The CBS Evening News's Gloria Borger, following in the footsteps of the Washington Post's Deborah Howell, repeated the thoroughly discredited claim that Abramoff "directed" money to Democrats. (see
here and
here)
(rest on flip)
Before I move onto Ms. Borger, I want to quote the
Shrill One for those who don't subscribe to NY Times Select:
But the tribes were already giving money to Democrats before Mr. Abramoff entered the picture; he persuaded them to reduce those Democratic donations, while giving much more money to Republicans. A study commissioned by The American Prospect shows that the tribes' donations to Democrats fell by 9 percent after they hired Mr. Abramoff, while their contributions to Republicans more than doubled. So in any normal sense of the word "directed," Mr. Abramoff directed funds away from Democrats, not toward them.
It's really that simple.
When confronted with ample evidence that they are in error, instead of offering corrections, journalists have defended their dubious position. Deborah Howell, in her January 22 column "The Firestorm Over My Column," quoted Michael Crowley saying that the position voiced above by Mr. Krugman amounts to "foolish semantics." Only after a massive uproar from her readers did she concede the fact that Abramoff didn't give money to Democrats directly. This isn't a matter of simple mistakes as Ms. Howell would have us believe. These journalists are regurgitating Republican talking points, and are only relenting when confronted by a "firestorm" such as the one that confronted Howell.
Gloria Borger, in lock-step with Howell, had this to say on the January 10 edition of the CBS Evening News:
So far, over one hundred Democrats and Republicans have raced to get rid of their Abramoff-tainted money.
And here is what Borger said tonight:
And while Democrats haven't received any money from Abramoff's own checkbook, they did receive $1.5 million he directed to them through his clients. So when 100 members rushed to return Abramoff-tainted money to charity, it was a bipartisan stampede.
Here, Borger tries to make us think that she is a reponsible journalist with a nod to the debunking of the "direct Abramoff contribution" talking point. But, after that, she goes right back to describing all of Abramoff's clients' contributions as "Abramoff-tainted" and throws in the word "bipartisan" at the end. The repeated use of the word "bipartisan" in Borger's Abramoff reporting is obviously intentional and is seriously misleading.
So, today I wrote the CBS Evening News with this question: Why is Gloria Borger repeatedly giving her viewers the false impression that the Abramoff scandal is bipartisan? If you too are interested in discovering the answer to that question, please join me in asking CBS. The media is accustomed to a passive left. Let's show them that we will no longer allow dishonest journalism to stand.
Here is their contact info, courtesy of Media Matters For America:
CBS
E-mail: E-mail form
CBSNews
524 W. 57th St.
New York, NY, 10019
When contacting the media, please be polite and professional. Express your specific concerns regarding that particular news report or commentary, and be sure to indicate exactly what you would like the media outlet to do differently in the future.
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Also, if you are interested, I have written two other diaries about Gloria Borger this month. They can be found here and here.
I also wrote a diary on CBS's biased wiretapping coverage last week.