eml from media matters

Here [is] today's news [item] from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of [the] story.

Wall Street Journal Spins Fracking Study To Downplay Risks
A Wall Street Journal editorial obscured the fact that a Duke University study strongly suggested methane from a natural gas extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, contaminated water supplies. Read More

Here are [yesterday's] news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.

Neal Boortz Uses Mythology To Say The Bush Tax Cuts "Worked"
Writing in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, syndicated radio host Neal Boortz perpetuated the myth that tax cuts increase revenue to bolster his argument that the Bush tax cuts "worked." Economists have said the Bush tax cuts reduced revenue and had little positive impact on the economy. Read More

Washington Times' History Of Anti-Gay Attacks
The incoming editor of The Washington Times, Ed Kelley, recently suggested he was not familiar with the newspaper's long history of anti-gay attacks, saying the only controversy he had heard on the issue was "a change in whether or not the term either civil unions or gay marriage or something, whether or not there were going to be quotes used around the term or not." In fact,The Washington Times has long history of extreme rhetoric and smears against the LGBT community. Read More

Here [is 6/24's news item] from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of [the] story.

Fox Panel Teams Up To Promote A Bushel Of Misinformation On Health Care Reform
A seven-minute segment on Fox News' America Live featured a deluge of falsehoods and distortions about President Obama's health care reform record, including the false suggestion that PricewaterhouseCoopers found that health care reform is responsible for rising costs. In fact, Pricewaterhouse found that reform is "expected to have minimal impact on [the] medical cost trend in 2012." Read More

Here are [6/23]'s news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.

Another "Indoctrination" Freakout: Right-Wing Media Attack MD's Environmental Literacy Education Requirement
Right-wing media have attacked a recent Maryland State Board of Education ruling that requires high school students to be "environmentally literate" before graduating as "indoctrination" and "brainwash[ing]," while using it as an opportunity continue the right-wing's longstanding war on climate science. Read More

Right-Wing Media Strain To Portray Obama's Speech As A "Mission Accomplished" Moment
Following President Obama's speech announcing the drawdown of troops in Afghanistan, right-wing media have strained to portray the announcement as a "mission accomplished" moment. However, Obama acknowledged that "huge challenges remain" in Afghanistan and "[w]e'll have to do the hard work of keeping the gains that we've made." Read More

Right-Wing Media Launches Kitchen Sink Attack On Obama's Afghanistan Speech
The right-wing media reacted to President Obama's address on troop withdrawals in Afghanistan by dredging up familiar, petty attacks, such as criticizing the number of times Obama referred to himself, and claiming the address was a "campaign speech" instead of a "war update." This follows a long history of the right-wing media launching frivolous attacks over speeches Obama makes on all manner of issues. Read More

Fox Uses Oil Reserve Announcement To Demand More Drilling
After President Obama announced that the U.S. will tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Fox News figures falsely suggested that government restrictions are encumbering domestic oil production. In fact, drilling is nearing a twenty-year high, and countless economists have explained that expanded U.S. oil production is not a solution to high oil prices. Read More

Right-Wing Media Attack Vargas With Stereotypical, Anti-Immigrant Vigor
Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, recently revealed that he is an undocumented immigrant. Right-wing media responded with virulent anti-immigrant attacks, with Don Surber of the Charleston Daily Mail writing: "kick the lying, illegal alien Jose Antonio Vargas out." Read More

Here are [6/22]'s news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.

Plane Falsehoods: Krauthammer Continues To Misinform About Boeing's Alleged Union-Busting
Previously, Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer misinformed the public on a National Labor Relations Board complaint that Boeing illegally moved jobs away from a unionized facility, claiming that "paying off the unions to [President Obama] is more important than a healthy export economy." Krauthammer spread more falsehoods in a Washington Post column in which he suggested that the NLRB is a political organization "trying to get the [South Carolina] plant declared illegal" because "Democrats need unions." Read More

Beck Guest Falsely Claims Oil And Gas Companies Get "Zero" Government Subsidies
On his Fox News show, Glenn Beck hosted several oil and gas industry executives to attack President Obama's energy policies and tout fossil fuels. During the show, Beck hyped the false claim by one of his guests, the CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, that "the oil and natural gas industry gets zero subsidies" from the federal government. Read More

Fox News "Headline" Is A GOP Press Release
Fox News adopted its "headline" for today straight from a press release from the office of Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, claiming that the Congressional Budget Office estimated that "government spending as a share of our economy will increase by nearly 70 percent by 2035." In its long-term budget outlook, CBO projected that spending would increase from 24.1 percent of GDP in 2011 to 27.4 percent in 2035. Read More

Fox Protects Investment By Attempting To Spin Lack Of Enthusiasm For GOP Field
Fox News has recently tried to spin GOP voter dissatisfaction with the 2012 presidential field by suggesting it is a manufactured Democratic talking point designed to "handicap" the candidates, when, in fact, polling has consistently shown Republicans are dissatisfied with the GOP field. This spin comes as Fox is investing a significant amount of resources into promoting the GOP presidential candidates. Read More

With Renewed National Focus On Immigration Reform, Fox Revs Up Anti-Immigrant Campaign
As immigration reform has re-entered the public debate, Fox News has spent the past several weeks misleading on the issue and slanting its news coverage to paint immigrants in a negative light. Read More

Jon Stewart Gets It Right About Fox News
Fox News has attacked Daily Show host Jon Stewart for claiming that Fox News viewers are "the most consistently misinformed viewers" of cable news. However, Stewart was correct -- Fox News consistently misinforms its viewers, and its viewers are found among the most likely to hold misinformed beliefs about current events. Read More

Here are [6/21]'s news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.

Eric Bolling: Fox News' In-House Corporate Lobbyist
Fox News' Eric Bolling has been promoting what he described as his own stimulus plan, a plan centered on tax breaks for multinational corporations on money currently parked offshore. Bolling's proposal is remarkably similar to a plan reportedly promoted by corporate lobbyists during a Washington, D.C. conference on June 15 - the day before Bolling discussed his plan on Fox News. Read More

Fox Still Misrepresenting NLRB's Case Against Boeing
Fox News has repeatedly suggested that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is engaging in unlawful or "anti-American" activity by filing a complaint against Boeing for deciding to build a new plant in the "right to work" state of South Carolina. But the NLRB complaint alleges that Boeing moved to South Carolina in retaliation for union workers' decision to strike, and experts say that allegations in the case represent an "absolutely standard violation" of federal labor law.Read More

Fox Hyped McKinsey & Co. Study But Ignored Admission That It's Not A "Predictive Economic Analysis"
After hyping a McKinsey & Company survey that predicted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPAC) would cause millions of employees to lose their employer-basedhealth care coverage, Fox did not cover that McKinsey & Co. admitted that their findings were not meant as "a predictive economic analysis." Fox further failed to note a study reinforcing President Obama's claim that employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) markets would be virtually unchanged by the health care bill. Read More

Here are [6/20]'s news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.

Fox News Maligns Scientists With Baseless Accusation Of "Doctoring" Sea Level Data
Following the lead of the Heartland Institute, Fox News trumpeted the utterly baseless claim that scientists at the University of Colorado are "doctoring" sea level data to "exaggerate theeffects of global warming." In reality, the scientists used a standard and transparent procedure performed by other research groups around the world, and even the climate skeptic cited by Fox News objects to the implication that the group engaged in scientific wrongdoing. Read More

Fox Hosts Official From Extremist-Linked Pro-Gun Group To Distort Link Between "Carry Laws" And Crime
Fox & Friends hosted John Velleco, director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America (GOA), to argue in favor of concealed weapons laws by dubiously claiming that "crime goes down" when "a state tries to relax concealed carry laws." But according to PolitiFact, crime data shows no "straight-line correlation between states with 'right to carry' laws and crime rates"; moreover, GOA's executive director has been tied to militia groups, white supremacists, and has a history of extremist rhetoric. Read More