RUSH: Look, there are other things happening out there in addition to the IRS and Benghazi. We’re all over both, and I want to get into some of these other things because I’ve always had the practice of never being sidelined or deterred. You’ve heard the idea. There’s a theory out there now that the only reason the IRS stuff was acknowledged and admitted to was to cover up Benghazi, to get the press attention off of Benghazi because that’s what’s really damaging.
I’ve had people… Everybody tries to tell me how to do this job every day. Even now, during the break, they’re saying, “Rush! Rush! You’re being buffaloed! You’re being used! You’re talking about this IRS thing! Everybody understands that. Stay focused on Benghazi. You’re falling for the trick!” I’m not falling for any tricks. We cover everything top to bottom, inside and out, sideways to sideways here. That’s why there are other things happening out there that I want to touch on.
For example, Scott Pelley of CBS News, in the midst of receiving an award recently, admitted they don’t get anything right. “CBS’s Scott Pelley at Quinnipiac Luncheon: ‘We Are Getting Big Stories Wrong, Over and Over Again.'” Our buddies at NewsBusters had this story. “Scott Pelley deserves grudging credit for recognizing something obvious at a Friday luncheon in New York. Readers tempted to go beyond that point would be advised to visit the archive of Pelley-related posts at NewsBusters on his brand of so-called journalism…
“At said luncheon, Pelley received the 20th annual Fred Friendly First Amendment Award from the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University. In his acceptance speech,” who is the anchor for the CBS Evening News, by the way, for you low-information listeners, “Pelley spoke of journalistic failures during the past few months.” When you hear what he had to say and what it implies, it becomes clear that he’s concerned with the falling reputation that the mainstream is engaged in now, and he says, “We are getting big stories wrong, over and over again.”
Now, the story here, I have it from the Weekly Standard, and their coverage of the Scott Pelley is fascinating. I just find it fascinating. He’s in the midst of getting the Fred Friendly Award, and he admits how wrong he was on something and how wrong his industry is. Now, admittedly, he’s worried about it. We’ll grant him that. But still, he’s getting an award, folks, which is what the left does for itself and its ranking members.
When things are going very wrong, when one of them’s in deep doo-doo, they give ’em an award for what they do. Now, to me what’s newsworthy about the Weekly Standard story is how disingenuous it is. Yes, the networks keep getting stories wrong over and over again. But in my mind, the problem is not how they get details of breaking stores wrong because of their desire to be first with the news. That was his point: You know, we need to be more restrained.
He cited all the errors he made in the original reporting of the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. He wasn’t the only one. Everybody was wrong. I mean, everything that happened the first three hours of that story was wrong, no matter who you heard it from. He claims that it’s about, well, everybody wants to be first and so we’re not properly restrained when checking sources and so forth.
I think the far greater problem in the news media, if you can single out one thing — and it’s tough to do. But the far greater problem is their practice of selecting news stories and then shaping them just to advance their agenda, the narrative every day. Newtown is a textbook example of this. Their coverage of the Boston bombings was a textbook example of them trying, but ultimately failing, to shape the story to fit their agenda. They have a narrative. When a gun is in a story, there’s a narrative, and the narrative is, “It could have been prevented with stricter gun control laws,” and everything they think about gun control.
So they report the story from that perspective. Gabby Giffords? It had to be the Tea Party that did it. It had to be law-abiding Americans who went nuts with guns, and if they didn’t have guns, it wouldn’ta happened. It turns out they’re always wrong in their first assertions about any story that they do, and the stories they do are tailored for their agenda. It was the same thing with the Boston bombing story. You remember they had to be dragged kicking and screaming into that.
Remember the first story? “Let’s hope that the bomber is white,” because if he’s not, it’s gonna harm liberalism. That was a Salon.com writer, but that pretty much is the narrative and the agenda for all of these guys. Now, Scott Pelley piously talks about how, “Democracies succeed or fail based on their journalism.” He said, “America is strong because its journalism is strong. That’s how democracies work. They’re only as good as the quality of the information that the public possesses. And that is where we come in.”
Well, let’s examine that.
The American public is woefully ignorant of things going on in America today. The American public is woefully uneducated. The American public is embarrassingly untold, embarrassingly uninformed — and that’s because of the terrible state of journalism. It’s doing terrible damage to our country. Our country relies on an informed citizenry to survive. Our country can only survive if more and more citizens understand the founding of this country. The founding of this country is what makes this special.
Our entire history — from the Pilgrims arriving at Plymouth Rock all through the colonies and the Revolutionary War — if that isn’t taught, if the Declaration and its meaning and its context are not taught, if the Constitution isn’t taught, if none of these things are taken into account when reporting on America… If the American people are not properly educated and they’re not properly informed, this country is not gonna exist as it was founded. It’s just that simple.
But because of the woeful state of journalism, because of the agenda orientation and the practice they have of shaping every story to fit their narrative — which is a narrative of liberalism — it is my contention that the American people are uniformed. It’s why we have low-information voters. It’s why they’re called that! They’re “low-information” because of who? Because of what? It’s because the places they go for their quote/unquote “journalism” aren’t telling them things that are worthwhile.
So we have increasing number of ignorant people. It’s not that they’re getting things wrong, per se. You can fix something that you misreport, but if your foundation is flawed — and it is my contention that modern journalism’s foundation is fatally flawed — you’re gonna end up with a country that cannot hold on to what it was given. You’re going to have a country that can’t hold on to the precious uniqueness of its own founding. That’s what scares me the most, is the rising ignorance of how this country came to be, of what is special and unique about this country.
The whole concept of American exceptionalism and what it is, modern journalism doesn’t accept that premise. Modern journalism, modern liberalism, thinks American exceptionalism, that’s bragging. That’s not something worth reporting. That’s something to be ashamed of, to even be thinking that way, and it’s not. It’s just the opposite of that. And I think that this rising tide of low-information ignorance — and I’m not talking about IQ or intelligence. You only know what you’re taught. You only know what you learn. Many people are only told what they see, only learn what they see. The people of this country are being dumbed down, intentionally, in order to make it all easier for the Democrats in the media and their allies to advance their agenda.
It is clear, folks, the more informed the public, the tougher time the Democrats are going to have with their agenda. And the more informed the public, the tougher time journalism is gonna have. You know, there’s more than just sharing a liberal agenda with the Democrats at work here. The Obama administration has been careful to hire people who are related to people high up in the news business. For example, I mentioned this earlier in the program. CBS News president David Rhodes has a brother named Ben.
Stop and think of this for a second. CBS News president David Rhodes has a brother named Ben who is Obama’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communication, especially concerning the Middle East. Ben Rhodes wrote Obama’s infamous Cairo speech. His brother is the CBS News president. It speaks for itself. Now we know that Ben Rhodes was a key player in revising the Benghazi talking points last September. So does it make perfect sense that his brother would carry the agenda of his brother? His brother at CBS News?
No brother wants to harm another brother. If your brother’s writing Obama’s speeches, if your brother is moderating, monitoring and altering the talking points, and you’re at CBS News, what you are gonna do, you gonna expose the talking points as fraudulent? No way. Journalism has many more problems than getting it wrong. Because, as I say, honest mistakes can be corrected, like that, I mean, instantly, you can fix it instantly. That’s not the problem.
Try this. The president of ABC News’s sister also works for Obama. Ben Sherwood, ABC News president, sister Elizabeth Sherwood Randall, special assistant to Barack Obama. She’s also a specialist on the Middle East. CNN’s deputy bureau chief, Virginia Moseley, is married to Hillary Clinton’s former deputy Tom Nides. Tom Nides was Hillary’s deputy secretary of state for management and resources. So it’s no wonder that Benghazi, along with every other Obama scandal has been soft peddled by CBS, ABC, and CNN. And of course Obama’s close relationship with NBC goes without saying.
Let’s look at it this way. If my brother were not a columnist and agent, but instead wrote Mitt Romney speeches, do you think there would be attention paid to that, by the Drive-By Media? They think nothing of it. Dana Bash, CNN, her ex-husband worked for Jane Harman. You would be stunned to learn of all of the spouses of news people who work for the administration or members of Congress or the Senate. You would be blown away. David Gregory, Meet the Press. His wife is one of the chief lawyers, or was, over at Fannie Mae. Do you think they’re gonna get honest reporting at NBC about the subprime mortgage scandal? Nothing that’s gonna hurt his wife is gonna be reported there, I guarantee it. I mean, it’s just human nature. That town is incestuous.
It’s what I’ve always meant when I’ve talked about liberals run that town, both professionally and socially. Jay Carney, his wife is Claire Shipman, formerly of CNN, now of ABC. Jay Carney used to work at TIME Magazine. Actually, he worked for Biden. He left TIME Magazine to work for Biden, got bored there, or worked so well there he got promoted to the White House when Gibbs left. But you would be amazed to learn of all of these things.
Now, let me give you a few NewsBusters posts from the past year just on Scott Pelley. Remember, Pelley is out there getting the Fred Friendly award talking about how the news business is getting big stories wrong over and over again.
December 20th, 2012: “CBSÂ’s Pelley Labels Bork ‘Arch Conservative,’ Provides Innocuous Definition of ‘To Bork.'”
On November 1st, 2012: “As Big Three Nets’ Evening News Shows Ignore Benghazi, Their Audience Decline Continues.”
September 21st, 2012: “ABC, CBS, NBC Hype Romney Hidden Camera Tape, Bury Obama’s ‘Redistribution’ Clip.”
These are all stories involving Scott Pelley, things he did not report on or things he did that fit their narrative, while he’s giving a speech on how wrong they get things. September 6, 2012: “Pelley and Williams Zinged Mrs. Romney from Left, But Avoid Contentious Politics with Mrs. Obama.”
August 27th, 2012: “CBSÂ’s Pelley Presses Mitt Romney: ‘I Wonder How You Would Explain this Republican Party to Your Father?'”
Pelley was interviewing Romney and the premise was, “Boy, this Republican Party is nothing but a bunch of Tea Party wacko extremists. Your dad was a great moderate. Your dad was a great middle of the road Republican. Your dad wouldn’t understand the party, isn’t that right, Mitt?”
I just find it fascinating, these guys, they think that they are the glue holding the Constitution together. That’s why they think they’re above all kinds of normal day-to-day concerns.