Media Critics: ABC News Memo Shows Arrogance and Pro-Kerry Bias
by Chad Groening and Jody Brown
October 13, 2004
(AgapePress) - A conservative media watchdog organization says that a controversial memo from an ABC executive clearly makes him look like he is working hand-in-glove with groups supporting Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.The Drudge Report obtained the memo prior to Friday night's second presidential debate. In the memo, ABS News political director Mark Halperin reminded his staff of their "responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest," but also admonished them not to "reflexively and artificially hold both sides equally accountable when the facts don't warrant that."
Halperin, who according to the network is responsible for the "planning and editorial content of all political news [on ABC]," went on to write that the "current attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done."
Tim Graham of the Media Research Center says Halperin's memo reveals his bias. "I'm sure if Mark Halperin wrote a memo that expressed all the concerns [MRC president] Brent Bozell had about what's wrong with ABC, then clearly Mark Halperin would look like some sort of right-wing tool," he says. "With this memo, he clearly looks like a tool of the Kerry-favoring MoveOn.org left."
In Graham's opinion, the memo appears to encourage ABC staffers to deliberately correct President Bush more often than they would Kerry. He also believes the document shows ABC is much more sensitive to liberal criticism of the network than it is to conservative criticism.
"And what the liberals like "Media Matters for America" are concerned about is this idea that obviously Bush lies a lot more than Kerry does, and so it would be unfair to suggest that both candidates make mistakes in somehow an equal fashion."
Halperin's exhibits an air of superiority, says one newspaper, when he states in the memo that "as one of the few news organizations with the skill and strength to help voters evaluate what the candidates are saying to serve the public interest, now is the time for all of us to step up and do that right."
The New York Post says of that comment: "Such arrogance borders on the incomprehensible." Evidently, says the Post, Halperin believes voters are "two stupid, too ignorant, or too benighted to figure out the 'right' way to vote all by themselves" -- and that they need him and "his crew of correct-thinkers to explain things to them."
Apparently ABC's debate analysts took Halperin's memo to heart, says the Media Research Center. In a statement released the Monday following the second presidential debate, MRC points out that ABC's post-debate coverage "reprimanded" the president for two supposed errors, while only chastising Kerry for one mistake -- falsely claiming that Army General Eric Shinseki was forcibly retired for dissenting on the president's Iraq policy.
