Media Matters Fisks The Times Over Blago
THE UK press might well take over the world. This on the Times’s trreatment of the Rod Blagojevich story:
We don’t normally comment on foreign press coverage of the Beltway, but this news report from Murdoch’s Times of London regarding the Blago saga is so egregious, so dishonest and so bad, we thought it deserved attention. Especially in light of the fact how we noted last week that Murdoch’s WSJ seemed to be straining the facts in order to hype the Blago story with an anti-Obama spin. Question: Has Murdoch issued marching orders to all his news orgs about this “scandal”?
Times of London headline: “Senate scandal snares Obama’s chief aide.”
The aide in question is Rahm Emanuel and as we pointed out last week Emanuel is not the target of any Blago-related investigation because he did nothing wrong. But the fact that Emanuel was referenced on the Blago wiretaps doing nothing wrong means to the Times that he’s been “ensnared.”
It gets worse. Here’s the lead as written by Sarah Baxter [emphasis added]:
The bullish, foul-mouthed but effective Chicago arm-twister Rahm Emanuel has come under pressure to resign as Barack Obama’s chief of staff after it was revealed that he had been captured on court-approved wire-taps discussing the names of candidates for Obama’s Senate seat.
That’s a new claim and the newspaper makes it in the article’s very first sentence: Emanuel is under pressure to resign?! By whom, is the obvious question. Behold the Times’ answer: “Grover Norquist, an influential conservative tax reform lobbyist.” We kid you not. A professional GOP partisan throws out a pointless silly claim that Emanuel should be fired and Murdoch’s newspaper treats it as breaking news.
Yeah, the listen to the UK press on US politics. We rule!
Posted: 16th, December 2008 | In: Reviews Comments (3) | TrackBack | Permalink
