NewsMax.com
Saturday, March 24, 2001

According to the author of the first study, Matthew W. Sheffield, co-director of the Web site RatherBiased.com, Rather's "CBS Evening News" gives opponents of Bush's tax cuts far more airtime than supporters of the plan get.

Based on content analysis of weekday news broadcasts from the time Bush introduced his proposal in January 2000 until March 6, 2001, the report found that on average, Rather and his colleagues gave airtime to the views of opponents of Bush's proposal by a shocking 2-to-1 margin.

"Most media analysts in academia and elsewhere have come to the conclusion that the broadcast networks are biased in favor of socially liberal policies." Sheffield said. "Our study confirms that on the issue of tax cuts, CBS News continues its liberal inclinations."

The report, available at RatherBiased.com, reveals how Rather and his colleagues air reports featuring summaries and sound bites from tax-cut critics at a greater frequency than tax-cut proponents, citing liberal think tanks and economic experts but never conservatives.

The report notes that when introducing a relatively balanced report on the subject, Rather would often load his preliminary with summaries of opponents' arguments, giving short shrift to tax-cut supporters' views.

The study found that often when Rather and his colleagues would relay Bush's proposals, they would intersperse them with liberal criticisms, as exemplified by Rather's introduction to a Feb. 8 "Evening News" report:

Rather adopted the Democrat argument that the president was unwisely "talking down the economy," then mentioned Bush's argument that cutting taxes would help the economy. He concluded with two summaries of congressional Democrats' class-warfare charges that Bush's plan favors the wealthy and will eat up the projected budget surpluses.

"The first tendency was closely related to the second," said Sheffield. "Another practice we observed is how often CBS News will air one argument in favor of Bush's tax reductions – that they will help the economy – but many reasons why Bush's plans shouldn't be enacted, such as that they favor the wealthy, that we should pay down the national debt first, or that we should increase spending. CBS allows Democrats to use their full arsenal against tax cuts. Republicans get a BB gun."

Sheffield cited a Jan. 25 story by John Roberts featuring a tepid sound bite from Bush calling for good monetary and fiscal policy followed by several raw-dollar analyses (including one from the unlabeled but liberal Citizens for Tax Justice), a sound bite from Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle saying Bush's plan costs more than he claims, a summary of Democrats' charge that the president is being fiscally irresponsible, concluding finally with a sound bite from Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., saying Alan Greenspan was mistaken in endorsing tax cuts.

20 Years of Blatant Bias

A second examination of Rather's unabashed liberal bias was published by Media Research Council's Media Reality Check.

Tagged "20 Years of Liberal Spin From Gunga Dan," the report revealed what it called "a few of the many liberal outbursts that have animated Rather's tenure: