Starving Fairness, Feeding Bias

The Terri Schiavo case is demonstrating once again that, like death and taxes and poor people, ConWeb bias is something we will always have with us. Here are the most recent examples of how coverage has been handled -- or rather, mishandled.

Fairness, sort of

There was an ever-so-brief flowering of fairness -- well, what passes for fairness where the ConWeb is concerned -- on March 18, the day Schiavo's feeding tube was disconnected after years of litigation pitting Terri's husband, Michael Schiavo (who favors disconnection so the severely brain-damaged woman can die with dignity) and Terri's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler (who oppose it on the grounds that despite the majority of medical evidence to the contrary, Terri can be rehabilitated).

Related articles on ConWebWatch: Update: Where the Bias Has No Name Pulling the Plug on Fairness

The first part of WorldNetDaily's March 18 story on the removal of the feeding tube actually let a few statements by and about Michael Schiavo or his lawyer, George Felos, stand with a minimum of biased trappings. A March 18 story at CNSNews.com leads with Felos' reaction to actions by Congress to intervene in the case and devotes a whole six paragraphs to Felos' remarks.

This is a change from the recent past, when it paid little, if any, attention to Michael Schiavo's side of the story.

By the end of the weekend, though, it was back to the usual ConWeb game of bias, distortion, and just plain ol' hatred of Michael Schiavo.

Dubious sources

Both WorldNetDaily and NewsMax have reported on the inflammatory allegations of Carla Sauer Iyer, a former nurse for Terri Schiavo in the mid-1990s; her most notorious claim is that Michael Schiavo allegedly said, "When is that bitch gonna die?" But neither WND nor NewsMax note that Iyer's accusations, detailed in a 2003 affidavit, were rejected by Judge George Greer, who has presided over most recent activity in the case. Greer called Iyer's contentions "incredible to say the least," noting that the Schindlers have never asked Iyer to testify at any hearing before the filing of the affidavit despite the fact that Iyer's claim that she notified the Schindlers about the activities she allegedly witnessed. (Update: Another March 22 NewsMax story rehashes the affidavit of another former nurse, Heidi Law, but fails to note that Greer dismissed her accusations as well.)

WND's March 22 story begins by regurgitating Iyer's unsubstantiated claim -- made on Fox News, of course -- that "Michael Schiavo once tried to kill his wife Terri with insulin shots," but it's not until paragraph 17 is it noted that "Schiavo repeatedly and strenuously has denied allegations of abuse."

That's actually a step up from NewsMax, who parroted Iyer's accusations without even giving Michael Schiavo a chance to deny them.

NewsMax used another March 22 story to promote Dr. William Hammesfahr's claims that he can help Terri Schiavo. But like with Iyer, it ignored questions about Hammesfahr's credibility. (Update: The Media Research Center cited Hammesfahr as an example of a "dissenting expert" in a March 22 "Media Reality Check," but like WorldNetDaily and NewsMax has been silent about the Nobel and disciplinary questions.)

First, Hammesfahr is proclaiming that he is a Nobel Prize nominee based on a letter a congressman wrote, a claim NewsMax eagerly repeated. But as ConWebWatch has previously noted, that claim is based on a letter written by a congressman -- and, as Media Matters points out, congressman are not eligible to officially nominate anyone for a Nobel Prize.

Second, in all of the touting of Hammesfahr's alleged ability to help Terri Schiavo -- WND quotes him in a March 23 article designed, ironically, to discredit a doctor on Michael Schiavo's side -- left unmentioned is the fact that he was disciplined by the Florida Board of Medicine for overbilling a patient. The same board noted that Hammesfahr's procedure, the kind he has proposed for Terri Schiavo are "not within the generally accepted standard of care" though it declined to rule that they harmful to his patients and noted that some patients improved after treatment. (Full disclosure: I wrote the article linked above on Hammesfahr's disciplinary action for Media Matters.) (Update 3/30/05: The disciplinary action was appealed to the Florida Court of Appeal, which overturned it.)

(Update: A March 23 CNSNews.com story claimed that a neurologist's review "indicates that Terri may have been misdiagnosed and is more likely that she is in a state of minimal consciousness rather than" a persistent vegetative state, as does a March 24 WND story; NewsMax copied the CNS story. But both articles fail to note that the neurologist, William Cheshire, has never examined Terri Schiavo but merely observed her, and that he is an active member in Christian organizations, including two whose leaders have spoken out against the tube's removal.)

CNSNews.com's slant

CNSNews.com's Schiavo-related output on March 21 was three stories containing 90 paragraphs, only 16 of which were devoted Michael Schiavo's side of the story.

On March 22, CNS ran four stories:

• The first noted that the Schindlers' lawyer, David Gibbs III, threatened eternal consequences for the federal judge who refused a request to immediately reinsert Terri Schiavo's feeding tube;
• The second was a surprisingly bias-free accounting of the federal judge's ruling;
• The final two restored CNS' usual slant: a story in which a "spiritual adviser to the Schindler family" claimed that Terri Schiavo was undergoing a "modern-day crucifixion," and an article featuring almost exclusively negative reaction to the ruling.

CNS is also demonstrating its bias by continuing to use the name "Terri Schindler Schiavo," the Schindler family's preferred name.