Jake Tapper Highlights Obama’s ‘Untruth’ About Pro-Birther Bias Online, But Skips It on ABC Broadcast
After Barack Obama bitterly complained that the “birther” issue dominated the news instead of budget matters in recent weeks, ABC News correspondent Jake Tapper on Wednesday exposed an “untruth” by the President online, but skipped the same information while reporting for World News. In his Political Punch blog, Tapper noted the falsity of Obama's claim that the media was aiding and comforting conservative conspiracy theorists. In a White House speech, Wednesday, the President asserted that the birth certificate became the “dominant news story” during the budget battle, saying that was “true on most of the news outlets that were represented here.” Online, Tapper labeled this an ” untruth ” and ” wrong .” Citing a new Pew study , the journalist noted, “The ridiculous claims about the president’s birth certificate actually was the No. 4 story for the week – receiving about one tenth of the coverage devoted to stories about the economy.” Yet, on World News, Tapper simply repeated the President's “untruth” without correction. He parroted, “Instead, [Obama] cited how earlier this month, a budget debate between him and Republicans was overshadowed by possible Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's bombastic birther bunk.” On the Political Punch blog, Tapper explained: According to Pew’s PEJ: “Hardly dipping from the previous week’s level of 40%, news about the economy was the top story in all media sectors studied, from cable TV to the Internet. And the particularly high level of coverage in cable (53%) and radio (52%), two politics-heavy platforms, indicated just how politically loaded the debate about federal spending was. “Much of the coverage consisted of analysis of the speech Wednesday by President Obama, one that based on listening to many press accounts renewed support for the President among much of his liberal base. Obama was also the dominant newsmaker in 13% of stories—double that of the previous week—a bigger share than any week since January 24-30, when Obama gave the State of the Union. (To be a dominant newsmaker, someone must be featured in at least 50% of a story.) Obviously, television has time constraints, but Tapper could have briefly corrected the record. Indeed, he found time for a cutesy close to the story, relaying, “Late this afternoon, Diane, President Obama, in a taping of the Oprah Winfrey Show to air Monday, said of course he knew he was there, he remembered it.” Was that information really more important than repeating inaccurate statements?
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on April 28, 2011. Filed under