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Posted on 07/10/2003 12:44:08 PM PDT by kattracks
One way in which liberal media bias creeps into network and cable TV news is through innuendo. It raises a question - regardless of truth or fact - but permits the news organization to slip off the hook by claiming it had merely broached an issue and not made a declarative statement.
A fine example of media bias by innuendo was made Wednesday evening by CNN anchor Arron Brown regarding when the Bush administration realized they had relied on forged documents to assert that Iraq was seeking African uranium for a nuclear program.
The White House Monday admitted it was wrong last January when President Bush said in his State of the Union Address that Iraq was trying to get uranium from Niger, prompting many in the news media to pound away on the question of when the president knew about the error.
It's obviously more egregious for a president to deliberately make a false statement in such an address rather than do so inadvertently and realize the error only after the fact.
So Brown took it upon himself Wednesday night to question whether Bush was aware of the mistake before delivering his State of the Union Address. Here's how it happened, based on the transcript of Brown's Newsnight program segment with CNN National Security Correspondent David Ensor:
BROWN: A couple things, David. There is, as you know, a story that's been circulating on the web today that there was at some point a conversation between the president and a CIA consultant where the consultant directly told the president that this African uranium deal was bogus. Do you have any reporting that supports the idea that the president was directly told it was fake before he included it in the State of the Union speech?
ENSOR: I have no way to confirm that story and it is somewhat suspect I would say but we'll have to check it.
BROWN: All right and any other information that would suggest the president knew in advance this was bogus?
ENSOR: None at this point, no.
One might be forgiven for thinking that Brown and Ensor were merely debunking a questionable news report that portrayed the president in a bad light. But a closer look at the fact suggests otherwise.
The "conversation between the president and a CIA consultant," Brown noted originated with an article published Tuesday by Capitol Hill Blue, an Internet news site.
The Blue story was picked up by other various Internet sites and weblogs, and was circulated around the web as Brown noted.
But what neither Brown nor Ensor noted in their Wednesday broadcast is that the story had already been batted down by its author hours before Brown's 10:00 p.m. EDT show began.
In a lengthy correction and retraction published a few minutes after 6:00 p.m. Wednesday, Blue publisher Doug Thompson explained how he had inadvertently quoted a fraud as the source for the story that Bush knew before his State of the Union Address that the administration had bad intelligence about Iraq's quest for uranium.
Thompson's retraction - one of the classiest I've ever read - explained how he had been victimized over two decades by a con artist purported to be Terrance J. Wilkinson, the source of the damning quote that the president knew the African uranium intelligence was false, but told the nation about it anyhow.
"The bottom line is that someone has been running a con on me for 20 some years and I fell for it like a little old lady in a pigeon drop scheme," wrote Thompson, who also explained the efforts to which he had gone to eradicate the erroneous information from his website.
Similarly, a number of the other websites that relayed Thompson's dispatch also issued corrections, though the precise timing of them is uncertain.
Yet in spite of the fact that the original source for this report had retracted, corrected and apologized for the error four hours before Brown and Ensor went on the air, the two still managed to work this bogus rumor into their broadcast.
If Brown and Ensor wanted to knock-down a false rumor, they certainly could have done so with either newscaster simply saying, "That report has been retracted. It's entirely false. There's absolutely nothing to it."
But that didn't happen. Instead, Ensor explained, "we'll have to check it out," leaving the viewer with the impression that there might be something to this.
Doug Thompson had the grace and professionalism to apologize and take responsibility for a story that was wrong, but I wouldn't expect any remotely similar response from Brown or CNN. After all, it was just an innuendo, not an assertion of fact.
And as we all know, one isn't compelled to retract innuendo, even if it's made after the guts of it have been exposed as fraudulent.
Scott Hogenson is executive editor of CNSNews.com.
Send a Letter to the Editor about this commentary.
After our own William McKinley questioned the veracity of the story.
White House admits Bush wrong about Iraqi nukes
Did Capitol Hill Blue Post An Article With Fabrications?
BREAKING: Conned big time "CIA Witness" to White House Lying about Intel story found to be FRAUD
It is getting better. Check this out [Truthout trying to hide stealing a fraudulent article]
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You didn't read the article, did you...
I'm pulling my hair out, tonight. What a mess !
I'm working on the " productivity"; really I am. LOL
CNN - Certainly Not News (not fair and balanced news anyhow)
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