Mary Snow

CNN Hits Santorum for His Religious Beliefs
By Matt Hadro | February 17, 2012 | 12:10 AM EST

Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum merely stated his affirmation of the Catholic Church's condemnation of contraception, but CNN's Mary Snow ran a critical segment on Thursday asking if such statements would hurt him with voters.

In the video clips which aired in the report, Santorum strongly stated that he would not mix his opposition to contraception with his policies as president, meaning that he would not ban contraceptives. Nonetheless, Snow quoted the pro-abortion and pro-Democrat group Emily's List, as well as phoney-conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin, as slamming him as out-of-touch.

CNN Hypes Planned Parenthood's Claims of 'Bullying by the Right'
By Matt Hadro | February 2, 2012 | 12:10 PM EST

Normally, when a leading charity cuts ties to a large non-profit organization, the news will not spark a media controversy. But when the Susan G. Komen Foundation severed financial ties to Planned Parenthood due to Congressional investigations into the organization, CNN hyped Planned Parenthood's cries of foul play and "bullying from the right."

Correspondent Mary Snow aired a pretty one-sided piece on Wednesday including statements from Planned Parenthood's president Cecile Richards, evidence supporting her claims of right-wing "bullying," and even vitriolic Facebook posts decrying the de-funding.

CNN Shows Muslim Brotherhood Member Defending Violence Against Israel
By Brad Wilmouth | February 14, 2011 | 1:34 AM EST

 Over the past couple of weeks, as prominent Muslim Brotherhood members tried to sell themselves as harmless in interviews shown on the evening newscasts on ABC, NBC, and CNN, Eliot Spitzer of CNN’s Parker-Spitzer managed to coax spokesman Mohammed Morsy into defending violence against Israel by Palestinians, contradicting the Brotherhood spokesman’s claims in the same interview of being opposed to violence.

Earlier in the interview, which was first seen on the Thursday, February 3 Parker-Spitzer, Morsy had also sidestepped the question of whether the Muslim Brotherhood would support adherence to Egypt’s 30-year treaty with Israel, as he suggested that such matters would be in the hands of the parliament.

CNN correspondent Mary Snow replayed some of the interview on the next day’s Situation Room on CNN. After a clip of Morsy claiming that his organization would support freedom for all religions in Egypt, the piece continued:

Kurtz: Rove's Fundraising For GOP 'a Lot Worse' Than Olbermann Donation
By Matthew Balan | November 7, 2010 | 6:54 PM EST

On Friday's Situation Room, The Daily Beast's Howard Kurtz stated that the fundraising activities of Fox News contributors Dick Morris and Karl Rove somehow rose to a worse level than Keith Olbermann's maximum individual donations to three Democrats, which violated MSNBC's policy. Kurtz also suggested that both networks "tighten up on this stuff or just tear up the rule book."

Correspondent Mary Snow covered Olbermann's suspension during a report just before the bottom of the 6 pm Eastern hour. Snow began by noting how the anchor "has become a star power at MSNBC for voicing his liberal opinions, but Keith Olbermann is now sidelined for financially supporting three Democratic candidates. Records show he contributed $2,400 each to Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway, and two members of Congress from Arizona: Gabrielle Giffords and Raul Grijalva." She continued that "Congressman Grijalva was a guest on Olbermann's show October 28, the same day Olbermann donated to his campaign."

Later, after recounting how the MSNBC personality has been "a vocal critic of Fox and its parent company, News Corp, for donating $1 million to the Republican Governors Association," the CNN correspondent played her clip from Kurtz, who gave his take on the Olbermann suspension and on the Fox News contributors' fundraising:

Media Omits 'Outspoken' Priest's Liberal Dissension From Catholic Church
By Matthew Balan | April 13, 2010 | 11:49 PM EDT
Father James Scahill, Catholic Priest; & Mary Snow, CNN Correspondent | NewsBusters.orgOn Monday evening and Tuesday, ABC, CBS, and CNN all highlighted a Catholic priest's call for Pope Benedict XVI's resignation due to his alleged mishandling of the Church sex abuse scandal, labeling him "outspoken," and even going so far to compliment him as "brave" and "gutsy." All three networks, however, ignored the priest's affiliation with a liberal group and his dissension from Church teaching.

During a report on the wider abuse scandal on Monday's World News With Diane Sawyer, ABC's Dan Harris mentioned Father James Scahill's public call for the Pope to step down during a recent sermon at his parish in Massachusetts. Before playing a clip from Father Scahill, Harris stated that "anger is clearly rising within the [Catholic] Church. In his Sunday sermon this week, Father James Scahill of Massachusetts called for the Pope to resign." The ABC correspondent did not give any details on the priest's background.

Father Scahill is the pastor of St. Michael's Catholic Church in East Longmeadow. In 2004, he accepted the "Priest of Integrity Award" from Voice of the Faithful. The organization, which purports to be Catholic, achieved some visibility in the media after the 2002 revelation of the sex abuse in the Boston archdiocese. It has taken heterodox positions on Church issues, such as calling for an end to priestly celibacy, and endorsed liberal dissenting theologians such as Rev. Charles Curran.  CNN featured Dan Bartley, the president of VOTF, during a March 26, 2010 segment which also featured two other liberal Christians who advocated radical changes inside the Catholic Church.
CNN Runs Report on ClimateGate, But Only Includes Guests Who Dispute ClimateGate
By Brad Wilmouth | December 7, 2009 | 1:57 AM EST

On Sunday, during the 6:00 p.m. hour and again during the 7:00 p.m. hour, CNN NewsRoom, hosted by Don Lemon, ran a report by correspondent Mary Snow on ClimateGate -- which was somewhat more balanced than the piece aired on November 25 -- though this report similarly did not quote any of the emails that suggest manipulation of data on global warming by scientists at the UK's University of East Anglia. But both times after Snow's report aired, Lemon followed up by talking with a guest or reporter who disputed the credibility of ClimateGate, without interviewing any global warming skeptics.

After Snow’s report aired during the 6:00 p.m. hour, Howard Gould of Equator International opined that "I don't see any importance" in the emails, and later asserted: "I think people are making a big deal out of nothing. I think it's the climate debunkers that are out there, it's their last ray of hope, and they're trying to cling on to something. But it's really, you know, I think it's a bit of a joke."

CNN's Mary Snow on ClimateGate: Only One Clip From Warming Skeptic
By Matthew Balan | December 4, 2009 | 7:13 PM EST

Mary Snow, CNN Correspondent | NewsBusters.orgOn Friday’s Situation Room, CNN correspondent Mary Snow highlighted the latest developments on ClimateGate, but only played one sound bite from a skeptic of manmade climate change, as opposed to the four clips from proponents of the theory. Snow also omitted the left-wing affiliation of RealClimate.org, a website she mentioned during her report.

The correspondent led her report with a clip from Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who called for an investigation into the leaked e-mails at the center of the ClimateGate scandal. After noting some of the other fallout from the controversy over the past 2 weeks, Snow continued that “[t]hose who question the effects of human activity on climate change have seized on the e-mails, accusing scientists of conspiring to hide evidence and trying to destroy data. Among them, Republican Senator James Inhofe, who has called global warming a hoax. This week, he called for hearings...and the e-mails were raised at a House hearing this week.”

The CNN correspondent played two clips from that hearing. The first came from Republican John Shadegg of Arizona, who played up the leaked e-mails: “Anyone who thinks that those e-mails are insignificant, that they don’t damage the credibility of the entire movement, is naive.” She followed this with a sound bite from Jane Lubchenco of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who defended the apparent scientific soundness of the theory of manmade climate change: “E-mails really do nothing to undermine the very strong scientific consensus and the independent scientific analyses of thousands of scientists around the world that tell us that the Earth is warming, and that the warming is largely a result of human activity.”

CNN.com Hypes 'Three-Generation Republican' for Obama...Who Worked Democratic Campaigns
By Tim Graham | October 25, 2008 | 9:40 AM EDT

Blogger Paul Ibrahim found that CNN isn’t doing its homework when it passes along touching stories of lifelong Republicans voting for Obama. On CNN’s Political Ticker blog, under the headline "Republican drives 600 miles to vote for Obama," reporter Mary Snow wrote from Columbus, Ohio with the story of one Aaron Wheeler:

Mainstream Media Ignore Obama’s Radical Abortion Record
By Matthew Balan | October 10, 2008 | 3:25 PM EDT

Barack Obama abortion graphic The liberal news media has subjected Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin to intense scrutiny concerning her overall pro-life view on abortion, among other issues. On the other hand, they have been all but silent on Barack Obama’s intensely liberal record on abortion issue, particularly his support of partial-birth abortion and his opposition to legislation that would have protected infant abortion survivors from dying of neglect.

In MRC’s October 9 Media Reality Check, "Media Silence on Abortion Aids Radical Obama," Rich Noyes and I outlined how the news media have been out to lunch on examining Barack Obama’s radical pro-abortion stance during the Democratic campaign for the presidential nomination. The report found that the network evening newscasts "barely mentioned Obama’s pro-abortion stance during the primaries — from the launch of his candidacy in January 2007 through the end of the primaries in June 2008, just six out of 1,289 network evening news stories about Obama (0.46%) mentioned his position on abortion; none discussed it in any detail." The media as a whole also punted on Obama’s August 16, 2008 attack on pro-lifers, who in his view, were "lying" about his record as an Illinois state senator of opposing legislation, identical to a federal law, which would have protected infant survivors of abortion. Only a day later, Obama’s own campaign backtracked and admitted that he had indeed voted against this legislation.

CNN Uses Liberal Expert to Tout Biden's Foreign Policy Experience
By Lyndsi Thomas | August 28, 2008 | 4:09 PM EDT

Mary Snow, CNN American Morning | NewsBusters.orgThursday's "American Morning" featured a segment focused on Senator and Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Joe Biden's foreign policy experience. During the report, CNN correspondent Mary Snow used Michael O'Hanlon of the liberal Brookings Institution to make the claim that Biden's foreign policy experience is "praised" by the experts. While O'Hanlon has helped write foreign-policy speeches for former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and was thought of as a potential member of Kerry's administration by the National Journal, Snow never mentioned his political leanings:

SNOW: Biden's experience, which includes being the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has won him praise among foreign policy experts.
MICHAEL O'HANLON, Brookings Institution: He's creative. He's willing to put out new ideas and, I guess you could say, he's willing to be wrong at times.
CNN Again Omits Part of the Story Concerning Obama’s Abortion Votes
By Matthew Balan | August 19, 2008 | 12:43 PM EDT

Mary Snow, CNN Correspondent | NewsBusters.orgCNN correspondent Mary Snow’s report on Monday’s The Situation Room about Barack Obama’s charge that pro-life "folks are lying" about his abortion record actually just presented both sides of the controversy without getting to the reality of the matter. The report, which was promoted as "checking the facts" by host Wolf Blitzer, also omitted how Obama’s campaign conceded on Sunday that the pro-lifers were actually accurately representing his record.

Before Snow’s report aired just before the top of the 6 pm Eastern hour of the CNN program, Blitzer read two promos for it. In the first, he announced how "Barack Obama [is] in the middle of an abortion battle. Now, he's pushing back after an extraordinary claim against him. We're going to examine the record." In the second promo, Blitzer played Obama’s "lying" sound bite, and stated, "Senator Obama blasts opponents for distorting his record on abortion-related legislation. We're checking the facts."

Kilpatrick Leads Democratic Group, Yet All But CBS & FNC Refuse to ID Him as (D)
By Brent Baker | August 7, 2008 | 10:01 PM EDT

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is hardly reticent about touting himself as a Democrat. After all, he's the Vice President of the National Conference of Democratic Mayors and in January was re-elected its representative to the Democratic National Committee. But in ABC and NBC news stories Thursday night about how a Michigan judge ordered him to jail immediately for violating his bond, neither identified him as a Democrat (verbally or on screen) -- not even in a full two-minute NBC story. On CBS, fill-in anchor Russ Mitchell didn't mention Kilpatrick's party in three teases/plugs for the upcoming story, nor in the introduction to it, but two-thirds into his report, Dean Reynolds, who in a March story failed to ID Kilpatrick, referenced: “Once a rising star in Democratic Party politics...”

Making that same “rising star” point, from a smoggy (or foggy?) Beijing, NBC anchor Brian Williams managed to avoid mentioning Kilpatrick's party affiliation:

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was once viewed as a rising political star in the United States. Tonight he has fallen pretty far from those early lofty and glowing predictions...

Two of the cable news networks were no more accurate. Filling in on MSNBC's Hardball, Mike Barnicle avoided Kilpatrick's party in a brief item on news of his jailing while on CNN's The Situation Room anchor Wolf Blitzer did not note Kilpatrick's Democratic affiliation in several updates and plugs and, in a full story in the 5PM EDT hour, the MRC's Matthew Balan noticed, Mary Snow failed to verbally name Kilpatrick's party in her piece.The only hint came in this chyron at the bottom of the screen for barely three seconds: "MAYOR KWAME KILPATRICK (D) DETROIT."