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Newsweek Editor Admits Green Media Bias
Kevin Decorla-Souza
Last Saturday, Evan Thomas, Assistant Managing Editor of Newsweek, revealed a dirty practice of the weekly magazine, further validating conservative claims that the news media is liberally biased. On CNN's Reliable Sources, Thomas confessed: "We launder our views through, quote, 'objective critics.' And certainly the press is pretty green, the press is pretty pro-environment and I don't think there's any question that they, as a body, feel that Bush is wrong on the environment. I'm excluding the conservative press - the Weekly Standard and so forth - but generally the press is pretty green and they're going to use the Europeans to take the Bushies to task." This revelation comes as no surprise to critics of the media who have watched the press give increased attention to green activists on the global warming issue while virtually ignoring scientific skeptics who believe that the gloomy climate change scenarios are exaggerated or wrong. A recent analysis of televised stories on global warming by the Media Research Center found that the news media gave 6 times as much attention to proponents of global warming than to naysayers. Three broadcast networks, ABC, NBC and CBS completely excluded the opinions of global warming skeptics from their coverage. Despite the unanimous 95-0 vote against the Kyoto Protocol in the U.S. Senate, supporters of the treaty were given more than twice as much attention as those who agreed with Bush's decision to scrap the economically disastrous - and probably unnecessary and ineffective - treaty. Free Market opponents to the economic restrictions created by Kyoto were outnumbered by spokesmen for environmental organizations by a 20 to 3 margin in the news. The Media Research Center obtained these figures by analyzing 51 global warming stories that appeared on 5 major cable and broadcast evening news programs between Inauguration Day (January 20) and Earth Day (April 22). Another interesting find by the Media Research Center was that none of the environmental spokesmen and activists were ever given the label "liberal" by journalists. Commenting on the intrinsic bias of the press in a May 24 editorial in the Wall Street Journal, Bernard Goldberg, a former correspondent for CBS News, said: "…It is this inability to see liberal views as liberal that is at the heart of the entire problem. This is why Phyllis Schlafly is the conservative woman who heads that conservative organization but Patricia Ireland is merely the head of NOW. No liberal labels necessary. Robert Bork is the conservative judge. Laurence Tribe is the noted Harvard law professor. Rush Limbaugh is the conservative talk show host. Rosie O'Donnell is simply Rosie O'Donnell, no matter how many liberal opinions she shares with her audience." Later in the editorial, Goldberg questions the skepticism of the media: "Reporters pride themselves on their skepticism. Yet many uncritically pass along the views of liberal activists in a way they would never do with conservatives." Just as Goldberg claims media favoritism towards liberals and Thomas admits liberal opinion laundering, the articles published only confirm what they say. Here is the first paragraph of an article by Christopher Dickey in the June 20 international version of Newsweek: "Bianca Jagger, the celebrity activist, isn't exactly a fan of George W. But she loved the U.S. President's first European tour, looking on with pleasure from among thousands of shouting, marching protesters. They jeered him, reviled him, even mooned him. They trashed him as the 'Toxic Texan,' hoisted banners proclaiming 'Bush go home,' and burned American flags. More than a hundred were arrested and dozens injured as rioters threw stones and broke shop windows in some of the uglier violence to cloud a European summit. How would she sum up the man, from a European perspective? 'The contemporary antichrist,' she says."
Kevin Decorla-Souza is an intern at Accuracy in Media. For questions or comments, please contact Intern@AIM.org.
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