Media compliment emperor's new clothes

[struggle4progress]

While President Bush's approval ratings plummet amid widespread dissatisfaction with his handling of Hurricane Katrina, many news outlets seem to be doing their best to try to rebuild his reputation -- making false claims that his poll numbers are improving; baselessly asserting that Bush has again "risen to the occasion"; giving him undeserved credit for Katrina recovery efforts; and downplaying his paralysis in the face of the disaster.

CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Suzanne Malveaux falsely suggested at the beginning of the week that Bush's poll numbers were improving, with Blitzer excitedly exclaiming, "Mr. Bush's approval rating is up -- up! -- to 46 percent." But in order to claim that Bush's approval rating is increasing, Blitzer compared polls conducted by different news organizations using different methodologies -- a dubious comparison, at best, particularly in light of the fact that every recent poll has shown dismal results for Bush. As the week continued, it became increasingly clear that the rosy picture painted by Blitzer and Malveaux wasn't based in reality; new polls by Fox News, CBS/New York Times, and NBC/Wall Street Journal, among others, all showed poor results for Bush.

While CNN was putting a happy face on dismal poll numbers, CBS and Rush Limbaugh gave Bush credit he didn't deserve for steps taken by state and local leaders. CBS reporter Peter Van Sant repeated already debunked claims that Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco was slow to declare a state of emergency. (She made such a declaration before Katrina even hit, contrary to the false claims made by the Bush administration and repeated by The Washington Post.) Van Sant also repeated a baseless claim similar to one made by Fox's Brit Hume and others that Bush "convinced" Blanco to order an evacuation.

Rush Limbaugh took things a step further, claiming that "Bush was begging that governor on the Sunday before the hurricane hit to get people out of there and to declare an emergency." But if Bush was "begging" Blanco to "declare an emergency" on the Sunday before the hurricane hit, the president's response to the disaster was even more inept than we knew: Blanco had already declared an emergency two days earlier. Limbaugh's lies didn't stop there; as Media Matters has documented. <snip> http://mediamatters.org/items/200509170002

[ClassWarrior]

1. The corporate media are destroying the only thing they have to sell...

Their credibility. Unless of course Wolff wants to turn tricks.

NGU.

[rodeodance]

2. Blitzer excitedly exclaiming,---and today he watched a fire being put out

and got all excited. and was disappointed when the big bucket of water was not dropped as the firepeople got it out first.

[DemInDistress]

3. Wolf did something puzzling today...

10 minutes into the show,"the Situation Room" damn he must plug his show 100 times,anyway Wolf says,"a 73 yr.old grandmother arrested and imprisoned for 16 days on a 50k bail for allegedly looting sausage will have a live interview with her in a few moments".So I waited and
waited and nothing not a single word or reason why she didn't appear.
Did CNN Hdqts.axe the story? Did granny hire a lawyer?If her story is
correct and she wasn't looting she could sue for false imprisonment/
false arrest.Anyway it puzzled me as to why no explanation was given for her being cancelled.......