A question to ponder: If you received an “award” from a shoddy institution celebrating some of your weakest work, would you go proudly proclaim the stained medallion or would you bury the award in a closet hoping to never hear about it again?
CBS faces such a conundrum …
As per Media Matters reporting, a CBS “reporter” is slated to receive an award from “Accuracy in Media” that will be presented at a the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). This is a notable event for many reasons, such as this being the first time that AIM has “honored” a mainstream news outlet in this way after, on all other occasions, presenting the award to right-wing disinformation experts like Marc Morano and Andrew Breitbart.
What has CBS “reporter” Sharyl Attkisson done to deserve joining AIM’s presentigious list of honorees?
Attkisson Has Produced Shoddy, Irresponsible Reporting Over The Past Year
Attkisson Botched Green Energy “Investigation.” In a recent “investigation” for CBS’s This Morning, Attkisson purported to reveal 11 “New Solyndras” — companies she said “are having trouble” or “have filed for bankruptcy” after receiving federal assistance. But Attkisson was counting companies that didn’t even receive federal funds, companies that haven’t actually gone bankrupt, and companies that have sold the government-backed projects to other firms, meaning taxpayer funds are not in their hands. Bill O’Reilly and CBSNews.com used Attkisson’s misleading report to spread additional false information. In announcing its award recipients, AIM specifically lauded Attkisson for her green energy report. [Media Matters, 1/13/12] [Media Matters, 1/18/12] [Media Matters, 1/30/12] [Accuracy in Media, 2/1/12]
Science Writer: Attkisson Is “One Of The Least Responsible Mainstream Journalists” Covering Vaccines and Autism. Science writer Seth Mnookin, author of The Panic Virus: The True Story Behind The Vaccine-Autism Controversy, wrote on his website: “For years, CBS News’s Sharyl Attkisson has been one of the least responsible mainstream journalists covering vaccines and autism. Again and again, she’s parroted anti-vaccine rhetoric long past the point that it’s been decisively disproved.” Indeed, in three articles on CBSNews.com this year, Attkission has suggested that there is a major “debate” in the scientific community over whether vaccines are connected to autism, despite the lack of evidence for the supposed link. Mnookin told Media Matters that he found it “shocking that her vaccine reporting is featured on a major news” site. [SethMnookin.com, 3/31/11] [Phone conversation, 2/6/12]
- Children Who Are Not Vaccinated Are At Risk Of Serious Infectious Diseases. Vaccination rates in certain areas of the United States are decreasing, coinciding with a rise in measles cases. As Dr. Steven Weinreb wrote in the New York Times, “For each year between 2001 and 2008, the median number of [measles] cases in the United States was 56. In the first six months of this year [2011] alone, there were more than 150 reported cases — the most since 1996. A vast majority of those who were sickened had not been vaccinated or had uncertain vaccination histories.” [New York Times, 12/27/11]
Attkisson: A “New Scientific Review” Shows The “Austism-Vaccine Debate” Is Not Over. More than a year after the formal retraction of the main study upon which theories connecting autism to vaccines were based, Attkisson wrote: “For all those who’ve declared the autism-vaccine debate over – a new scientific review begs to differ. It considers a host of peer-reviewed, published theories that show possible connections between vaccines and autism.” Mnookin criticized Attkisson’s article, noting that the author of the “new scientific review,” Helen Ratajczak, had only “been the primary author of a published study” twice in the past decade, and it was “only the fourth study she’s been associated with in any capacity during that time.” Dr. David Gorski further broke down the “pseudoscience” cited in Attkisson’s article, and concluded by wondering why CBS “tolerate[s] Attkisson’s horrible reporting on vaccines and other scientific issues.” [CBSNews.com, 3/31/11] [SethMnookin.com, 3/31/11] [Media Matters, 9/16/11] [ScienceBasedMedicine.org, 4/4/11]
Attkisson Editorialized In Article About Debunked Vaccine-Autism Link. In 2010, a federal court ruled that families with autistic children are not entitled to compensation from the vaccine court because a causal link between vaccines and autism is “scientifically unsupportable.” In an article titled “The Search for Safer Vaccines,” Attkisson commented that “vaccine-injured children who end up with autism are quietly winning their cases, but only when they focus on the more general argument of seizures or brain damage rather than autism. Some victory.” [CNN.com, 3/12/10] [CBSNews.com, 1/19/11]
CBS Reportedly Had To Remove A False Paragraph From Attkisson’s Report. In January 2011, Attkisson wrote an article titled “Child Flu Vaccine Seizures?” According to an excerpt quoted by Mnookin, Attkisson’s article originally ended by stating that a new study “discusses how early life seizures ‘may contribute to the enhanced risk of IDD’s (Intellectual and Development Disabilities) and ASD’s (Autism Spectrum Disorders.)'” But the study did not “say anything about vaccine-related febrile seizures,” according to Mnookin, who noted that “when CBS was alerted to the problem,” it removed the offending paragraph without noting a correction. The article still states that “non-government medical experts differ on the issue of whether flu shots should be given to children,” even though the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and the American Lung Association all recommend that children older than 6 months get the flu vaccine. [SethMnookin.com, 1/28/11] [CBSNews.com, 1/26/11] [American Academy of Pediatrics, 9/1/11] [American Medical Association, accessed 2/3/12] [American Lung Association, accessed 2/3/12]
Hmmm …
Will CBS proudly provide press releases about honoree Attkisson or hope that this passes without note?