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CBS News Fires Four Over Bush National Guard Story;
FAIR on Bush Admin Funding of Armstrong Williams: "The
Government Is Running a Domestic Propaganda Operation Secretly
Targeting The American People";
CNN Fires Crossfire, Tucker Carlson Moves to MSNBC;
Four Remaining British Guantanamo Detainees To Be Freed;
CBS News Fires Four Over Bush National Guard Story
CBS News fired four employees on Monday after an independent
report found a "myopic zeal" led to a "60 Minutes
Wednesday" story about President Bush's military service
that relied on allegedly forged documents. We speak with Steve
Rendall of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.
CBS News fired four employees on Monday after an independent
report found a "myopic zeal" led to a "60 Minutes
Wednesday" story about President Bush's military service
that relied on allegedly forged documents.
The network fired Mary Mapes, producer of the report; Josh
Howard, executive producer of "60 Minutes Wednesday"
and his top deputy Mary Murphy; and senior vice president
Betsy West. Anchor Dan Rather didn't face any formal sanction
from the panel. He also didn't anchor last night.
Twelve days after the segment aired in early September, CBS
News retracted it and Rather apologized. Rather announced
his retirement two months later but insisted the timing had
nothing to do with the investigation.
The report faulted the CBS staffers involved for a "rigid
and blind defense" of the story after it aired, despite
growing questions about the documents. But the panel said
it was not able to determine conclusively that the documents
were forgeries. The panel also said that despite accusations
of political bias against CBS, it could not "conclude
that a political agenda at "60 Minutes Wednesday"
drove either the timing of the airing of the segment or its
content."
Today we'll take a look at the state of the corporate media.
From conservative pundit Armstrong Williams taking almost
a quarter of a million dollars from the US government to promote
President Bush's education reform to the use of government-funded
video news releases disguised as real news. And CNN cancels
Crossfire and says goodbye to conservative commentator Tucker
Carslon. But first, we begin with the firing of four CBS News
employees.
FAIR on Bush Admin Funding of Armstrong Williams:
"The Government Is Running a Domestic Propaganda Operation
Secretly Targeting The American People"
Conservative pundit Armstrong Williams admits to taking
almost a quarter of a million dollars from the U.S. government
to promote President Bush's No Child Left Behind legislation
and the GAO scolds the Bush administration for the second
time for using prepackaged video news releases the media runs
as news.
The Bush administration paid prominent African American pundit
Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote its controversial No
Child Left Behind legislation on his nationally syndicated
television show and to urge other black journalists to do
the same.
Williams was required "to regularly comment on No Child
Left Behind during the course of his broadcasts," and
to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio
spots that aired during the show in 2004.
His contract was part of a 1 million dollar government deal
with public relations firm Ketchum that produced fake, prepackaged
new reports - known as video news releases, or VNRs - that
were designed to look like news reports and were used to promote
No Child Left Behind. The Bush administration used similar
releases last year to promote its Medicare prescription drug
plan, prompting a scolding from the Government Accountability
Office, which called them an illegal use of taxpayers"
dollars.
Just last week, the GAO scolded the Bush administration a
second time for distributing VNRs, this time produced by the
Office of National Drug Control Policy concerning the dangers
of marijuana. They featured former reporter Mike Morris, and
were aired, at least in part, on 300 news shows. The GAO called
it "illegal government propaganda." This is an excerpt
of that video news release.
- Excerpt of Anti-Drug Video News Release by Gourvitz Communications.
An excerpt of a video news release paid for with taxpayers
dollars by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. After
the news of Armstrong Williams and the video news releases
emerged, Democratic leaders in Congress called on President
Bush to stop using "covert propaganda to influence public
opinion."
CNN Fires Crossfire, Tucker Carlson Moves to MSNBC
The new president of CNN, Jonathan Klein, announced last
week the network has ended its relationship with conservative
commentator Tucker Carlson and will soon cancel its long-running
program, Crossfire. We hear an excerpt of Crossfire featuring
Jon Stewart of the The Daily Show and speak with Steve Rendall
of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.
The new president of CNN, Jonathan Klein, announced last
week the network has ended its relationship with conservative
commentator Tucker Carlson and will soon cancel its long-running
program, Crossfire.
Carlson said he had actually quit Crossfire last April and
had agreed to stay on until his contract expired. He said
he had a deal in place for a job as the host of a nightly
talk program on rival MSNBC.
Klein said "[Tucker Carlson] wanted to host a prime-time
show in which he would put on live guests and have spirited
debate. That's not the kind of show CNN is going to be doing."
Instead, Klein said he wanted to move CNN away from what
he called "head-butting debate shows," which have
become the staple of much of all-news television in the prime-time
hours, especially at the Fox News. Klein said "CNN is
a different animal. We report the news. Fox talks about the
news."
Klein specifically cited the criticism that comedian Jon
Stewart of The Daily Show leveled at Crossfire when he was
a guest on the program during the presidential campaign. Stewart
said that ranting partisan political shows on cable were "hurting
America."
- CNN Crossfire featuring The Daily Show's Jon Stewart.
Four Remaining British Guantanamo Detainees To Be
Freed
The British government has announced that the four remaining
British citizens held in U.S. custody at Guantanamo will be
released. The four Brits are: Moazzam Begg, Feroz Abbasi,
Martin Mubanga and Richard Belmar. We speak with Michael Ratner,
president of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
The British government has announced that the four remaining
British citizens held in U.S. custody at Guantanamo will be
released. This follows months of negotiations between Washington
and London and a direct appeal by Prime Minister Tony Blair
to U.S. President George W. Bush, as well as multiple lawsuits
filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights. The four Brits
are: Moazzam Begg, Feroz Abbasi, Martin Mubanga and Richard
Belmar. It is not clear when they will be released.
On Democracy Now!, we have covered these cases extensively,
particularly that of Moazzam Begg. He was detained in Pakistan
in 2001 and has been imprisoned without charge or trial in
Guanatanmo after being transferred there from a base in Afghanistan.
Last April, his father Azmat Begg joined us in our studio
to talk about his son"s imprisonment. Here is some of
what he had to say.
- Azmat Begg, speaking on Democracy Now, March 10, 2004.
Meanwhile, the Australian government says one of its citizens
held at Guantanamo will also be released. Mamdouh Habib has
been held at Guantanamo Bay for three years. He filed a lawsuit
charging that in 2001 the U.S. transferred him to Egypt for
6 months, where he was electrocuted, beaten and nearly drowned.
Habib alleges that while under Egyptian detention, he was
hung by his arms from hooks, repeatedly shocked, nearly drowned
and brutally beaten. Habib's case is only the second to describe
a secret practice called "rendition," under which
the CIA has sent suspected terrorists to be interrogated in
countries where torture has been well documented. It is unclear
which U.S. agency transferred him to Egypt. His was the first
case to challenge the legality of the practice and could have
implications for U.S. plans to send large numbers of Guantanamo
Bay detainees to Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other countries
with poor human rights records.
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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