How NPR Helped Empower James O'Keefe

[democracy1st]

So James O'Keefe's much-hyped NPR video turns out to have been misleadingly edited , just like his previous efforts. Shocking, isn't it?

Actually, it might be -- if you get your news from NPR.

Dishonesty is James O'Keefe's defining trait. If there is anything news organizations should tell their audiences about him, it's that he's repeatedly been caught lying and producing misleading videos and transcripts. His whole operation is a sham. That's all you need to know about James O'Keefe. And yet, NPR's reporting on O'Keefe consistently failed to make that clear -- or even to hint at it. A search of NPR transcripts in the Nexis database finds 10 NPR reports that mentioned O'Keefe prior to the controversy over his NPR video. Only once in these 10 reports is there so much as a hint that O’Keefe had ever behaved dishonestly in presenting the results of his "stings" to the public -- a September 23, 2009 interview in which an attorney for ACORN says "The tapes have been edited and rearranged."

No NPR report available on Nexis that mentions James O'Keefe has included the fact that California's attorney general said the ACORN tapes were "severely edited by O'Keefe" and constituted a "highly selective editing of reality." None mentioned a New York Daily News report that a law enforcement source said O'Keefe "edited the tape to meet their agenda." In several reports, NPR journalists adopted the false claim that O'Keefe had dressed as a pimp; none of the reports indicate that this was not, in fact, true. NPR never got around to telling listeners that O'Keefe pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in connection with one of his stunts. And O'Keefe's bizarre scheme to lure CNN reporter Abbie Boudreau onto a boat under false pretenses, then secretly record her reaction to being confronted in an enclosed, unfamiliar environment by a strange man with handcuffs and sex toys? None of the NPR reports available on Nexis mentioned that.

In short, NPR repeatedly covered O'Keefe, and adopted his (false) claims about what his videos showed. But only a single NPR report available on Nexis contained so much as an allegation that he'd ever been less than honest. NPR's coverage of O'Keefe helped enhance his stature and credibility. And then he peddled a misleading videotape of an NPR executive, and the media ran with it, badly damaging NPR.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201103150021



Why Would Anyone Trust What O'Keefe Says About His NPR Video?

•O'Keefe pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor criminal charge for entering Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in New Orleans under false pretenses.

•O'Keefe falsely claimed that his ACORN tapes were a "nationwide ACORN child prostitution investigation" that implicated many ACORN employees. In at least six of the eight heavily edited videos, either the activists did not clearly tell the ACORN employees that they were planning to engage in child prostitution; or the ACORN employees refused to help them or apparently deliberately misled them; or ACORN employees contacted the police following their visit.

•Three separate investigations cleared ACORN workers of criminal wrongdoing, and a 2009 report by the Congressional Research Service stated that O'Keefe's surreptitious videotaping may have broken laws in California and Maryland.

•O'Keefe and Andrew Breitbart withheld an exculpatory ACORN video from Los Angeles for two months in late 2009, during the height of the ACORN frenzy.

•A September 18, 2009, New York Times article reported that Liz Farkas, a college friend of O'Keefe's while at Rutgers University, said she "grew disillusioned" after O'Keefe asked Farkas to help deceptively "edit the script" of a video involving a nurse at the University of California at Los Angeles.

•O'Keefe reportedly planned to "seduce" and publically humiliate CNN investigative reporter Abbie Bourdeau. In an article posted at CNN.com, Bourdeau reported that when she arrived for an interview with O'Keefe, she was informed by O'Keefe's colleague Izzy Santa that O'Keefe planned to lure her aboard a boat where he would secretly record his attempts to "hit on her" using "strawberries and champagne." Boudreau reported that a document she obtained suggested O'Keefe would also use props including a "condom jar," Viagra, pornography, a ceiling mirror, and "fuzzy handcuffs." The document explained the motivation: "The joke is that the tables have turned on CNN.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201103080019

[tularetom]

1. Slimy as O'Keefe is I have trouble feeling sorry for NPR

They helped create the monster that eventually devoured them.

Any organization that would keep Kookie Roberts on the payroll as long as they have pretty much deserves what they get.

[uponit7771]

3. They were forced by KKKons to put more "balance" into their coverage, they could've yelled but didnt

...and now it's coming back to bite them. If they're going to go down might as well go down fighting imho

[bluethruandthru]

6. That's it exactly.

They...like the rest of the "liberal media" have been so cowed by the screaming right that they have totally changed the way "news" is reported in this country.

Gone are the days of - Here are the facts - use them to think about a situation and make up your own mind.

Now, we have: Here are the real Facts - but here are the republican "facts" which are not really facts..just what the republicans want you to believe because it advances their causes. Here's how you should feel, here's what you should think, here's what "everybody" is thinking and feeling and it must be correct because the republicans know everything and they're always right (no pun intended by the "news" purveyor). But, what about the real Facts? Don't worry - those don't matter.

[democracy1st]

7. +1

[uponit7771]

2. NPRs level of professionalism has gone down ever sense letting more wingers into their management

[democracy1st]

4. +1 exactly right they're withholding info

[Blue Owl]

5. Koch-ie Roberts

Pfffffffft...

[sabrina 1]

8. They also never mentioned that he is a racist. They neglected

to mention who is backing him.

They also left out that he is being sued now by one of the ACORN workers he outright lied about, damaging the man's excellent reputation.

They neglected to mention how he scrubbed his blog when his racist comments were discovered proving his racism was apparent while he was in college.

They also forgot to mention that he had violated the law in two states, MD and CA, while he was in the middle of the ACORN scam. CA agreed not to prosecute him for that violation of the law, in return for him handing over the unedited tapes he had refused to hand over before.

That appeared to be a good deal since those tapes made it possible to prove that the whole ACORN stunt was a lie. However, you would never know that watching how NPR and the MSM deal with this corrupt, racist liar.

It isn't just NPR, it is the MSM also, who never fail to present his latest criminal enterprises as if he were a respected journalist with no history of lies and scams and racism.

Every single stunt he's ever been involved in has racist overtones. They are always about how the Muslims, the Blacks who are always portrayed as welfare queens, are the scum of society, people who are familiar with pimps and prostitutes and child sex etc.

I am waiting for a complete expose on this creep and who is behind from some real journalist who is capable of some investigative reporting.

But I can't think of a single real journalist in our media, so I guess I'll be waiting.

As for NPR, they covered for him because like many weak people on the left, they were bending over backwards not to offend the bullies on the right in case they might take their lunch money.

I hope they lose their public funding. Maybe then they will return to being a worthwhile news organization not trying so hard to cover for the right.

[democracy1st]

9. did you see that weak a... CNN interview,it was pathetic.