Recent posts about pundits
Why Do We Need Health Care Reform? Don't Ask George Will
One of the things I hope to do with my blog is to call out misleading statements and statistics, outright lies and illogical assertions by opponents of meaningful health care reform—and to rat out the front groups that insurers and other special interests are funding to kill reform or, failing that, shape it to their benefit.
I’m starting with a biggie, conservative author and columnist George Will, who suggests in his June 28 column in The Washington Post that, because of the complexity and expense of reforming the American health care system, maybe we would be better off just leaving well enough alone.
Well enough? For him, maybe. He’s got a great gig at the Post and as a TV network pundit, and he has sold lots of books, so he probably doesn’t have to worry, as most other Americans do, about being just one layoff away from joining the 50 million other men, women and children in the ranks of the uninsured. And even if the Post gave him a pink slip this afternoon, chances are he has stashed enough away that he can afford to shell out the nearly $13,000 that the average annual premium for decent family coverage costs these days (and that was in 2007).
Another Kind of Payola Pundit
"Telecommunications analyst Scott Cleland, whose work is bankrolled by companies like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, also signed on as a hired gun for Microsoft earlier this year," reports National Journal. Cleland is "a frequent critic of Google" who "runs Precursor, an industry research and consulting firm, and chairs NetCompetition.org, which he describes as 'a pro-competition e-forum funded by broadband companies.'" Last year, Cleland released a controversial report "alleging that Google 'is by far the largest user of Internet bandwidth,' the company's share of bandwidth usage is rising rapidly, and its bandwidth use 'is orders of magnitude greater than its payment for its cost.'" Not surprisingly, Google disputed the report, but independent voices like Free Press' Tim Karr also faulted Cleland's "payola punditry."
Pentagon Rejects Its Own Pundit Program Whitewash
The continuing saga of the Pentagon pundit program just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser, as Alice in Wonderland might say.
From 2002 to 2008, the Defense Department secretly cultivated more than 70 retired military officers who frequently serve as media commentators. Initially, the goal was to use them as "message force multipliers," to bolster the Bush administration's Iraq War sell job. That went so well that the covert program to shape U.S. public opinion -- an illegal effort, by any reasonable reading of the law -- was expanded to spin everything from then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's job performance to U.S. military operations in Afghanistan to the Guantanamo Bay detention center to warrantless wiretapping.
In April 2008, shortly after the New York Times first reported on the Pentagon's pundits -- an in-depth exposé that recently won the Times' David Barstow his second Pulitzer Prize -- the Pentagon suspended the program. In January 2009, the Defense Department Inspector General's office released a report claiming "there was an 'insufficient basis' to conclude that the program had violated laws." Representative Paul Hodes, one of the program's many Congressional critics, called the Inspector General's report "a whitewash."
Now, it seems as though the Pentagon agrees.
A Sacred Vow, But Not to Journalistic Standards
The National Organization for Marriage, "a national organization that opposes same-sex marriage is targeting New Jersey in a $1.5 million advertising campaign." The group is also running ads in Iowa, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont. The television spots warn that supporters of same-sex marriage "want to change the way I live. ... That means wedding photographers and marriage counselors could be labeled bigots and sued if they oppose working with same-sex couples," they claim. "It's obviously going to happen if gay marriage is the law of the land," remarked National Organization for Marriage president Maggie Gallagher. In 2005, Gallagher was exposed as a payola pundit (as was Armstrong Williams), for receiving tens of thousands of dollars from the Bush administration to write favorably about its "marriage promotion" initiatives. Gallagher failed to disclose the payments, even as she praised government marriage promotion programs in her syndicated columns, op/ed pieces and interviews. She later claimed that she "had no special obligation to disclose this information," but would have done so, "if I had remembered."
Fox News Rides Obama Back to the Top
NPR notes that "times could hardly be better at the Fox News Channel, the cable channel liberals love to hate. ... Ratings estimates from Nielsen Media Research indicate audience levels are up significantly -- to extremely high levels for cable news -- making Fox News among the highest rated of all basic cable channels. (MSNBC has had some of its best ratings in its existence since veering to the ideological left in primetime last year, but both it and CNN lag well behind.)" Driving the ratings are Fox's "trio of pundits, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck." The Los Angeles Times noted, "After CNN scored key victories with its election coverage last year, Fox News has now regained its wide lead. ... So much for the predictions that Fox News, reportedly the favorite channel of former Vice President Dick Cheney, wouldn't fare well in an Obama administration."
Lingering Denial
The "majority of American journalists covering climate change, energy, and environment understand that human industry is primarily responsible for global warming," writes Curtis Brainard. Unfortunately, "a small minority of pundits -- most of whom are talking heads and columnists, rather than hard news reporters" is "still trying to deny the well-established basics of climate science. The terrible irony is, that minority might reach more eyes and ears than all of the serious beat reporters combined." Brainard singles out Wolf Blitzer, Lou Dobbs, Chris Matthews, Charles Krauthammer and George Will, along with "Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and various anchors on Fox News," who apparently "don't know the difference between weather and climate" and "continue to contradict the news and editorial departments' otherwise solid understanding of climate science. ... The far larger volume of quality climate-news reporting, which reflects an accurate understanding of the basic science, should far and away drown out the claptrap spewed by misinformed talking heads and columnists. But it doesn't, and polls continue to show the majority of the pubic still does not understand the fundamental scientific evidence for global warming."
Pentagon Absolves Self for Covert Pundit Program
"It is a whitewash," said Representative Paul Hodes. "It appears to be the parting gift of the Pentagon to the [former] president [Bush]," he added, referring to an internal investigation (pdf) into the Pentagon's pundit program. From 2002 to 2008, the Pentagon cultivated retired military officers who serve as media commentators, to be "message force multipliers" on such controversial issues as Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. Although participants were told "not to quote their briefers directly or otherwise describe their contacts with the Pentagon," and internal documents make clear that the program attempted to mold U.S. public opinion -- two hallmarks of illegal government propaganda -- the report from the Defense Department's inspector general said "there was an 'insufficient basis' to conclude that the program had violated laws." Several key Pentagon figures -- including Victoria Clarke and Lawrence DiRita, along with network news executives -- declined to be interviewed for the report. The report also found that the pundits didn't use their high-level Pentagon access to unfairly benefit their military contractor clients. However, it lists Barry McCaffrey -- among other pundits "with easily documented connections" to military companies -- as supposedly having no contractor ties. Democratic members of Congress "expressed concerns about the scope, methodology and accuracy of the report," noted the New York Times, which first reported on the Pentagon pundit program.
McCaffrey's Military-Industrial-Media Complex
Barry McCaffreyAfter outing the Pentagon's pundit program -- which recruited some 75 retired military officers who are frequent media commentators, to serve as the Bush Administration's "message force multipliers" -- New York Times reporter David Barstow profiles one particularly conflicted pundit, Barry McCaffrey. The retired general is an NBC News analyst; heads his own consulting firm, BR McCaffrey Associates; and holds lucrative positions with numerous military and security contractors, including Veritas Capital, DynCorp, Defense Solutions and HNTB Federal Services. McCaffrey was an early participant in the Pentagon pundit program, but then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "abruptly cut [him] off" after McCaffrey's belated admission of concerns about U.S. military operations in Iraq. A chastened McCaffrey responded by publicly praising Rumsfeld and the Administration. McCaffrey's influence was so great that, even in semi-exile, the Pentagon continued to pay for him to visit Iraq and Afghanistan. "Other military analysts were invited on trips, but only in groups," Barstow writes. "McCaffrey went by himself." While McCaffrey's overseas visits, Pentagon contacts, media appearances and Congressional testimony benefited his corporate clients, neither he nor NBC disclosed those clients. NBC News president Steve Capus called McCaffrey an "independent voice" whose business obligations wouldn't color his commentary. McCaffrey simply claimed that his consulting "never has been a problem" for his punditry.
Conflicted Pentagon Pundits Asked to 'Fess Up
"The Federal Communications Commission has begun notifying several TV military analysts that it is probing congressional complaints that the pundits did not properly disclose their ties to the Pentagon when reviewing the war in Iraq on air," reports Paul Bedard. The FCC sent letters to some of the so-called "Pentagon pundits" on October 2, in response to a complaint filed with the agency by Representatives John Dingell and Rosa DeLauro. Several of the pundits named in the New York Times expose of the Pentagon pundit program were employees of or lobbyists for military contractors. The FCC letter to the pundits "suggests that TV stations and networks may have violated two sections of the Communications Act of 1934 by not identifying the ties to the Pentagon." The agency is asking the pundits "to respond to the allegations of wrongdoing within 30 days."
Jed Babbin: The Pentagon's Most Prolific Pundit
The morning of June 20, 2006, an email message circulated amongst U.S. Defense Department officials.
"Jed Babbin, one of our military analysts, is hosting the Michael Medved nationally syndicated radio show this afternoon. He would like to see if General [George W.] Casey would be available for a phone interview," the Pentagon staffer wrote. "This would be a softball interview and the show is 8th or 9th in the nation."
Why would the Pentagon help set up a radio interview? And how did they know that the interview would be "softball"?
From early 2002 to April 2008, the Defense Department offered talking points, organized trips to places such as Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, and gave private briefings to a legion of retired military officers working as media pundits. The Pentagon's military analyst program, a covert effort to promote a positive image of the Bush administration's wartime performance, was a multi-level campaign involving quite a few colorful characters.
Flipping through the over 8,000 pages of documents released in connection with the program, one Pentagon pundit arguably steals the spotlight: Jed Babbin.
