White House blasts NBC NEWS over 'deceitful' editing of Bush interview
Posted: 05/19/08 03:40 PM [ET]

The White House on Monday sent a scathing letter to NBC News, accusing the news network of “deceptively” editing an interview with President Bush on the issue of appeasement and Iran.

At issue were remarks Bush made in front of Israel's parliament earlier this week.


Specifically, White House counselor Ed Gillespie laments that the network edited the interview in a way that “is clearly intended to give viewers the impression that [Bush] agreed with [correspondent Richard Engel's] characterization of his remarks when he explicitly challenged it.

“This deceitful editing to further a media-manufactured storyline is utterly misleading and irresponsible and I hereby request in the interest of fairness and accuracy that the network air the President’s responses to both initial questions in full on the two programs that used the excerpts,” said Gillespie in the letter to NBC News President Steve Capus.

Gillespie used the opportunity to also inquire whether NBC News still believes that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war. In November 2006, the network decided to label the infighting in the country a “civil war.”

“I noticed that around September of 2007, your network quietly stopped referring to conditions in Iraq as a ‘civil war,’ ” Gillespie wrote. “Is it still NBC News’s carefully deliberated opinion that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war? If not, will the network publicly declare that the civil war has ended, or that it was wrong to declare it in the first place?”

Gillespie also hit NBC News on its reporting on the state of the economy.

“I’m sure you don’t want people to conclude that there is really no distinction between the ‘news’ as reported on NBC and the ‘opinion’ as reported on MSNBC, despite the increasing blurring of those lines,” Gillespie concluded. “I welcome your response to this letter, and hope it is one that reassures your broadcast network’s viewers that blatantly partisan talk show hosts like Christopher Matthews and Keith Olbermann at MSNBC don’t hold editorial sway over the NBC network news division.”

Wednesday May 28, 2008
May Ratings: FNC Stays On Top

For the 77th consecutive month, FNC finished first in total day and prime time ratings during May. FNC was the sixth highest rated cable network on all of basic cable during prime time for the month (CNN and MSNBC finished 19th and 26th) and the seventh rated network in total day (CNN and MSNBC were 19th and 27th).

FNC also had 11 out of the top 13 programs in cable during the month in Total Viewers. The O'Reilly Factor was the #1 program in cable news for the 90th consecutive month, and saw gains in Total Viewers year-to-year (26%).

Amercia's Newsroom (9-11amET) was up 30% year-to-year, with the program averaging more viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined during the time period.

Meanwhile, On the Record with Greta Van Susteren has been #1 for 73 consecutive months in Total Viewers while Hannity & Colmes has been #1 in its timeslot for 54 consecutive months.

A FoxNews fan dissing the networks for "deceitful editing"?


ROTFLMFAO!

Talking points without substance seems to be what you're good at.

__________________
"Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah." ~ Qur'an:8:39

Muslims aren't dying from war....they're being murdered by members of their own cult.

What I have noticed is the way that all the media have adopted the Bush administration new speak.

If an individual is an Iranian nationalist who was an enemy of Saddam that didn't leave Iraq because you were first and foremost an Iraqi, then the Bush administration calls them anti-American.

On the other hand, an individual who left Iraq two or three decades ago to get rich someplace else, like in the US or Europe, and then returned to Iraq seeking to use connections with the Bush administration to get really rich from exploiting Iraqi oil, then you are pro-American.

What would Republicans say about an American citizen that left the US in his twenties to go to Europe or Asia to get rich, that spent two decades outside the US, who then returns to the US and soon is not just a contender for major office, but is in fact the head of the government. Like Maliki is in Iraq.

I was also struck by the Bush reaction to Zimbabwe's police state detaining and beating the members of a US diplomatic mission in Zimbabwe, just like the US military treated several Iranian diplomatic missions in Iraq. Something along the lines of "totally unacceptable and something that will not be forgotten."

And I find it interesting how the media keep reporting on the Democratic primaries at the direction of the conservative pundits. Pushing the line that Obama can't win in November because he can't get the votes of the key voter blocks. Of course, what no one reports is that when Obama loses against Hillary in those primaries where he proves he can't beat McCain, Obama gets more votes than McCain because the voters are voting for anybody but McCain even though no one is running but McCain. To say that McCain is the clear winner in a number of elections is like saying the Democratic primary in Michigan proves that Hillary was overwhelming elected because she got 55% of the vote and the closest competitor was Kucinich with 3%. Under those circumstances, the president of Iran was elected with a landslide with overwhelming Iranian support, orders of magnitude greater than what Reagan got.

Of course, news reporting is a mix of emotional response to events with an emotional interpretation because no one sees the whole picture, and for the most part the reporting is along the lines of "the cock commanded the sun to rise today; clearly the cock is master of the universe."

The only question at hand here is "was it edited?" Save your biases.