Special Report's disparate coverage of Kirk's, Blumenthal's military service statements

From Media Matters In its first respective programs following media reports indicating Democrat Richard Blumenthal and Republican Mark Kirk had made false statements about their military service, Fox News' Special Report devoted nine times as much coverage to Blumenthal's misstatements as it did to Kirk's. Special Report also reported that Blumenthal's statements were "offensive" and his candidacy is "finished."

Special Report gives Kirk story one-ninth of the time provided for Blumenthal story

Special Report gives Blumenthal story 3 minutes 13 seconds of coverage the day after it broke. On May 17, The New York Times reported that Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the state's Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, had made comments about his service in the Marine Corps Reserve that were "plainly untrue."

Special Report devoted 3 minutes and 13 seconds to the story in its next edition on May 18.

Special Report devotes 21 seconds to Kirk military service comments in first show after story broke. On May 29, The Washington Post reported that Rep. Mark Kirk, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Illinois, "has admitted to inaccurately claiming he received the U.S. Navy's Intelligence Officer of the Year award for his service during NATO's conflict with Serbia in the late 1990s." The Post wrote that Kirk "acknowledged the error in his official biography after The Washington Post began looking into whether he had received the prestigious award, which is given by top Navy officials to a single individual annually."

Special Report devoted 21 seconds to the story on May 31, in the program's first edition after the story broke.

Special Report provides time for opponent to call Blumenthal comments "offensive"

Special Report coverage includes attacks on Blumenthal. In a segment, correspondent Laura Ingle reported that then-Republican Senate candidate Rob Simmons "said Blumenthal's past remarks are a big mistake" and quoted him stating, "I find it offensive that he is still wrapping himself in the veteran flag of those of us who served in Vietnam." Ingle also reported that "critics ... say that they don't understand how he could have made such a mistake being -- having such a sharp legal mind and being a wordsmith by trade and never correcting the record." Additionally, during the "All-Stars" segment, A.B. Stoddard stated of Blumenthal: "I really think he's finished. When he stands there and says he will not allow a few occasions when he misrepresented his service as Vietnam veteran to impugn his actual record, it's impugned his credibility and his legitimacy as a candidate. I think his candidacy is finished. I can't imagine he recovers from this."

Special Report's Kirk coverage includes no statements from critics. By contrast, in its first edition after the Kirk story broke, Special Report did not provide comments from Kirk's Democratic opponent or any other "critic," even though such criticism was included in the Post's article. Instead, in the program's sole coverage of the story, host Bret Baier stated:

BAIER: The Republican Senate hopeful in Illinois is admitting that past claims about his military service are not true. Congressman Mark Kirk concedes he never was the Navy's intelligence officer of the year, despite what his congressional and campaign website said. He says his Navy unit was named unit of the year in 1999.

FLASHBACK: When the NY Times ignored gaping holes in candidate Bush's war record

by Eric Boehlert

One of the striking talking points that came out of The New York Times in the wake of its controversial article last week about whether Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal had, over the years, exaggerated his military service during the Vietnam War era, was the insistence from the Times that the story was a deeply important one and one that needed to be covered. The Times, faced with stiff criticism for its handling of the Blumenthal story, seemed to suggest it had a moral obligation, not to mention a newsroom duty, to look closely at the military service rhetoric from a New England politician running in a statewide election.

A Times flack even appeared to lecture Blumenthal about how he needed to be straight with Nutmeg State voters.

But I'm having a tough time buying the Times' sudden devotion to the topic, considering that during the 2000 presidential campaign, the same Times staff went out of its way not to report on the web of detailed allegations that Republican George Bush had failed to fulfill his military obligation while defending Texas air space as an Air National Guard pilot and that the presidential candidate had routinely lied about that fact. For that story, the Times team shrugged. But it's decided this spring to go all-in over Blumenthal? Seems strange.

Now, I realize that it's been an entire decade since the 2000 campaign played out and that most people don't recall what the coverage was like -- and specifically have virtually no memory of how Bush's Air National Guard story was covered. But I'm not overstating things when I say the Times' stubborn failure to cover the controversy really did mark one of the true cases of journalistic malpractice of that crucial campaign season.

The full scope of Bush's lack of Guard service was revealed on May 23, 2000, when The Boston Globe's Walter Robinson reported a Page One piece detailing all the holes in Bush's military service: "1-Year Gap in Bush's Guard Duty; No Record of Airman at Drills in 1972-73."

After combing through 160 pages of military documents and interviewing Bush's former commanders, Robinson reported how Bush's flying career came to an abrupt and unexplained end in the spring of 1972 when Bush asked to be transferred so that he could work on a family friend's Senate campaign in Alabama. But Bush's Alabama commander, Lt. Col. William Turnipseed, told the Globe that Bush never showed up for duty. (A trained pilot, Bush asked to be reassigned to an Alabama base that had no airplanes.) In 2000, a group of veterans offered a $3,500 reward for anyone who could confirm Bush's Alabama service -- and nobody from Bush's unit stepped forward.

What did the Times do with the Globe's startling A1 campaign scoop, suggesting Bush may have gone AWOL during his mandatory Guard service? The Times ignored it, with a passion. (And yes, this was the same Times news team that spent the 2000 campaign routinely casting aspersions on Al Gore's character and trustworthiness.)

Consider this: The Times' Frank Bruni tailed Bush obsessively on the campaign trail that year, filing more than 200 dispatches. But he never once referenced in print the Globe allegations. (Just try to imagine the Times' reaction if, during the 2000 campaign, the same Boston Globe had reported on Page One that Gore's discharge papers from Vietnam showed he rigged his wartime duty and orchestrated an early exit by simply refusing to report for duty during the final two years of his commitment.)

During 2000, the Guard story never landed on Page One of the agenda-setting New York Times. In fact, the Guard story barely even made it inside the daily, while key facets were boycotted. Here's how many times in 2000 the Times, supposedly busy scouring the backgrounds of the candidates, reported the fact that Bush was grounded by his Guard superiors in 1972 for failing a mandatory physical: zero.

Just more than a week after The Boston Globe had raised serious questions about Bush's Guard service, the Times ran a May 31, 2000, story headlined "Bush Questions Gore's Fitness for Commander in Chief." The article noted that some were "questioning the nature of Mr. Bush's military service in the Vietnam War," but did not provide any further detail about the substance of the criticism. Instead, the Times simply reported that "Mr. Bush did not serve overseas but instead served in Houston in the Texas Air National Guard." The article made no mention whatsoever of the thorny allegations swirling about Bush's lack of military service.

On July 11, 2000, the Times' Nicholas Kristof wrote a biographical feature on Bush's life during the Vietnam War: " Close to Home; Bush's Choice in War: Devoid of Passion or Anxiety." The feature omitted any reference to questions about Bush's absenteeism, getting grounded, failing to take a physical, and walking away from the Guard for months at a time.

Kristof actually spent most of 2000 carefully -- even aggressively -- avoiding the issue of Bush's Guard service, which wasn't easy since, during that campaign season, Kristof wrote nearly 50,000 words on Bush, the equivalent of a 170-page book. Kristof functioned as the Times' in-house Bush biographer, and yet Kristof failed to report completely on the uncomfortable Guard issue, even after The Boston Globe pointed out all the holes in Bush's record.

But Kristof was hardly alone at the Times. It was a determined team effort to play dumb.

In late July, the Times got around to addressing Bush's wartime experience with an article headlined "Governor Bush's Journey; After Yale, Bush Ambled Amiably Into His Future." Certainly a piece focusing on Bush's post-Yale years in the late '60s and early '70s would center its attention on the troubling allegations raised by The Boston Globe, right? Wrong. It wasn't until 2,500 words into the article that the thorny issue was detailed. In total, the Times article dedicated about 300 words to the entire controversy, giving readers the sketchiest outlines of Bush's perplexing missing year from the Texas Air National Guard. And that fleeting, buried reference represented the bulk of the Times' coverage for most the entire campaign.

In a September 4 article on the campaign debate over military readiness, the Times referenced the fact that "Mr. Bush trained as a fighter pilot in the Texas National Guard during the Vietnam War." The Times politely omitted any mention of Bush's Guard controversy.

Twenty days later, the Times reported, "An array of veterans, including senior officers who served under Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore, last week endorsed Mr. Bush, who served as a fighter pilot in the Texas National Guard during the Vietnam War and was, for the record, a lieutenant." Again, the article politely omitted any mention of Bush's Guard controversy.

It wasn't until the eve of the election that the Times set aside an entire news article to examine some of the crucial questions raised by the Globe. The Times' conclusion in November 2000? See for yourself [emphasis added]:

Two Democratic senators today called on Gov. George W. Bush to release his full military record to resolve doubts raised by a newspaper about whether he reported for required drills when he was in the Air National Guard in 1972 and 1973.

But a review of records by The New York Times indicated that some of those concerns may be unfounded. Documents reviewed by The Times showed that Mr. Bush served in at least 9 of the 17 months in question.

That's right, half a year after the Globe published its scoop, the Times finally addressed the issue, announcing in the second paragraph that some questions about Bush's Guard service were "unfounded." ("The Times got spun," was how the Globe's Walter Robinson later described the Times' Guard reporting.)

Indeed, by the time Election Day rolled around, the Times had failed to report that in 1972, the Texas Air National Guard grounded Bush for failing to take a required physical exam and that neither Bush nor his aides could point to a single person who saw Bush -- the hard-to-miss son of a congressman and U.S. ambassador -- perform his active duty requirements during the final 18 months of his service. (It would be 45 months after the first Boston Globe report -- February 2004 -- before the Times finally spelled out to readers with any kind of specificity the facts regarding Bush's skipped physical exam.)

Bottom line: In 2000, candidate Bush's military record during the Vietnam War was very much in doubt, as was Bush's repeated explanation as to why, after receiving $1 million worth of taxpayer-funded flight instruction, he had essentially vanished from the Guard and failed to fly, show up for monthly drills, or even take a mandatory physical. Yet back in 2000,The New York Times didn't seem to care much about that military-record story. And the Times newsroom seemed to make a decision not to cover the controversy -- a controversy that, given the historically close nature of the 2000 race, could have tipped the balance of the vote.

So, yes, given that stark background, it's tough to make sense of the Times' recent dedication to pursuing the Blumenthal story.

NY Times reportedly had the full Blumenthal video before publishing horribly misleading hit piece

From Media Matters:

Politico's Ken Vogel tonight writes that New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt is expected to publish a Sunday column detailing the findings of his investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Times' May 18 front page article about how Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal had previously described his military service. And based on a reported email from Times executive editor Bill Keller to Hoyt, the Times had the full version of a 2008 speech yet chose to focus solely on one comment in the speech while ignoring another comment that was directly relevant to the story of how Blumenthal had described his military service.

At the center of the Times' coverage was a brief video clip of Blumenthal giving a 2008 speech during which he said he had "served in Vietnam." The article and video clip on the Times' homepage only included that Blumenthal quote and omitted his comment earlier in the same speech when he stated that he "served in the military during the Vietnam era in the Marine Corps."

To repeat: In the full video, Blumenthal states both that he "served in the military during the Vietnam era in the Marine Corps" and that he "served in Vietnam." But the Times published an article highlighting only the second comment while totally ignoring the first comment.

That's a horribly misleading framing of how Blumenthal described his military service.

Vogel's article tonight shows that the Times had the full video of the 2008 Blumenthal speech and had "reviewed the entire event" prior to publishing its May 18 article:

Here's Vogel:

Blumenthal's allies got a helpful - if unintentional - boost from their main rival, when McMahon, a former professional wrestling executive, briefly featured on her campaign website a blog post crediting her opposition researchers with passing on to the Times a video recording of a March 2008 speech in which Blumenthal recalled "the days that I served in Vietnam." That passage, which was prominently mentioned at the beginning of the Times story, was the most compelling piece of evidence against Blumenthal and was featured in a video posted on the Times' website. But both the story and the web video excluded a passage from earlier in the speech in which Blumenthal accurately characterized his military service by saying that he "served in the military during the Vietnam era in the Marine Corps." McMahon's campaign posted on YouTube a more complete video of the speech including the accurate characterization, which the Associated Press detailed in a story that prompted some liberals to question whether the Times had the full video of the speech and, if so, why the story didn't mention the earlier characterization. "That's awfully misleading, isn't it?" wrote Jamison Foser, a senior fellow at the liberal press watchdog Media Matters. "Given that Republican Linda McMahon's campaign has taken credit for feeding the Times the Blumenthal story, you have to wonder if it gave the Times the incomplete video, as well. Either way, the Times should explain why it chose to omit Blumenthal's correct characterization of his service." In his emailed response to ombudsman Hoyt, Keller asserted that "Blumenthal's statement early in the event that he 'served in the military during the Vietnam era in the Marine Corps' says nothing about whether he served in Vietnam or stateside, and says nothing about whether he served in the reserves or active military. It does not contradict his later statement that he served 'in Vietnam.'" Though Keller conceded that video of the March 2008 speech "were being circulated by a number of people in politics, including McMahon's campaign," he wrote, "we did not rely on that material. Instead, we obtained a DVD of the full Blumenthal speech from a source not connected with the McMahon campaign, and reviewed the entire event and made sure it hadn't been unfairly spliced, edited or doctored."

Media Matters has previously noted numerous problems with the initial Times article (and its lack of critical coverage of Republican Linda McMahon, who admitted her campaign provided the Times with research on Blumenthal).

But this reported admission by Keller that the Times had the full copy of the speech and didn't mention anywhere in the original article that Blumenthal had described his service differently earlier in the speech is the type of ethical failure that puts a serious dent in the Times' credibility.

Indeed, the story is now about the Times' coverage -- and the Times has nobody to blame but themselves.

M.C.L Comment: Um Bill Maher, Chris Matthews and everyone who jumped aboard the NY Times train better start jumping off at the next stop.. This was the same news paper during the run up to the Iraq war were using Bush white house officials as sources.

The Times' Blumenthal hit piece continues to unravel

by Matt Gertz Earlier today, Media Matters' Jamison Foser noted that the Associated Press had discovered a flaw in The New York Times' reporting on Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal's description of his military service. The AP noted that the Times story "included quotations and a video of Blumenthal saying at a 2008 event that he had 'served in Vietnam,'" but left out that Blumenthal began that speech by accurately saying that he "served in the military, during the Vietnam era." In its response to the AP story, the Times stated in part: The New York Times in its reporting uncovered Mr. Blumenthal's long and well established pattern of misleading his constituents about his Vietnam War service, which he acknowledged in an interview with The Times. This is extremely misleading. First of all, the Times did not identify any "long and well established pattern" on Blumenthal's part. In fact, they uncovered exactly one instance in which Blumenthal stated that he had "served in Vietnam" -- which occurred in the speech described above. The Times also identified two instances in which Blumenthal, according to the Times, "intimate[ed]" that he had done so. This out of Blumenthal's innumerable speeches over nearly twenty years as attorney general. Moreover, Connecticut's reporters almost universally agree that no such pattern exists. The Hartford Courant's Colin McEnroe contacted political journalists throughout the state, and with one exception, none stated that they had ever heard Blumenthal say that he served in Vietnam. For example, Connecticut Mirror's Mark Pazniokas -- who McEnroe states "may have covered Blumenthal more often than anybody else" -- says that "Every time he talked about his military record, he was quite clear that he had been a military reservist and never came close to suggesting he was in Vietnam." Additionally, contrary to the Times' statement, Blumenthal did not acknowledge any such pattern in an interview with the Times, according to the Times' own report. The Times reported only that Blumenthal "said that he had misspoken about his service during the Norwalk event and might have misspoken on other occasions," and quoted Blumenthal stating, "My intention has always been to be completely clear and accurate and straightforward, out of respect to the veterans who served in Vietnam." In yet another hit to the Times' story, one of their star sources for the piece is now stating that she was misquoted. The Times reported: Mr. Blumenthal has made veterans' issues a centerpiece of his public life and his Senate campaign, but even those who have worked closely with him have gotten the misimpression that he served in Vietnam. In an interview, Jean Risley, the chairwoman of the Connecticut Vietnam Veterans Memorial Inc., recalled listening to an emotional Mr. Blumenthal offering remarks at the dedication of the memorial. She remembered him describing the indignities that he and other veterans faced when they returned from Vietnam. "It was a sad moment," she recalled. "He said, 'When we came back, we were spat on; we couldn't wear our uniforms.' It looked like he was sad to me when he said it." Ms. Risley later telephoned the reporter to say she had checked into Mr. Blumenthal's military background and learned that he had not, in fact, served in Vietnam. But ABC is reporting that Risley -- who appeared at Blumenthal's news conference yesterday - says she was misquoted: "He has always been completely straightforward" about his military service, said Jean Risley, a chairwoman of the Connecticut Vietnam Veterans Memorial Inc. "I never once heard him say that he was in Vietnam." Risley was quoted in the Times as recalling an emotional Blumenthal describe the abuse that he and other veterans received when they returned from the war. She told ABCNews.com today that she was misquoted. M.C.L Comment: I knew something was fishy with this story when Fox News jumped on this story like a lion on a bloody piece of meat..Remember this is the same New York Times that used Dick Cheney as a source regarding WMDs in Iraq.