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Banned
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Originally Posted by stevo
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stevo, do you ever read or quote any references from MSM print media sources, i.e. those generally regarded as newspapers "of record" in their geographic regions.....NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post, or of the original TV network news sources, CBS, NBC, ABC? These six sources are not impeccable, and they do make mistakes and misreport, too often, but they do not seem to fall to the low standard of integrity and impartiality that one of your recently cited <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=1885038&postcount=34">sources</a>, "Cyber News Service", http://www.cnsnews.com/, does.
Background:
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http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Brent_Bozell
Brent Bozell is the founder and President of the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog organization.
Bozell is also the founder and President of the Parents Television Council, which his biographical note describes as "the only Hollywood-based organization dedicated to restoring responsibility to the entertainment industry." [1] (http://www.townhall.com/columnists/BIOS/cbbozell.html)
"In June 1998, Mr. Bozell launched the Conservative Communications Center (C3) to provide the conservative movement with the marketing and public relations tools necessary to deliver its message into the 21st century. C3's online news division, the Cybercast News Service at www.CNSNews.com, has become a major internet news source with a full staff of journalists in its Washington, DC metro bureau, and operates bureaus in London and Jerusalem, with other correspondents around the world," his biographical note states.
Bozell is a nationally syndicated writer whose work has appeared in a wide range of publications.
"Mr. Bozell is Executive Director of the Conservative Victory Committee (CVC), an independent multi-candidate political action committee that has helped elect dozens of conservative candidates over the past ten years. He was National Finance Chairman for the 1992 Buchanan for President campaign, and Finance Director and later President of the former National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC). He currently belongs to the Council for National Policy (CNP) and sits on the Board of Directors of the American Conservative Union (ACU)," his biographical note states.
Media Transparency describes L. Brent Bozell III as "a zealot of impeccable right-wing pedigree. He is the nephew of columnist William F. Buckley and the son of L. Brent Bozell, Jr., who assisted Barry Goldwater with the writing of Conscience of a Conservative. He was the chief fund-raiser behind Pat Buchanan's unsuccessful bid for the Republican Presidential nomination in 1992.
According to Media Transparency, Bozell helped orchestrate the smear campaign directed at the opposition to Clarence Thomas's appointment to the Supreme Court in 1991. During the 2004 elections Bozell has launched a 2.8 million dollar campaign to discredit the "liberal media" (see WaPo external link). His column on the eve of the Republican convention (http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-.../s_245188.html) attempts to smear Kerry by accusing him of "soldier-smearing", for having reported, during his 1971 Congressional testimony, on atrocities being committed in Vietnam.
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stevo, I don't have the nerve or the narrowvision to cite a "news story" by this guy, Bozell's 'Cyber News Service' as one of only two sources that you posted to strengthen your argument. You and your defender who posted followups, conveyed, in the jist of your opinions, that all "sources" and "facts" are equally weighted....and, in effect, cancel out each other. Do I have that right? Is this close to a description of your opinion on the citing of news reports and of other third party sources, in our posts here?
Are you content to receive your "news" filtered by organizations run by Bozell,
Murdoch, Rev. Moon, or philanthropist Richard Mellon Scaife?
stevo, get some perspective on how much your own political philosophy and POV has been "shaped'" by Scaife funded "projects". Your talking point about the "LEFT controls the media" is a result of Scaife funding ingraining it into the culture of the right........
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...main050299.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...main050399.htm
stevo, <a href="http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/primer.html">more</a> on Bozell, Scaife, and Ruddy.....founder of "newsmax", a source you linked to on your recent post that I am responding to now......
finally, Fox "reports" on N.O. as they relate to assigning "blame" are not news.
They are Rove directed propaganda designed to re-shape public opinion of Bush and Fema, via the usual smear of critics, this time the governor and other political leaders in Louisiana......
Quote:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200509090002
Fox touts misleading Red Cross account to blame Blanco
Fox News and other conservative media, including nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh and popular weblogs, have loudly and repeatedly touted statements made this week by American Red Cross president and CEO Marsha J. "Marty" Evans that Louisiana state homeland security officials blocked Red Cross efforts to enter New Orleans to deliver food, water, and other critical provisions to victims of Hurricane Katrina because the state officials did not want to provide an incentive for people to stay in the city. But a review of public statements by Red Cross officials -- who originally agreed that requests or directives by state and local officials that Red Cross relief workers stay out of the city were made because the city was not safe -- shows they have subtly shifted their rhetoric regarding who was responsible for barring the Red Cross, whether it was an outright bar or a request, and what the reason was for the authorities' not wanting Red Cross relief workers to go into the city, undermining the Fox News report.
This shift neatly complements <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200509080023#20050909">Bush administration efforts to re-direct blame for failures in the relief effort on state and local officials</a>, particularly on Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco. Also notably absent from Fox News' reports was any mention of the fact that both the Red Cross' charter and the federal Department of Homeland Security's December 2004 National Response Plan clearly indicate that ultimate decision-making authority rested (or should have rested) with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), not with any state agency.
Last week, the Red Cross, which by law works under FEMA during national states of emergency, agreed that officials on the ground in New Orleans were taking the correct course of action in requesting or demanding that relief workers not enter the city before and after the storm. In a September 2 <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/02/lkl.01.html">interview</a>, Evans explained to CNN host Larry King that the Red Cross was not in New Orleans because "it was not safe to be in the city, and it's not been safe to go back into the city ... We were asked -- directed -- by the National Guard and the city and the state emergency management not to go into New Orleans because it was not safe.".......
.........<b>Red Cross president Evans shifted emphasis from safety to evacuation incentives</b>
In her September 6 interview on Fox News' <i>The O'Reilly Factor</i>, Evans emphasized that the Red Cross was "ready" to enter New Orleans immediately after the storm, but was "not allowed" by "state homeland security authorities." This account stands in contrast to statements the prior week by Evans and other Red Cross officials.
Evans explained to CNN host Larry King during her September 2 <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/02/lkl.01.html">interview</a> that the Red Cross was not entering New Orleans due to concerns about personnel safety, as well as a desire not to provide survivors an incentive to stay in the dangerous conditions of the city: <blockquote>
KING: Joining us now in Washington is Marty Evans, the president and CEO of the American Red Cross. She traveled with the president today. The Red Cross is not in New Orleans. Why?<br /> <br /> EVANS: Well, Larry, when the storm came, our goal was prior to landfall to support the evacuation.<b> </b>It was unsafe to be in the city. We were asked by the city not to be there, and the Superdome was made a shelter of last resorts and, quite frankly in retrospect, it was a good idea because otherwise those people would have had no shelter at all.
We have our shelters north of the city. <b>We're prepared as soon as they can be evacuated, we're prepared to receive them in Texas, in other states, but it was not safe to be in the city, and it's not been safe to go back into the city. They were also concerned that if we located, relocated back into the city, people wouldn't leave, and they've got to leave.</b>
<p>[...]</p>
EVANS: <b>Well, Larry, we were asked, directed by the National Guard and the city and the state emergency management not to go into New Orleans because it was not safe. We are not a search and rescue organization. We provide shelter and basic support, and so we were depending, we are depending on the state and the agencies to get people to our shelters in safe places. </b> </blockquote>
The <i>Chicago Tribune </i><a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-050902hurricane,1,4993635.story?coll=chi-news-hed">described</a> conditions in New Orleans as authorities tried to evacuate the Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center in an article published later that evening: </p> <blockquote>
A convoy of 1,200 National Guard troops rode into downtown to begin restoring order and delivering life-saving supplies more than four days after Hurricane Katrina stranded at least 100,000 citizens inside a city once known around the world as the "Big Easy" but now virtually indistinguishable from a war zone. Officials said 7,000 Guard personnel would be in the city by Saturday.
Looters were still running rampant, fires raged out of control in several buildings across the city and bloating corpses floated along flooded streets, but officials said they had nearly finished evacuating more than 30,000 refugees from the filthy Superdome and were now focusing on tens of thousands more huddled in and around the city's convention center. </blockquote>
In a <a href="http://www.redcross.org/faq/0,1096,0_682_4524,00.html#4524">FAQ</a> apparently posted on its website September 2, the Red Cross emphasized that its "presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city," and noted that "[w]e are an organization of civilian volunteers and cannot get relief aid into any location until the local authorities say it is safe and provide us with security and access." The FAQ concludes by describing the Red Cross' "appropriate role" under the circumstances: <blockquote>
As the remaining people are evacuated from New Orleans, the most appropriate role for the Red Cross is to provide a safe place for people to stay and to see that their emergency needs are met. We are fully staffed and equipped to handle these individuals once they are evacuated. </blockquote>.............
.......Garrett's own reporting on Fox was carried extensively on September 7 and 8. On the evening of September 7, Garrett appeared on Fox News' <i>The Big Story with John Gibson.</i> Playing a recording of Evans's claims on <i>The O'Reilly Factor,</i> Garrett reported, "Well, last night on <i>The O'Reilly Factor</i>, Red Cross president Marty Evans said the Red Cross was ready, ready to drive in food and water, but Louisiana officials said no." Later on <i>Special Report with Brit Hume</i>, Garrett elaborated on this revised explanation for the Red Cross' absence from New Orleans following the hurricane. Citing "one of their officials," Garrett repeated the Red Cross' suggestion that state officials' desire to encourage the evacuation of New Orleans was the primary reason relief workers did not enter New Orleans. <blockquote>
GARRETT: The state's own agency devoted to the state's homeland security. They told them, "You cannot go there." Why? The Red Cross tells me that state agency in Louisiana said, "Look, we do not want to create a magnet for more people to come to the Superdome or the convention center. We want to get them out." So at the same time local officials were screaming, "Where is the food? Where is the water?" The Red Cross was standing by, ready. The Louisiana department of homeland security said, "You can't go." </blockquote>
The September 8 edition of <i>Special Report</i> featured an extended discussion of the Red Cross' revised account of what happened and why. In video segments from a taped interview, Evans elaborated on the effect of the state homeland security authorities' purported ban on Red Cross workers, who had, she said, "great anguish about the fact they weren't able to help." <blockquote>
GARRETT: <b>The Louisiana department of homeland security kept the Red Cross and Salvation Army from delivering relief supplies to stranded evacuees at the Superdome and New Orleans convention center. </b>
EVANS: We were ready from literally the time the storm blew threw. We were ready to go. <b>We just were not given permission to go in. </b>
MAJ. GEORGE HOOD (Salvation Army spokesman): We were prepared. The intent and the will was definitely there.
GARRETT: <b>State authorities told both relief organizations delivering food and water would impede evacuation efforts. </b>
EVANS: We understood that the thinking was that, if we were to come in, that, one, it would impede the evacuation. They were trying to get everybody out. And, secondly, that it could possibly suggest that it was going to be OK to stay.
GARRETT: The scenes of suffering tore at the hearts of Red Cross volunteers.
EVANS: I don't think there was any Red Crosser either nearby the scene or even in Washington, D.C., who didn't just have great anguish about the fact that we weren't able to help.
[...]
GARRETT: But the process was agonizingly slow. City buses, supposed to be ready to transport residents to higher ground, stood unused. The state then asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency to produce 1,100 buses. Relief agencies say the root of the problem was an inept evacuation of New Orleans.
EVANS: In a city such as New Orleans, it is extremely important to not only conceive a plan but to have a plan that is then executable and then is executed.
GARRETT: The Red Cross and Salvation Army provided shelter, food, and water to thousands of New Orleans residents outside the direct impact zone. <b>But they couldn't reach the ones whose needs were most acute and most visible on television, because the state stuck with its evacuation plan. </b> </blockquote>
Fox News also ran segments on the Red Cross story twice during the evening of September 7 and three more times in the morning and afternoon of September 8. It was also mentioned on <i>Hannity & Colmes </i>September 8.
Conservative blogs didn't have to wait for Evans's September 6 interview to blast state officials for their purported actions, but read much into the Red Cross' FAQ. Excerpting portions of the Red Cross' post, the weblog Cafe Hayek <a href="http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2005/09/government_tell.html">posted</a> on September 3: "So, government decided that letting people die was a better course than risking any success that the Red Cross would likely have at providing disaster relief." The Instapundit blog focused blame on state officials, <a href="http://instapundit.com/archives/025335.php">concluding</a>, "So as I understand it, the Louisiana authorities don't want the Red Cross to provide services in New Orleans because that will discourage people from leaving?" The conservative blogs <a href="/rd?http://powerlineblog.com/archives/011594.php">Power Line</a>, <a href="http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/005397.php">Captain's Quarters</a>, and <a href="http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=17428_The_Red_Cross_and_the_Superdome&only">Little Green Footballs</a> all highlighted Garrett's interview with Hewitt on their sites September 7.
The conservative news websites <a href="/rd?http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/9/7/235423.shtml">NewsMax</a> and <a href="http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=46224">WorldNetDaily</a> repeated Garrett's characterization of the matter on September 7 and 8, respectively.
Limbaugh also repeatedly blamed "the governor's office" for the failure on the September 8 broadcast of <i>The Rush Limbaugh Show</i>, stating "Louisiana state governor's office, 'Huhuh, huhuh, huhuh. No water, no food to the Superdome. We don't want to cause a magnet down there. Ah...' They know what freebies do. Ah, if, if, they'd have said, 'All the food and water you need at the Superdome,' nobody would have left town."
<b>FEMA responsible for coordinating Red Cross efforts as well as emergency disaster relief</b>
In touting Evans's assertion that state officials blocked the Red Cross from New Orleans to avoid encouraging people to stay or return, Fox News and others have omitted another key fact: It was the federal government that was primarily responsible for coordinating operations, including the activities of the Red Cross. Presumably, if FEMA had deemed it necessary for the Red Cross to enter New Orleans, the agency could have intervened with state authorities at any time. Both the federal Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) December 2004 National Response Plan (NRP) and the Red Cross' charter clearly place the Red Cross under the purview of FEMA. Further, the response plan stipulates that federal agencies should strive for full coordination with state officials but not allow such coordination to "impede the rapid deployment and use of critical resources."
According to the <a title="http://www.redcross.org/museum/charters.html" href="http://www.redcross.org/museum/charters.html">federal charter</a> of the American Red Cross, the organization has "the legal status of 'a federal instrumentality' " with "responsibilities delegated to it by the Federal government." Listed among these responsibilities is "to maintain a system of domestic and international disaster relief, including mandated responsibilities under the Federal Response Plan coordinated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)."
The NRP <a title="http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRPbaseplan.pdf#page=21" href="http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRPbaseplan.pdf">represents</a> the most recently approved "federal response plan." It confirms that the Red Cross falls under the purview of the federal government: <blockquote>
This plan is applicable to all Federal departments and agencies that may be requested to provide assistance or conduct operations in the context of actual or potential Incidents of National Significance. This includes the American Red Cross, which functions as an Emergency Support Function (ESF) primary organization in coordinating the use of mass care resources in a Presidentially declared disaster or emergency.
[...]
Departments and agencies at all levels of government and certain NGOs, such as the American Red Cross, may be required to deploy to Incidents of National Significance on short notice to provide timely and effective mutual aid and/or intergovernmental assistance. </blockquote>
But as journalist Joshua Micah Marshall noted in a <a href="http://talkingpointsmemo.com/katrina-timeline.php">timeline</a> on his Talking Points Memo blog, it wasn't until Wednesday, August 31, two days after the hurricane struck, that DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff declared Katrina an 'Incident of National Significance,' "triggering for the first time a coordinated federal response to states and localities overwhelmed by disaster," according to the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/31/AR2005083102020.html">Associated Press</a>.
The NRP establishes the Red Cross as a "primary agency" under the <a href="http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRPbaseplan.pdf#page=30">Emergency Support Function</a> (ESF) structure, which consists of 12 "precise components that can best address the requirements" of an "incident of national significance." Specifically, the Red Cross is responsible for the "mass care" element of <a title="http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRP_FullText.pdf#page=163" href="http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRP_FullText.pdf#page=163">ESF component No. 6</a>. Mass care services include the "sheltering of victims, organizing feeding operations, providing emergency first aid at designated sites, collecting and providing information on victims to family members, and coordinating bulk distribution of emergency relief items." The NRP designates both DHS and FEMA as the coordinators of ESF No. 6 and stipulates that the Red Cross should be treated as a federal agency in its disaster relief capacity: <blockquote>
For the purposes of the National Response Plan, the American Red Cross functions as an ESF primary organization in coordinating the use of Federal mass care resources in the context of Incidents of National Significance. For the purposes of ESF #6, any reference to Federal departments and agencies with respect to responsibilities and activities in responding to an Incident of National Significance includes the American Red Cross. </blockquote>
Moreover, the NRP <a href="/items/200509080002#20050909">directs</a> FEMA to act on its own authority to quickly provide assistance and conduct emergency operations following a major catastrophe, pre-empting state and local authorities if necessary. In the case of "catastrophic events," such as what occurred in New Orleans, it calls for heightened and "proactive" federal involvement to manage the disaster. Catastrophic events are defined as incidents that immediately outstrip the resources of state and local governments. FEMA viewed a major hurricane strike in New Orleans as a "<a href="/rd?http://talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/fema.contract.task.order.pdf">catastrophic</a>" event when it (via Marshall's Talking Points Memo <a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_09_04.php#006479">weblog</a>) proposed studies to formulate a disaster relief plan. The response plan's "<a title="http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRPbaseplan.pdf#page=62" href="http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRPbaseplan.pdf#page=62">guiding principles</a>" make clear that, in these "catastrophic" cases, the federal government would operate independently to provide assistance, rather than simply supporting or cajoling state authorities: <blockquote>
Notification and full coordination with States will occur, but the coordination process must not delay or impede the rapid deployment and use of critical resources. States are urged to notify and coordinate with local governments regarding a proactive Federal response. </blockquote>...........
......On the defensive, White House officials have said Louisiana and New Orleans officials did not give FEMA full control over disaster relief. The so-called Hurricane Pam plan, which was never put into effect, envisions giving the federal government authority to act without waiting for an SOS from local officials. [<i>Associated Press</i>, <a href="http://www.montrosepress.com/articles/2005/09/09/ap/headlines/d8cgrb7o1.txt">9/9/05</a>]</blockquote>
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