Bush Addresses NAACP: Nets Show Usual Bias

From the Media Research Center, the biased way in which the three broadcast networks covered President Bush’s speech to the NAACP.

Without any mention of the vicious hostility the NAACP displayed toward President Bush since he spoke before the group in 2000, including a TV ad linking Bush’s refusal to sign a hate crime bill to the dragging death of a black man in Texas, the Thursday broadcast network evening newscasts portrayed Bush as the one responsible for the estrangement. All stressed how Bush’s Thursday appearance before the NAACP convention was his first and all three ran soundbites only from attendees critical of him. “It took five and a half years, but President Bush finally said yes to the NAACP,” ABC’s Charles Gibson asserted, elaborating: “The President has ignored invitations throughout his presidency to speak to the civil rights group.” CBS anchor Bob Schieffer highlighted how Bush “spoke today to the NAACP for the first time in six years as President.” Jim Axelrod relayed how “prior to Katrina, he never spoke to the convention as President.” NBC’s David Gregory asserted that efforts to reach out to blacks “have failed” and “then came Katrina and charges that racism motivated the federal government’s slow response.”

The notion that “racism motivated the federal government’s slow response [to Katrina]” is the sort of nonsense that liberals repeat (because it fits the template) but is almost bizarre. To believe it we would have to believe that FEMA was willing to humiliate itself and appear utterly incompetent simply to avoid helping black people.

We would also have to ignore the poor performance of both a Democrat who was governor of Louisiana, and the black Democrat mayor of New Orleans (Ray Negan). Were they racist too?

Not surprisingly, Fox News gave viewers the other side of the story.

Unlike the ABC, CBS and NBC reporters, on Special Report with Brit Hume, FNC’s Carl Cameron pointed out: “Mr. Bush last spoke to the NAACP in 2000 as a presidential candidate. Afterward, the group ran an attack ad linking his opposition to parts of hate crimes bill, as the then Texas Governor, to the lynching of James Byrd, a black man dragged to his deathbehind a pickup by three white men.”

It is worth pointing out that Texas, without the benefit of any “hate crimes” law, sentenced two of the three men involved with killing Byrd to be executed, and the third to life in prison.

While Fox may not be especially “fair and balanced,” it is certainly the place to turn for information that the mainstream media won’t reveal.