention he is a Republican, but there were no references to other ethical lapses by Republicans. Could this be that NPR is sensitive to the "liberal bias" label?
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How Fox News covered -- or didn't -- the downfall of a Republican member of Congress.
Fox wasn't the only network that did not report the slimeball's party. NPR's All Things Considered also neglected to mention that "minor" fact.
So much for their Liberal Bias.
Ken Firestone
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Funny, NBC did the same thing last night.
NBC's story was very similar to this. They completely buried the one mention of his party affiliation toward the end of the story.
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"Bribery flap"
Did they really say "Bribery flap"! As a constituent of the former congressman, I find it completely offensive that they would dismiss this as a "flap." Lets look at the facts: (1) $2.4 MILLION in bribes is, as the prosecutor said "unprecedented in magnitude," (2) these were not campaign donations that you could possibly argue are not direct bribes, they were direct payments to the congressmen's personal bank account, (3) this happened during wartime on military contracts, which for all we know endangered our troops or at the very least wasted funds that could have been used to better protect them. Everyone has been playing the "fallen hero" angle (he was an Ace pilot in Vietnam), but what kind of veteran/hero sells out the safety of his brothers and sisters in the military during a war in exchange for bribes! On another note, Fox News can hardly be blamed for failing to mention the party affiliation when the AP article that went out didn't either (I hear it may have been corrected later).
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AP wire article also didn't mention party
I heard it may have been subsequently corrected after some complaints though.
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TODAY SHOW Report on Duke Cunningham
The Today Show on NBC also failed to mention Cunningham's party affiliation in its piece this morning on his guilty plea and resignation. Hard to say if their oversight was bias or just bad journalism, however...
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Fox not the only one to omit party.
When listening to the same story on NPR today, I noticed that they too did not mention the affilation on the congressman. Sure, I'm not surprise that Fox didn't mention he was a republican, but it is hard to wag a finger when NPR didn't either.
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not to be a blowhard...
From past experiences about such outrages to friends who are journalists would point out that the fact the man was a Republican wasn't really relavant to the story...
The 'story' was the dude's admissions, and quitting congress. This is actually what 'fair' reporting looks like...
The only problem is, I'm pretty sure FoxNews opinon/anchors would be crowing from the catwalks if it was a Democrat that the dude was a Dem...
It is in this way that Fox's coverage bias is subtle... This is further underscored by my observation that much of the time it's pretty obvious when the opinion/anchor is wearing his/her 'opinion hat'... the confusing bit is they break up actual newscast to give it, making their 'news' coverage seem to be biased...
I too believe this is remarkably shady and misleading... but if we are going to be accurate about things, let's be accurate and call the appropriate kettle black.
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NPR = Now Protecting Republicans
NPR has been toting water for the Republicans for a LONG time - this is nothing new. "Experts" on their stories are far more likely to be members of right-wing think tanks than anything else; the American Enterprise Foundation and the Heritage Institute are biggies. These are nonetheless never identified as right-wing organizations. Reporters from the Washington Times are frequent guests, and the opposite side of the political spectrum is almost never represented.
When they do have "balance", it's FOX News style - a passive, straw man liberal vs. a raging, domineering conservative. Try timing the comments - I have. The Republicans invariably get twice as much air time, at a minimum - if the Democrats get any say at all.
And that's why I'll never give a dime to them.
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Uh...wire story?
Isn't anyone here picking up on the obvious clue that Fox and NPR probably ran the story straight from the wire? In other words, since the AP buried it, it got buried by default in the rest of the coverage.
It isn't exactly NEWS that news organizations run wire stuff verbatim, with little or no editing. It's quite possible you're all reading into this way more than you should.
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CNN's webpage never mentioned party affiliation either.
I had to reread the article several times to try to figure out Cunningham's affiliation, and finally realized it just wasn't there. What was there -- in the very last paragraph -- was the line, "Cunningham's pleas came amid a series of GOP scandals." That wording, of course, leaves it rather ambiguous as to whether this is ANOTHER GOP scandal, or one that helps balance out GOP scandals with a Democratic scandal.
--Josh