September, 24 2009, 10:20am EDT
Report: ACORN Obsession: Beck, Hannity Devote Disproportionate Attention to ACORN While Virtually Ignoring Blockbuster Scandals Involving Abramoff and Military Contractors
WASHINGTON
Today,
in light of the recent focus Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity have devoted to a
supposed corruption scandal involving ACORN, Media
Matters for America released a report comparing the hosts'
coverage of ACORN to the attention the duo have paid to other well-established
corruption scandals that have impacted Washington and wasted countless taxpayer
dollars.
"Conservatives like Beck and
Hannity are willing to run with any story that accuses ACORN of corruption,
even if the accusations remain unproven and the details were gathered using
tactics that are both ethically and legally questionable," said
Eric Burns, president of Media Matters.
"But these two hosts didn't lift
a finger to report on the massive and undeniable cases of corruption involving
military contractors and Republicans in Congress. This is agenda-driven
journalism of the most damaging sort."
KEY FINDINGS
Media Matters examined
programs hosted by Beck and Hannity between May 8, 2006 -- the start date of
Beck's television career -- and September 18, 2009. The study looked at
the coverage of scandals involving major military contractors Blackwater,
Halliburton, and Kellogg, Brown, & Root (KBR), as well as coverage given to
Republican corruption scandals involving Jack Abramoff and Bob Ney, and
compared it to the two hosts' coverage of ACORN for that same time
period. The findings were as follows:
- Beck's and
Hannity's programs were approximately 34 times more likely to discuss
ACORN than any of the
military contractors.
- Beck's and
Hannity's programs were approximately 24 times more likely to discuss
ACORN than either Abramoff or Ney.
- Beck's programs
were approximately 50
times more likely to discuss ACORN than any of the military contractors, and
were approximately 149
times more likely to discuss ACORN than either Abramoff or
Ney.
- Hannity's
programs were approximately 18 times more likely to discuss ACORN
than any of the military
contractors, and were approximately eight times more likely to discuss ACORN
than either Abramoff or Ney.
- After leaving
CNN's Headline News and joining Fox News in January 2009,
Beck's focus on ACORN skyrocketed, but his disinterest in other
major corruption scandals continued. Beck was approximately 23 times more likely
to discuss ACORN on Fox News than he was on CNN Headline News.
- While reporting on
ACORN, Beck and Hannity have both purported to be concerned about the use
of taxpayer dollars to fund what they claim is a corrupt organization. As
such, their disproportionate focus on ACORN is made all the more
significant by the comparatively small amount of federal funding ACORN has
received, as compared to the aformentioned military contractors. ACORN has
been awarded an estimated $53 million in
federal funding over the past 15 years -- an average of $3.5
million per year. By contrast, Halliburton, KBR, and Blackwater have
reportedly received a combined total of at
least $25 billion in federal contracts since 2001.
METHODOLOGY
Media Matters conducted
a Nexis search for programs hosted by Beck and Hannity between May 8, 2006, and September 18, 2009,* using the following terms:
- SHOW(Glenn Beck OR
Hannity) AND (CAPS(ACORN) OR Association of Community Organizations for
Reform Now) - SHOW(Glenn Beck OR
Hannity) AND (Jack Abramoff OR Abramoff) - SHOW(Glenn Beck OR
Hannity) AND (Blackwater OR Black Water OR CAPS(XE)) - SHOW(Glenn Beck OR
Hannity) AND (Robert Ney OR Bob Ney OR Ney) - SHOW(Glenn Beck OR
Hannity) AND (Halliburton) - SHOW(Glenn Beck OR
Hannity) AND (Kellogg Brown Root OR KBR)
For each transcript, every mention of any of the searched terms, by any
person on the program, was included in the study.
* Glenn Beck was off-air
between October 17, 2008,
and January 18, 2009,
during the program's transition between CNN and Fox News. Included in the
results were both Beck's CNN Headline
News and Fox News programs; Hannity
& Colmes, Hannity,
and Hannity's America.
Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media.
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