MSM Fails to Tell Complete Story About Newt – Again

On Monday, January 30, 2012, NBC Today Show host Matt Lauer asked Republican presidential nomination hopeful Mitt Romney to cease running an ad that features former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw. In the ad Brokaw was reporting in 1997 that Romney opponent Newt Gingrich was, when Gingrich was Speaker of the House of Representatives, being charged with ethics violations. There was no mention, however, from either Lauer or Romney, that, in 1999, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) cleared Gingrich of all charges, and that the House Ethics committee dropped all 84 charges against Gingrich.

Gingrich was completely cleared by the IRS in February, 1999, of politically driven allegations that he earned money by teaching, via videotape, a college course that was partisan rather than educational. The MSM virtually ignored the ruling that neither Gingrich nor the nonprofit organizations that sponsored the classes had done anything wrong. Democrats said his teaching the course was a campaign gimmick, and filed ethics complaints accusing him of illegal use of tax-exempt funds for political purposes. In 1997 Gingrich agreed to pay a $300,000 fine for making misleading statements to the ethics panel and failing to seek better legal advice before using tax-exempt money for the course.

Let’s see. Gingrich was cleared in February, 1999. It is now February, 2012. MSM, you’ve had thirteen years to make as big a deal about Newt’s exoneration as you did when he was charged with ethics violations. We’re waiting.

And what is the MSM doing? Just what you would expect. On Tuesday, January 24, 2012, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi told CNN’s John King, “Let me just say this. That will never happen. He’s not going to be President of the United States. That’s not going to happen. Let me just make my prediction and stand by it: it isn’t going to happen.” But, then on Thursday, January 26, 2012, she retracted her statement. Pelosi, appearing on MSNBC’s The Ed Show, “clarified” her statements about former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. She said, “Let me tell you what is the truth. Everything I’ve said or will ever say about Newt Gingrich’s ethics is in the public record. I’ve said on and on, just read the public record.”

Just another example of the MSM protecting their own and not reporting the complete story. The MSM will counter that it is not legally obligated to report the complete story. But they will never acknowledge the moral obligation to report the complete story (unless it suits their purpose). And we all know that the MSM has no morals.

But that’s just my opinion.