Touting a Terrorist's Denials
“It is Hezbollah, which means 'The Party of God,' that gets credit for liberating Lebanon from the long Israeli occupation. Yesterday, I went to see its 38-year-old leader, Hassan Nasrallah. He is a popular member of the political establishment. The Bush administration says Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. 'Hezbollah was proud to resist the Israeli occupation,' he says. 'We gave our lives. We are not terrorists.'”
— ABC's Peter Jennings in a report from Beirut, Lebanon, for the March 27 World News Tonight.
…While Hiding Terrorists'Guilt
“Today [the site of the former American embassy in Lebanon] is an empty lot. This is where the U.S. experienced the first suicide bomber. In 1983 a man simply drove his truck to the front door and blew himself up. Sixty-three people died. Later that year, the Marine barracks here were destroyed in much the same way; 241 Marines died.”
— Jennings later in the same report, failing to state that Hezbollah was responsible for both anti-American attacks.
Phony “Influence Peddling” Fears
“The White House and its connection with the energy business was a hot issue before any of us knew much about that Houston company called Enron. Critics want to know just how much energy companies, most of them big campaign contributors, helped shape energy policy. That policy was drafted last year by a task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. Well, thousands of [Energy Department] documents released last evening are only making a hot issue hotter….Tell me, do these documents confirm the worst suspicions of influence peddling?”
— Connie Chung's lead-in and first question to Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank, CNN's NewsNight, March 26.
Ignorant & Unjust Texas Verdict
“Andrew, you know as well as I do, many have said that Texas justice is an oxymoron. Just how much did the narrow nature of this statute doom Andrea Yates?”
— CBS's Bryant Gumbel discussing Yates's murder conviction with analyst Andrew Cohen, March 13 Early Show.
“You're the prosecutor here. I spoke to someone this evening by telephone after the verdict who offered their opinion saying this shows perhaps a regional tough mind-set on the part of the jurors and it might just show an ignorance of mental health issues. What
do you think?”
— MSNBC's Brian Williams to former Denver District Attorney Norm Early on The News with Brian Williams, March 12.
Happily Aiding Brock's Vendetta
“His specialty was character assassination and throughout the 1990s he made a living as a right-wing hatchet man. But after years of lies and, some would say, malicious journalism, this Washington insider wants to clear his conscience. In his new book, Blinded by the Right, best-selling author and ex-conservative David Brock, exposes how he says the GOP tried to destroy the Clinton presidency through a series of well-plotted smear campaigns.”
— NBC's Matt Lauer setting up a March 14 Today interview.
Good Thing We're So Unbiased
“We all have baggage, but one of the good things about journalists is that they recognize bias and work hard to keep it out of their coverage…You can have all sorts of people who voted for Bill Clinton, but the media gave Clinton one hell of a time. Now we hear a lot from people who complain that we don't give George Bush as hard a time as we gave Bill Clinton.”
— ABC anchor Peter Jennings as quoted by Miami Herald reporter Glenn Garvin, March 17.
For all the issues of Notable Quotables from this year, click here
(This update courtesy of the Media Research Center.)