Articles

18th Aug, 2006 3:46pm
     Asking “Who is to blame for America’s obesity epidemic” among children, Ann Curry of NBC’s “Today” show introduced a condensed edition of a story to air later that evening on “Dateline NBC.” Reporter Stone Phillips went on to suggest corporate advertising was to blame for America’s chubby kids.        But Phillips left out of his report that his featured psychologist is the co-founder of a group that calls for regulation of advertising to children.      “Food…
18th Aug, 2006 1:21pm
From "Kennedy Milk" to Bush's Bombs"I'm in my mid-40s and who grew up in poor countries like Morocco, you know, they will tell you that when they went to school in the mornings, they used to get milk, and they called it Kennedy milk because it was the Americans that sent them milk. And in 40 years, we have gone from Kennedy milk to the Bush administration rushing bombs to this part of the world. And it just erodes and erodes and erodes America's reputation." - Middle East-based reporter Neil…
18th Aug, 2006 12:56pm
Sabrina Tavernise reports from a village in Lebanon for Friday's "A Girl's Life Bound Close To Hezbollah," and honors the mantra of the terrorist group as a "social services network," just like her colleague John Kifner did on Wednesday- and again, without using the word "terrorism.""Israel's goal of uprooting Hezbollah from southern Lebanon has frequently been questioned by critics who say the group is deeply woven into society and cannot simply be cut out. An afternoon with the Fadlallah…
18th Aug, 2006 12:27pm
     The “CBS Evening News” has found another corporate villain it says needs more FDA regulation: sunscreen manufacturers.        But it was reporter Trish Regan who burned her audience by leaving out pertinent information and stacking the deck with two critics of sunscreen makers. In her critique, she neglected to include sunscreen company representatives or dermatologists.         Regan warned viewers of her August 17 story that “your lotion may be promising more than it can deliver,…
17th Aug, 2006 3:52pm
     The day after the government released July 2006 consumer price index (CPI) data, most media outlets portrayed the new numbers as a positive development, including the Associated Press. Yet The Washington Post gave a pessimistic slant to the news.      Nell Henderson’s article, “Cost of Living Gets Costlier,” commanded the reader’s attention on the front page of the August 17 Business section. After complaining that inflation was “eating into people’s paychecks and savings at a quickening…
17th Aug, 2006 1:29pm
Political reporter Adam Nagourney and anti-Wal-Mart specialist Michael Barbaro team up to cover the Democrat's latest campaign tactic - a coordinated attack on Wal-Mart. After teeing off with Sen. Joe Biden laying into the company at a speech in Des Moines, they continue:"Among Democrats, Biden is not alone. Across Iowa this week and across much of the country this month, Democratic leaders have found a new rallying cry that many of them say could prove powerful in the midterm elections and…
17th Aug, 2006 12:44pm
Republican Sen. John Warner must eat staunch for breakfast - Thursday's lead story marks at least the third time the Times has called Sen. Warner a "staunch" ally of the president immediately before relaying a Warner criticism of Bush (which the Times must figure would carry extra credibility, coming from such a "staunch" ally).In "Insurgent Bombs Directed At G.I.'s Increase In Iraq," reporters Michael Gordon, Mark Mazzetti and Thom Shanker argue: "The newest accounts of the risks of civil war…
16th Aug, 2006 2:23pm
     NBC’s Campbell Brown floated the image of a real estate “bubble” in a brief item on housing sales on the August 15 “Nightly News.” But not all economists are that pessimistic, and research by the Business & Media Institute shows the media have long been anticipating a bubble burst that hasn’t happened.       Substitute anchor Brown told her audience there was “More evidence that the housing bubble in this country is deflating” as “sales of existing homes fell by 7.5 percent in the…
16th Aug, 2006 2:23pm
Reporter Alan Cowell's "Letter From Britain" gloats that, as the headline summarizes, "The Latest Crises Do Little for Blair's Political Standing."While Cowell, as usual, focuses on strugglingPrime Minister Tony Blair's allegedly too-close ties to President Bush, he gets some licks in at British conservatives as well with this cynical, unflattering description: "And the terror alert provoked criticism by David Cameron, leader of the opposition Conservatives, who broke an unspoken compact with…
16th Aug, 2006 12:23pm
Metro reporter Michael Luo continues the paper's sporadic pro-Muslim PR pushwith Wednesday's"To Heaven, Verse by Verse - Young Muslims in Queens Take On the Koran Full Time.""The children, ages 7 to 14, are full-time students, in class 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, even in the summer. But they are not studying math, science or English. Instead, they are memorizing all 6,200 verses in the Koran, a task that usually takes two to three years." Apparently there's not much diversity among…