attkisson, sharyl

now on sinclair

on booktv she sez sumner redstone and ted turner were liberals

she says sinclair does not put out fake news or control narrative bust must-show content.

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AN 190 24

Donald Trump has just canceled a scheduled interview with CNBC’s Joe Kernen, who has been described as “pro-Trump.”

The cancellation comes as many are watching video and reading reports about Trump’s Monday night town hall in Pennsylvania, during which the Republican presidential nominee, three weeks before Election Day, took just a handful of questions. Then, after two audience medical issues, he turned the night into a music event as he stood and swayed on stage listening to his favorite hits.

Trump “abruptly canceled an interview on his economic plans with business channel CNBC, one of its anchors announced Tuesday,” The Daily Beast reports. “Joe Kernen, the conservative-leaning host of its flagship show Squawk Box, revealed the move during an interview with Charles Phillips, the Oracle chairman who is supporting Vice President Kamala Harris, saying ‘Trump canceled.’ The interview had not previously been announced by either side. Sources told the Daily Beast that the network had invited Trump to an in-studio sit-down on Squawk Box to take place later this week and that his campaign had initially accepted.”

The move comes after Trump pulled out of an agreed-upon “60 Minutes” interview, and one day before Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic presidential opponent, will sit down for an interview with Fox News.

“The cancelation continues Trump’s policy of avoiding mainstream television interviews,” The Daily Beast adds. “Instead he has been interviewed repeatedly by friendly Fox News hosts including Maria Bartiromo, and appeared with podcasters including comedian Andrew Schultz. His public schedule said he would be interviewed Tuesday by Bloomberg before an address to the Economic Club of Chicago.”

The Bulwark reports since Trump’s only debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, he isn’t giving interviews to the mainstream media.

“In recent weeks, Trump has almost exclusively decamped to outlets that are already in his tank. Since the September 10 presidential debate, with the exceptions of a Las Vegas ABC affiliate and a quick NewsNation hit, nearly all of Trump’s 14 one-one interviews have been with interviewers ranging from friendly to sycophantic:

“Fox News hosts Maria Bartiromo, Laura Ingraham, Brian Kilmeade, Sean Hannity, and Greg Gutfield.

Chris Salcedo, Carl Higbie, and Rob Schmitt of NewsMax.

Sinclair’s Sharyl Attkisson.

Conservative radio host Dave Ramsey.

Wayne Allyn Root of Real America’s Voice.

Andrew Schultz and Akaash Singh of the comedy podcast Flagrant.

Over the same period, he’s totally eschewed tentpole mainstream outlets—making a point of skipping, for instance, the traditional interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes.”

“Trump still talks with the press and takes questions at events, including (likely) today when Bloomberg News is hosting his speech at the Chicago Economic Club. But when it comes to one-on-one interviews, he’s never been more cloistered within his MAGA media bubble.”

Overnight, Trump lashed out at Harris in a series of social media posts, defending his mental health.

“I’ve put out more Medical Exams than any other President in History, and aced two Cognitive Exams (the Doctor stated that my “cognitive exams were exceptional!”). I am far healthier than Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden, but especially, Kamala,” Trump alleged. “Also, I am far too busy campaigning to take time, from the 22 days left, as I am using every hour, of every day, campaigning, because we have to take back our Country from the Radical Left people that are destroying it.”

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omg

full Measure is a weekly Sunday television news program focusing on investigative, original and accountability reporting. The managing editor and host is Sharyl Attkisson, five-time Emmy Award winner and recipient of the Edward R. Murrow award for investigative reporting. She is backed by a team of award-winning journalists with decades of experience

Each week, our cover story explores untouchable and underreported topics in an accurate, fair and fearless way. We’ll never waste your time rehashing the same stories you’ve already seen and read about all week.

Full Measure is broadcast to 43 million households on Sinclair Broadcast Group stations, including ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CW, MyTV, Univision and Telemundo affiliates. The program is also posted Sundays on the Home Page here at FullMeasure.news

https://fullmeasure.news/news/cover-story/citizens-united-02-03-2020

vid]

by Full Measure Staff

Sun, February 9th 2020,

you’ve probably heard of the Supreme Court case known as Citizens United. This year is the tenth anniversary of the landmark decision. But odds are you don’t know much more than it has something to do with money in politics. As we move into campaign 2020— and lots of money in politics— we sort out what was really behind it and how it’s impacting elections today.

There's something you may not know about the whole court battle started by the conservative nonprofit Citizens United. It was inspired by a liberal documentary.

Michael Boos: Originally back in 2004, Michael Moore produced a documentary film called “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

Sharyl: He's a big liberal activist.

Michael Boos: He is a big liberal activist.

Michael Boos is Vice President and General Counsel of Citizens United.

Michael Moore: Congressmen? We're trying to get members of Congress to get their kids to enlist in the Army and go over to Iraq.

The Michael Moore film criticized President George W. Bush and was released as he ran for reelection.

Movie Preview: From the corridors of power, to the streets of Middle America, comes the true story that will make your temperature rise.

Michael Boos: It was the top selling documentary film of all time. He ran television ads to promote that film which were the most effective political commercials against George W. Bush's reelection in the entire 2004 political campaign. They had pictures of President Bush on the golf course, made it look like it was right after 9/11. He used that very effective politically.

Sharyl: Michael Moore, do you know where his corporate money came from if you're alleging there was corporate money behind him?

Michael Boos: Sure, you're talking Viacom, Sony, the Weinstein brothers. They were behind Michael Moore and Fahrenheit 9/11. I think it was Harvey Weinstein may have personally had been involved with that.

At the time, it was illegal to use corporate money to promote or oppose political candidates during the election season. But campaign finance law exempted documentary makers like Moore. Citizens United decided to copy what Moore had done.

Michael Boos: We at Citizens United decided that we wanted to be movie producers and produce our movies and be covered by the same media exemption.

Sharyl: Did you know you were testing the system, tweaking this after the Michael Moore programming?

Michael Boos: Oh yes, it was deliberate. We also wanted to point out the hypocrisy in the law that certain corporations were completely exempt from the campaign finance structure, very powerful media corporations that had major influence over elections. Yet, an organization such as Citizens United was prohibited from doing the same thing because it wasn't a media entity.

In 2004, Citizens United asked the Federal Election Commission for an exemption to air the political material they produced, like Michael Moore. But the FEC said no because Citizens United had no history of producing documentaries. So the group set out to change that.

Sharyl: Celsius 41.11.

Michael Boos: That was our initial film in response to Fahrenheit 9/11.

Michael Boos: Over the next four years, we produced probably a dozen, dozen and a half documentary films.

Sharyl: You become your own conservative version of Michael Moore.

Michael Boos: That's correct.

By the time Citizens United had a dozen films under its belt, Hillary Clinton was facing off against Barack Obama. And the group had a film it wanted to release.

Sharyl: Tell me about the Hillary Clinton film that your group made.

Michael Boos: Well, the film addressed the Clinton years in the White House and the Clinton scandals. And it addressed Hillary Clinton's fitness from our perspective to be president of the United States. It did not expressly advocate her election or defeat, but it shed light on her public record and was highly critical of her.

But Citizens United still couldn’t get a media exemption because the FEC didn’t have have enough board members to issue an opinion. So in December 2007, the group filed a federal lawsuit. They argued the campaign finance law preventing their film’s release was unconstitutional. While the case worked its way through court, Barack Obama got elected president. Then, in 2009 instead of making a ruling, the Supreme Court threw a curve ball. It ordered both sides to argue a much larger question than about the Hillary Clinton film.

Sharyl: What was your thought when you heard the court was going to make this a much broader decision than you argued?

Michael Boos: We knew at that point that the case was going to be a major precedent.

A special Supreme Court session was held in September 2009. Arguing against Citizens United for the government was Elena Kagan who later became a Supreme Court Justice.

Elena Kagan: Mr. Chief Justice and may it please the court, for over 100 years, Congress has made a judgment that corporations must be subject to special rules when they participate in elections, and this court has never questioned that judgment.

The ruling came in January 2010. The Supreme Court struck down the longstanding ban on corporate money used on candidates in an election period. The Citizens United victory became one of the biggest political money cases of our time.

Meredith McGeehee: With Citizens United, it changed 100 years of jurisprudence about what the role of corporate money is in our elections.

Sharyl: Do you think for better or for worse?

Meredith McGehee: I think for much worse

Meredith McGehee heads up Issue One. It’s a nonprofit group that aims to reduce the role of money in politics. She says the Supreme Court should never have tossed out the original law that restricted corporate spending.

Meredith McGehee: They explicitly overturned that ruling because the majority on the Court basically disagreed with the reasoning that corporate money could distort the political process. So first off, they answered a question that wasn't asked, and really went to this decision that corporations can use treasury funds to influence the outcome of elections.

Ten years later, you might be surprised to hear that both sides agree on one thing: the impact of Citizens United isn’t quite as expected. McGegee says, some corporations that tried funded political races suffered a backlash.

Meredith McGehee: Target was involved in a race and they gave a contribution to a group that was supporting a gubernatorial candidate who was not in favor of gay rights. Then Target had people marching in front of their stores, “Why are you supporting someone who is against gay rights? Who wants to put up with this backlash, particularly if you're a forward-facing, consumer-facing corporation?”

Michael Boos: The other side had said it would result in this massive corporate spending by publicly held multinational corporations which would drown out the voices of everyone else by spending upwards to a trillion dollars an election cycle in order to impose their will on the people.The fact of the matter is that has not happened at all. These publicly held corporations are extremely risk adverse.

Whatever the case, recent polling shows strong opposition to Citizens United, with a majority supporting a constitutional amendment to reverse it.

Sharyl: To those who hear Citizens United and equate that with something very negative in terms of campaign spending, what do you say?

Michael Boos: We've had a profound impact on politics in the country. Before that decision, no one even knew what the Citizens United name was about. Now we're sort of like a brand name in the world of politics. Everyone's heard of Citizens United. Now, some people may have a negative reaction to it,but among our friends, the reaction is mostly positive, and so we're quite happy with that.

This past week, a Democrat-led House subcommittee held a hearing on Citizens United with the goal of figuring out how to reverse it.

https://www.mediamatters.org/john-solomon/while-gaslighting-country-ukraine-john-solomon-launches-new-gaslighting-website

mma

No media figure has played a larger role in laying the foundation for the current impeachment saga than John Solomon. Solomon worked in lockstep with Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and a shady cast of characters to manufacture a disinformation campaign targeting one of President Donald Trump’s political rivals, a campaign that backfired spectacularly and resulted in the president being impeached. Solomon has now announced his latest gaslighting venture -- a new media outlet Just the News -- one day after documents were released that conclusively show Solomon working with a now-indicted associate of Giuliani to advance their disinformation.

Ukraine scandal

Solomon is one of the most critical figures in Trump and Giuliani’s plot to extort the Ukrainian government into meddling in our 2020 election to help the president.

Trump hired Giuliani in late 2018 for his legal team responding to the special counsel Robert Mueller’ investigation into Russian electoral interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. Purportedly as part of this effort, Giuliani worked closely with a team of players to create a two-pronged conspiracy theory that both smeared former Vice President Joe Biden as well as discredit the Mueller report by showing that it was really Ukraine that interfered with our 2016 election.

Giuliani’s team included Solomon, two now-indicted con men Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, and the pro-Trump legal duo (and Fox News fixtures) Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova. They worked together to secure interviews with discredited and disgraced former Ukranian prosecutors and government officials to weave a complex conspiracy theory alleging that corrupt Ukrainian officials colluded with equally corrupt American officials to frame Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort in order to discredit Trump and benefit his 2016 political opponent Hillary Clinton. (Manafort is currently serving a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence due to his work in Ukraine.) At the same time, according to their theory, the Ukranian government was also aiding Biden in supposedly getting investigations into the Burisma gas company shut down because his son Hunter served on the board. Through this disinformation campaign, they targeted the then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch whose anti-corruption initiatives in Ukraine put her in the crosshairs of the very Ukranian officials Giuliani needed to concoct this conspiracy theory.

Solomon’s columns at The Hill was the primary vehicle through which they injected this narrative into the public. Giuliani has stated that he “turned my stuff over to John Solomon,” but as more information about their work comes to light, Solomon’s involvement appears more direct. Instant messages recently released by the House Intelligence Committee show Parnas working as an intermediary between Solomon and at least two of the corrupt Ukranian prosecutors used to support this conspiracy, Yuri Lutsenko and Viktor Shokin. Giuliani appears to have made a deal with Lutsenko: If Lutsenko gives them dirt on Biden, he’ll get Yovanovitch fired.

At the same time, the messages show Parnas serving as an intermediary for Solomon to interview Lutsenko, even appearing to send him advanced copies of Solomon’s columns prior to publication. ProPublica reported that Parnas even was in the control room when Solomon interviewed Lutsenko for The HillTV. Solomon’s resulting columns set the stage to make public a behind-the-scenes smear campaign targeting Yovanovitch and Biden. Parnas played a similar role in facilitating interviews between Solomon and Viktor Shokin, the disgraced former Ukrainian prosecutor who was fired in 2016 as a result of pressure by the United States and the international community.

Another key player in this scheme is Firtash, a Ukranian pro-Russian oligarch and former business associate of Paul Manafort who is in Austria fighting extradition to the United States to face charges related to a bribery conspiracy. In the summer of 2019, Firtash fired his legal team to hire diGenova and Toensing, who were working closely with Parnas, Giuliani, and Solomon. (As it turns out, diGenova and Toensing also represented Solomon.) Parnas has recently claimed that Firtash agreed to work with Giuliani and his cronies to help them discredit the Mueller investigation in exchange for getting his extradition case dropped. Parnas alleged that Solomon played a key role in helping him connect with Firtash, saying “Basically I was given certain documents by John Solomon that would validate to Dimitri Firtash that I was in the loop and that I knew what was going on, because Mr. Firstash is a gentleman that just doesn't see anybody.”

All told in 2019, Solomon published dozens of columns in The Hill aimed at discrediting the Russia investigation and planting the seeds of this new Ukrainian element of the conspiracy theory. Solomon brought the conspiracy theory to Fox News and Fox Business, where he has appeared at least 92 times since March 20 through the end of 2019 to push elements of the conspiracy theory, in some cases alongside his attorneys diGenova and Toensing. None of the three ever disclosed their relationship to each other. Hannity gushed over Solomon’s work, hosting him at least 65 times during this same time period. Solomon’s efforts paid off when Fox News announced in October 2019 that it was hiring him as a contributor; he had recently announced he was leaving The Hill.

Solomon’s work also became a critical part of Trump’s impeachment inquiry. Multiple witnesses testified that his reporting was inaccurate but nonetheless led to Yovanovitch’s removal.

“Just the News”

In the same week that incriminating evidence has been released showing Solomon’s deep role in the Ukranian scandal, Solomon announced his latest venture, Just the News. Solomon is pitching the outlet as the answer to “the growing need for fact-based, impartial news and compelling digital content” that will feature “fact-based news without an agenda, with a neutral voice and with unprecedented transparency.” In reality, readers should expect anything but.

Solomon began his career as a mainstream reporter and has leveraged that experience to provide him cover for the decades of right-wing propaganda he has advanced since. A 2012 Columbia Journalism Review profile noted that “Solomon has a history of bending the truth to his storyline” and that he “was notorious for massaging facts to conjure phantom scandals.”

And “conjure phantom scandals” he does. For instance, prior to his involvement in the Ukraine disinformation campaign, Solomon was a key player in advancing the manufactured Uranium One scandal, another thoroughly debunked and discredited conspiracy theory that was first deployed to damage Clinton’s 2016 presidential election campaign.

Solomon revived and revised the conspiracy theory in 2017 -- when Trump needed an assist in his efforts to discredit the Mueller investigation -- by reporting without evidence that “Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation” when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state as part of a scheme to ensure the Uranium One deal’s success. He suggested that Mueller, as FBI director, had covered up Russia’s attempt to bribe the Clintons. In November 2017, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions appointed U.S. Attorney John Huber to investigate, and The Washington Post recently reported that Huber is winding down his two-year review without bringing any criminal charges or finding any “other known impacts.”

While Solomon was at Circa in 2016-2017 -- and continuing into his time at The Hill -- he emerged as a key figure on Hannity’s Fox show. Circa under Solomon fueled Hannity’s show with pro-Trump stories on a nightly basis. It was during this stretch, all the way into 2019, that Hannity was working to spin a counternarrative to the charges of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Solomon’s “slanted reporting” was a fundamental part of Hannity’s conspiracy theories.

A quick glance at “trusted reporters” Solomon has partnered with to provide “honest journalism” at Just the News shows a familiar cabal of discredited journalists with a penchant for advancing right-wing conspiracy theories. For instance:

Peter Schweizer

Peter Schweizer is a Breitbart senior editor-at-large and president of conservative think tank Government Accountability Institute, both of which have been heavily funded by the pro-Trump billionaires Robert and Rebekah Mercer and which were previously headed by former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon. Schweizer is also the creator of several popular conspiracy theories about the Clinton family, including originating the aforementioned Uranium One allegations.

Even prior to Solomon’s involvement, the story of Hunter Biden’s role with Ukrainian gas company Burisma first gained traction on the right when Schweizer wrote about it in his 2018 book, Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends. Schweizer’s claims garnered airtime on Fox but had largely receded until Solomon revived it with his reporting in March 2019. Schweizer’s next book, Profiles in Corruption, is set to release January 21 and promises to target 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.

Sharyl Attkisson

Sharyl Attkisson is a former CBS news reporter who left the network in 2014 due to her shoddy reports about the Obama administration.She was also “widely criticized within medical-research circles” for her reports about vaccines. Sources close to CBS News executives told Politico in 2013 that the network was concerned her reporting was “wading dangerously close to advocacy,” including her obsessive promotion of then-colleague Lara Logan’s disastrous *60 Minutes* Benghazi report. CBS News ultimately retracted and apologized for the report, and Logan took a leave of absence but never returned to CBS.

After leaving CBS, Attkisson also embarrassed her next employer, The Daily Signal, with faulty reporting falsely claiming that “Hillary Clinton confidants were part of an operation to ‘separate’ damaging documents” about the Benghazi attack prior to handing them over to investigators. Attkisson also published a book, alleging that the Obama administration hacked her personal computer, TV, phone, and home security system in retaliation for her often-incorrect Benghazi reporting. (CBS News did find that her work-issued laptop was breached using “sophisticated” methods, but no cyberattacker was ever named.) Attkisson kept changing her story about who did the hack and which devices of hers were hacked, but a 2015 federal investigation found no evidence that her personal computer was hacked. Attkisson also falsely accused Media Matters of accepting a payoff to specifically “target” her.

In 2015, Attkisson got a show with Sinclair Broadcast Group, the right-wing, pro-Trump TV network, and the disgraced reporter fit right in. Before her Sinclair show launched, Attkisson happened to be responsible for one of the earliest cycles of campaign-era Trump spin, when Trump promoted her misleading insistence that Trump called then-Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) a war hero four times. Trump was plainly being sarcastic in each of the four instances he called McCain a “war hero,” including the now-infamous line: “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”

Attkisson conducted a typically softball interview with Trump in 2017, inviting him to make unchecked, demonstrably false claims about a wide range of issues.

David Brody

David Brody is the chief political analyst for the Christian Broadcasting Network, a provider of generally right-wing Christian programming. Brody has a history of hostility toward LGBTQ people, once attacking a male blogger as a Republican senator’s “angry girlfriend.” Brody also opposed a transgender Obama appointee simply for being trans, writing, “There will be those who say all that matters is whether or not Simpson is qualified for the job. … Here's a newsflash for you: The transgender thing doesn't play well with millions of conservative Evangelicals.” Brody also declared that Trump was the “Big Winner” of the racist birther campaign against President Barack Obama, because Obama did ultimately release his birth certificate.

Brody has granted Trump at least 10 interviews since his 2016 campaign and continues to drive talking points that align with the administration’s positions. On a 2017 episode of Fox & Friends, Brody complained that calls for Christian leaders to denounce white supremacy, including the then-recent murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia, showed that “the fix is in, if you will against evangelical Christians, white evangelical Christians in this country.” Brody was also one of many right-wing media figures piling onto Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) with a deceptively edited clip purporting to show her saying that people should be afraid of white men. In reality, she was criticizing religious profiling.

Lee Smith

Lee Smith is a pro-Trump author, who recently published The Plot Against the President: The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in U.S. History. The book advances the conspiracy theory that a “deep state” plot to take down Trump “officially began July 31, 2016 with the counterintelligence investigation that the FBI opened to probe Russian infiltration of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.”

Smith has described the impeachment inquiry as “a secret ritual conducted by a cult” with “Speaker Pelosi as the high priestess of the cult and Adam Schiff as a high priest.”

920 booktv interview carter page both victims of dark tyranny

stumbled on

anti-mueller jihad? thehill

All the times Horowitz contradicted Wray — but nobody seemed to notice

BY SHARYL ATTKISSON, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR— 06/19/18 12:15 PM EDT 248 THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

booktv faWN interview by ex cbs

killing the dep state

After Words with Jerome Corsi

Journalist Jerome Corsi argued that there is an effort to thwart the presidency of Donald J. Trump. He is interviewed by investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson.

THE HOLDOVER FROM THEOBAMAADMINISTRATIONAND THEJUSTICEDEPARTMENTHAVE THECOUPD'ETATTHATDONALDTRUMPNEVERCONTINUESIN THE BOOK IS THE STEPS:{:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;font-variant-numeric:inherit;font-variant-east-asian:inherit;font-stretch:inherit;vertical-align:baseline;display:inline"):}:THAT DONALD TRUMPMUSTTAKEIN ORDER TO PRESERVETHECONSTITUTIONAND WHAT I ALLEGE ISBASICALLYTREASON.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?442260-1/after-words-jerome-corsi

crypto/mirror

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/aug/9/book-review-the-smear-how-shady-political-operativ/

Sharyl Attkisson, as The Washington Post put it, has been a “persistent voice of news-media skepticism about the government’s story,” as well, one might add, skepticism about the practices and principles of major media organs like The Washington Post.

Her exposes of giant corporations, charities and political missteps by both parties have received prestigious journalism awards — among them, five Emmys and an Edward R. Morrow Award, spanning a career that has involved reporting nationally for CBS News, PBS and CNN.

And while continuing to focus on government, she has also turned up the heat under her colleagues in the national media, who increasingly build stories around smears provided by organizations — PACs, think tanks, nonprofits — created for just that purpose. (And in the process, make bundles of money for their creators.)

One of the most prominent of these smear profiteers is David Brock, who began as a conservative journalist, attacking Anita Hill and Hillary Clinton, had an epiphany, and ended up as one of Hillary Clinton’s most devoted defenders.

The sincerity of this conversion can be debated, and has been at length. But it does appear to have had a strong financial component. And at any rate, with his conversion to Clintonism and founding of Media Matters, “the empire Brock built is a smear engine unrivaled in its organization, reach, and influence.”

“Indeed,” writes Ms. Attkisson, “Media Matters and Brock have proven they can shape the news and influence the media landscape. But as the election of Donald Trump proved, their influence isn’t boundless.” In part, she believes, that’s because “the work of the propagandists” isn’t as invisible as it used to be, and because “Brock faces cynicism from his own side.”

717 book ~ MMA

on booktv positions as non part and anti corp?

https://www.c-span.org/video/?430881-2/words-sharyl-attkisson

https://www.amazon.com/Stonewalled-Obstruction-Intimidation-Harassment-Washington

Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington

Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation,…

Sharyl Attkisson

4.8 out of 5 stars 1,136

Seasoned CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson reveals how she has been electronically surveilled while digging deep into the Obama Administration and its scandals, and offers an incisive critique of her industry and the shrinking role of investigative journalism in today’s media.

Americans are at the mercy of powerful figures in business and government who are virtually unaccountable. The Obama Administration in particular has broken new ground in its monitoring of journalists, intimidation and harassment of opposition groups, and surveillance of private citizens.

Sharyl Attkisson has been a journalist for more than thirty years. During that time she has exposed scandals and covered controversies under both Republican and Democratic administrations. She has also seen the opponents of transparency go to ever greater lengths to discourage and obstruct legitimate reporting.

Attkisson herself has been subjected to “opposition research” efforts and spin campaigns. These tactics increased their intensity as she relentlessly pursued stories that the Obama Administration dismissed. Stonewalled is the story of how her news reports were met with a barrage of PR warfare tactics, including online criticism, as well as emails and phone calls up the network chain of command in an effort to intimidate and discourage the next story. In Stonewalled, Attkisson recounts her personal tale, setting it against the larger story of the decline of investigative journalism and unbiased truth telling in America today.

harper

Sharyl Attkisson (born January 26, 1961)^[1] is an American author and host of the weekly Sunday public affairs program Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson, which airs on television stations operated by the Sinclair Broadcast Group.^[2] She was formerly an investigative correspondent in the Washington bureau for CBS News. She had also substituted as anchor for the CBS Evening News. She resigned from CBS News on March 10, 2014 after 21 years with the network. Her book Stonewalled reached number 3 on New York Times e-book non-fiction best seller list in November 2014^[3] and number 5 on The New York Times combined print and e-book non-fiction best-seller list the same week.^[4]

Early life:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

Attkisson was born in 1961 in Sarasota, Florida.^[5] Her step-father is an orthopedic surgeon, and her brother is an emergency room physician. Attkisson graduated from the University of Florida with a degree in broadcast journalism in 1982.^[6]

Career:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

Attkisson began her broadcast journalism career in 1982, aged 22, as a reporter at WUFT-TV, the PBS station in Gainesville, Florida. She later worked as an anchor and reporter at WTVX-TV Fort Pierce/West Palm Beach, Florida from 1982–1985, WBNS-TV, the CBS affiliate in Columbus, Ohio from 1985–86, and WTVT Tampa, Florida (1986–1990).^[7]

1990s:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

From 1990–1993, Attkisson was an anchor for CNN, and also served as a key anchor for CBS space exploration coverage in 1993.^[8] Attkisson left CNN in 1993,^[9] moving to CBS, where she anchored the television news broadcast CBS News Up to the Minute and became an investigative correspondent based in Washington, D.C.^[7]

She served on the University of Florida's Journalism College Advisory Board (1993–1997) and was its chair in 1996.^[7] The University gave her an Outstanding Achievement Award in 1997. From 1997 to 2003, Attkisson simultaneously hosted CBS News Up to the Minute and the PBS health-news magazine HealthWeek.^[10]

2000s

Attkisson received an Investigative Reporters and Editors (I.R.E.) Finalist award for Dangerous Drugs in 2000.^[11] In 2001, Attkisson received an Investigative Emmy Award nomination for Firestone Tire Fiasco from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.^[12]

In 2002, she co-authored a college textbook, Writing Right for Broadcast and Internet News; later that same year she won an Emmy Award for her Investigative Journalism about the American Red Cross.^[7] The award was presented in New York City on September 10, 2002.^[13] Attkisson was part of the CBS News team that received RTNDA-Edward R. Murrow Awards in 2005 for Overall Excellence.^[11]

In 2006, Attkisson served as Capitol Hill correspondent for CBS,^[14] as one of a small number of female anchors covering the 2006 midterms.^[15] Attkisson was part of the CBS News team that received RTNDA-Edward R. Murrow Awards in 2008 for Overall Excellence.^[11]

In 2008, Attkisson reported that a claim by Hillary Clinton to have dodged sniper fire in Bosnia was unfounded: Clinton's trip to Bosnia was risky, Attkisson said, but no real bullets were dodged. Attkisson was on the trip with Clinton.^[16] The day after Attkisson's report on the CBS Evening News, Clinton admitted there was no sniper fire and said she "misspoke." ^[17][18]In 2009, Attkisson won an Investigative Emmy Award for Business and Financial Reporting for her exclusive reports on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and the bank bailout.^[11] The award was presented on December 7 at Fordham University's Lincoln Center Campus in New York City.^[19]

2010s

Attkisson returned to theUniversity of Floridaas a keynote speaker at the College of Journalism and Communications in 2010.^[6] That same year, she received an Emmy Award nomination for her investigations into members of Congress, and she also received a 2010 Emmy Award nomination for her investigation into waste of tax dollars.^[20] In July 2011, Attkisson was nominated for an Emmy Award for her Follow the Moneyinvestigations into Congressional travel to the Copenhagen climate summit, and problems with aid to Haiti earthquake victims.^[11][21]

In 2011, Paul Offit criticized Attkisson's reporting on vaccines in his book Deadly Choices as "damning by association" and lacking sufficient evidence.^[22] Attkisson has been identified in the medical literature as using problematic rhetorical tactics that "imply that because there is no conclusive answer to certain problems, vaccines remain a plausible culprit."^[23]

In 2012, CBS News accepted an Investigative Reporting Award given to Attkisson's reporting on ATF's *Fast and Furious* gunwalker controversy. The award was from Accuracy in Media, a non-profit news media watchdog group, and was presented at a Conservative Political Action Conference.^[24]

In June 2012, Attkisson's investigative reporting for the Gunwalker story also won the CBS Evening News the Radio and Television News Directors Association's National Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Video Investigative Reporting. The award was presented October 8, 2012 in New York City.^[25] In July 2012, Attkisson's Gunwalker: Fast and Furious reporting received an Emmy Award^[26]

On March 10, 2014, Attkisson resigned from CBS News.^[27] She stated that the parting was "amicable".^[28] Politico reported that according to sources within CBS there had been tensions leading to "months of hard-fought negotiations" – that Attkisson had been frustrated over what she perceived to be the network's liberal bias and lack of dedication to investigative reporting, as well as issues she had with the network’s corporate partners, while some^[who?] within the network saw her reporting as agenda-driven and doubted her impartiality.^[28]

Later that year came the release of her New York Times Best Seller, Stonewalled: One Reporter's Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington (Harpers),^[4] in which she accused CBS of protecting the Obama administration by not giving enough coverage to such stories as the 2012 Benghazi attack and slow initial enrollments under Obamacare.^[29]

In February 2015, Attkisson gave a TEDx talk at the University of Nevada, Reno. In the talk, she said that astroturfing was swaying public opinion, legislation and media outlets.^[30]

Report of Attkisson's computer being hacked

In May 2013, while still employed at CBS, Attkisson alleged that her personal and work computers had been "compromised" for more than two years.^[31] CBS News stated that it had investigated her work computer and found evidence of multiple unauthorized accesses by a third party in late 2012.^[32] The U.S. Department of Justice denied any involvement.^[33] In her 2014 book, she reported that a forensic examination revealed that her personal computer was hacked with keystroke logging spyware, enabling an intruder to read all her e-mail messages and gain access to the passwords for her financial accounts.^[34]

In late January 2015, Attkisson appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee^[35] during a confirmation hearing for Loretta Lynch, President Obama's nominee to replace outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder. As part of her appearance in front of that committee, a report by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) was released^[36] stating that "their investigation was not able to substantiate... allegations that Attkisson's computers were subject to remote intrusions by the FBI, other government personnel, or otherwise" and the deletion seen in Attkinsson's video “appeared to be caused by the backspace key being stuck, rather than a remote intrusion".^[37][38][39] "CBS News told the OIG that they did not conduct any analysis on her personal computer."^[40]

In February 2015, The WashingtonExaminer clarified that the OIG did not examine Attkisson's compromised CBS News computer,^[40] the OIG only inspected Attkisson's personal devices.^[41]

In March 2015, Attkisson and her family filed a suit against Holder, Patrick R. Donahoe and unnamed agents of the US Department of Justice, the US Postal Service and the United States in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia claiming to have been subject to illegal surveillance activities.^[42][43]