*Please... Cut the Crap

Glenn Greenwald's Anti-Obama Vendetta Continues

There was a time when I really wished I could understand what drives Glenn Greenwald's hatred of President Obama. But then, I realized. I really don't care. I just wish his editors would be a little more discerning with his use of links and, um, "facts." I used to be able to count on the UK Guardian as an unwavering, very dependable news source, but it's becoming more difficult to do so, when they hire people like Greenwald to write for them.

First of all, they portray Greenwald as a progressive or liberal, and I don't see him that way at all. But that isn't what really bothers me about Greenwald. The most bothersome thing is the way he uses suppositions and facts interchangeably, as if they're equal. 

Take his latest column, regarding Obama's nomination of James Comey as director of the FBI. Greenwald, as usual, uses the column as a vehicle for tooting his own horn, and to make an unsubstantiated attack against President Obama. First, he tries to establish himself as an expert on the covert activities of the Bush Administration, because he’s written about it many times. Now, I would never belittle that. I actually find much of the information on the NSA spying program to be very credible. Yet, he seems to have chosen to ignore his own notes in some spots, only to remember them later, when he's pretty sure readers have stopped reading. In this article, he makes statements about Comey that are simply not supported by available evidence, and then contradicts himself. In fact, after he starts like a house afire, and essentially blames Cowey for the downfall of civil rights, by the end of the article, he pretty much admits that Obama could have chosen much worse.  

The question I keep asking myself is, where are his editors? He's not writing for his own personal blog; he's representing a truly good news organization.  Why does he get to tell outright lies and then contradict himself later within the same column. 

For example, this is from his column;

…the Bush DOJ's most senior lawyers - Attorney General John Ashcroft, Deputy Attorney General James Comey and OLC chief Jack Goldsmith - approved a legal memorandum in 2004 endorsing radical executive power theories and warped statutory interpretations, concluding that the Bush NSA warrantless eavesdropping program was legal, thus making it more difficult to prosecute the Bush officials who ordered it (even if the Obama DOJ were inclined to prosecute, which they were not).

It was announced yesterday that this very same James Comey - who as Bush's Deputy Attorney General authorized the once-very-controversial, patently illegal Bush NSA eavesdropping program - is President Obama's choice to be the new Director of the FBI.

I left the links in there, because I found them fascinating. For proof that Obama chose Comey, Greenwald uses a New York Times Article. But the link for his claim that Comey “authorized” the NSA eavesdropping program, he links to a TWEET!  Seriously, click on it. It's a bit unbelievable. Again, where are his editors? 

The Tweet is from Jameel Jaffer, who is a Deputy Legal Director at the ACLU. I’m sure Mr. Jaffer is a great guy, and not at all a liar. But Greenwald claims he’s a journalist. At least I assume he is, since he’s writing opinion pieces for a news organization. That someone said something is not proof of truth, and journalists are supposed to dig for the truth. And the problem with the statement is, it's simply not true. 

How do I know this? Because Greenwald himself actually says otherwise. I'm not kidding. Start with the following passage from the Times article Greenwald so kindly linked to:

In the 2004 episode that defined Mr. Comey’s time in the Bush administration, the White House counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, and Mr. Bush’s chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., sought to persuade Attorney General John Ashcroft — who was hospitalized and disoriented — to reauthorize the administration’s controversial eavesdropping program.

Mr. Comey, who was serving as the acting attorney general and had been tipped off that Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card were trying to go around him, rushed to Mr. Ashcroft’s hospital room to thwart them. With Mr. Comey as well as Mr. Mueller in the room, Mr. Ashcroft refused to reauthorize the program. Mr. Bush later agreed to make changes in the program, and Mr. Comey was widely praised for putting the law over politics.

According to testimony Mr. Comey provided to Congress in 2007, Mr. Ashcroft rose weakly from his hospital bed when Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card approached and refused to approve the program.

That information actually came from an in-depth investigative piece the Times published in 2010 - the one that Mr. Jaffer was referring to in his Tweet, which I easily found here.  The one that’s entitled, “Justice Deputy Resisted Parts of Spy Program.”

Getting the information wrong is only part of the story. Greenwald apparently hopes beyond hope that his fans will only read a few paragraphs, because several graphs after he says Comey “authorized” the wiretapping program, he recounts the above scenario. Now, there are a couple of things to keep in mind, not the least of which is that Comey was DEPUTY Attorney General, and was only Acting Attorney General while Ashcroft was extremely ill in the hospital. In other words, the only time Comey could have “authorized” any such program, he clearly didn't.  What's more, Greenwald knows this, because later he says:

It is true that Comey was at the center of a dramatic Bush-era political controversy that earned him praise from many Bush critics, including me. Comey was one of the Bush DOJ lawyers who, along with Ashcroft, Goldsmith, and FBI Director Robert Mueller, had threatened to resign if Bush did not modify the NSA program in order to make it legal in Comey's eyes, and he then went to the hospital where Ashcroft was quite ill to prevent then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and then-White House chief of staff Andy Card from bullying the infirm and barely cogent Attorney General into signing off on the legality of the NSA program.

In other words, there was something the NSA was doing for years - that we still don't know - even more extreme than the illegal NSA program revealed by the NYT in 2005. It was Comey, along with Ashcroft, Mueller, and Goldsmith, who threatened to resign if it did not stop, and they deserve credit for that. But the reason they didn't end up resigning was because Bush officials "modified" that NSA program into something those lawyers could and did endorse: the still-illegal, still-radical NSA eavesdropping program that spied on the communications of Americans without warrants and in violation of the law. And this was accomplished by inventing a new legal theory to accompany the old one: that Congress, when it enacted the 2001 AUMF, silently and "implicitly" authorized Bush to eavesdrop in exactly the ways the law expressly forbade.

Wow. First, Greenwald suggests that Comey “authorized” the program, then he matter-of-factly denies the same and then suggests that Comey must have signed off on something that was “even more extreme’” than the wiretapping program, even though even he doesn’t know what it could be.

Greenwald’s not done, of course. Apparently unconvinced he has made his case on the NSA wiretapping program, he switched to the torture memos.

Then there's Comey's mixed and quite murky role in authorizing Bush's torture program. Internal DOJ emails released to the New York Times in 2009 show Comey expressing serious reservations, and even objections, to the willingness of Albert Gonzales to legally authorize any interrogation techniques the White House wanted, and he warned those officials that their involvement would be condemned by history. But even as he did so, Comey, as the New York Times explained, eventually, albeit reluctantly, gave his legal approval to those techniques:

"Previously undisclosed Justice Department e-mail messages, interviews and newly declassified documents show that some of the lawyers, including James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general who argued repeatedly that the United States would regret using harsh methods, went along with a 2005 legal opinion asserting that the techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency were lawful.

"That opinion, giving the green light for the CIA to use all 13 methods in interrogating terrorism suspects, including waterboarding and up to 180 hours of sleep deprivation,'was ready to go out and I concurred,' Mr. Comey wrote to a colleague in an April 27, 2005, e-mail message obtained by The New York Times."

As I wrote at the time, the NYT article significantly overstated Comey's role in approving these torture programs. But it is true that he ultimately acquiesced to their legalization.

This is just not true. And given that Greenwald is a lawyer, he has to understand this. He was asked his opinion about whether or not the torture methods were legal.  The Bush torture memos didn’t “legalize” anything.  In many ways, the AUMF, which Greenwald practically dismisses as irrelevant, and the Patriot Act largely did that.  Here is a link to the Comey torture emails. While Greenwald sees a guy who's tying to "legalize" torture, it's clear the opposite is going on here. 

Greenwald obfuscates better than anyone, too. For instance, it's instructive to point out where he chooses to cut off his New York Times citation. Here are the next couple of paragraphs: read as follows:

While signing off on the techniques, Mr. Comey in his e-mail provided a firsthand account of how he tried unsuccessfully to discourage use of the practices. He made a last-ditch effort to derail the interrogation program, urging Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to argue at a White House meeting in May 2005 that it was “wrong.”

“In stark terms I explained to him what this would look like some day and what it would mean for the president and the government,” Mr. Comey wrote in a May 31, 2005, e-mail message to his chief of staff, Chuck Rosenberg. He feared that a case could be made “that some of this stuff was simply awful.”

In other words, while Comey had to admit that current US law was probably in favor of torture, he thought it was wrong. Such a thing is actually quite common. In fact, the reason more "Banksters" haven't been arrested and thrown in jail is because, while a lot of what they did was unethical and immoral, they were legal at the time. It's why we needed Dodd-Frank, and why we need to expand Dodd-Frank. 

Basically, Cowey separated the legal argument from the moral and ethical argument, which is actually ultimately a good thing.

Let's be clear about something. The FBI Director position has to be filled, and the only way to do that is to give Republicans someone they have a difficult time rejecting. That means the choice had to be conservative. Even Greenwald admits (long after he assumes his readers have given up on him) Comey really isn't a horrible choice at the end: 

James Comey is far from the worst choice to lead the FBI. I doubt it will change much of anything one way or the other, and there are undoubtedly worse people within the senior ranks of the Democratic Party who would be the likely alternatives. But it's still a potent symbol of how little has changed in the right direction and how much it has changed in the wrong direction. If you had told progressives in 2008 that the Bush lawyer who approved the NSA program would be named by Obama as the FBI Director, they would scoff in disbelief. Now they'll cheer. That is what has changed.

Only he did NOT "approve" the NSA program, Glenn. You and the New York Times just said that. 

This is the sad state of journalism these days, folks. 

Before Running at the Mouth, Try to Know What You're Talking About

"It is better that ten guilty men go free than that one innocent man be convicted." - William Blackstone

--------------------

You know, I screwed up on April 15. I broke one of my own important rules, and I speculated about something important.

Speculation isn't bad when it's between good friends at a party. But I Tweet publicly, and what I say seems to create a reaction from people. Basically, what I said was that I thought the Boston Marathon bomber was probably an extreme right winger. I immediately walked it back, saying that it was just my first impression, and first impressions are usually wrong, but there it was. It was out there. I considered deleting the Tweet, but I generally only do that when I misspell something, and I follow it up with a corrected Tweet. 

I usually have no use for things like that, and I chided myself for it. But I realized my mistake almost immediately, became defensive about it, and when the perpetrators were identified, I issued a public apology. I would love to say I'll never do it again, but I'm human, I have emotions, and I am not perfect. I will try, however.  

I don't mean to sound conceited, but I wish there were more like me on this. Most people are like me, of course, but those who are not seem to be awfully loud and insistent.

Take this past weekend. Please.

A Fairness Doctrine for the 21st Century

Broadcast radio is a mess. The experiment has failed. A few huge "media conglomerates" tried to buy up all of the stations and monopolize the advertising revenue, and it failed miserably.  It's time to pack it up and roll things back to where they used to be. Local stations owned mostly by local people, who cared about the community. 

 

Now, you may argue the importance of terrestrial radio in the Internet age, but the fact of the matter is, everyone has easy access to a cheap-o AM/FM radio, and a local signal, even in a time of crisis. We need information about traffic and weather, in order to make decisions about our daily lives, and let's face it; news is an important part of our lives. 

 

The conglomerates have completely ruined radio. Most of the content is "piped in." Most of the best air personalities are now hawking podcasts. There is far too much "sports talk," because it's apparently very being offered really cheaply.  And talk radio is dominated by one point of view. That simply shouldn't be the case. It's time we went back to basics. Stop treating radio as if it's a "free market" in which anyone can own a station and do what he wants, and go back to treating broadcasting as a public trust, which it is. 

Liberals Say Right Wingers are Mean, Selfish and Hate the Poor Because It's True

I don’t know how many of you have ever read Jennifer Rubin’s column in the Washington Post, entitled “Right Turn,” but you probably should. While she’s supposedly a “real” right winger, the column reads like a parody of what right wingers think liberals think about.  Seriously, WaPo? “Right Turn”? You don’t need a right winger for “balance.” Just tell the truth, and the far right and the far left will both come after you. It’s all good.

Anyway, the headline of this morning’s post caught my eye when it came across my desktop”

The left: If you disagree, you hate the poor

See what I mean by “Parody”? Everyone who disagrees with those of us on the left “hate the poor”? Really? That’s not something a gown adult woman with a job at the Washington Post would really think, is it? Or have the Post’s standards dropped so far that they’ve been reduced to picking reporters from high school newspapers to write their blogs?

Okay, let’s be fair, as I always try to be. Sometimes, reporters don’t write their own headlines. Sometimes, they don’t match the content of the article. So, let’s examine the article, shall we? Let’s see if it matches the ridiculous headline. Here’s the lead paragraph:

CNN Won't Run This Ad... What's Wrong With Them?

... And CNN wonders why they're having a hard time holding off the surging MSNBC?

First, they allow Lou Dobbs to froth at the mouth... now they're refusing to run an ad critical of the health insurance industry... What the hell?

MSNBC will be running the ad, and you can see it here anytime...

It's a good ad... and there's nothing false in it. Write CNN and let them know you think they're nuts for not running this...

Because There Just Isn't Enough Right Wing Radio Already...

Apparently, The owners of the Washington Right Wing Moonie Times want to do for radio what Fox News has done for television news.

This is from this morning's Washington Right Wing Moonie Times:

The Washington Times will launch a syndicated radio show later this spring, dedicated to the newsroom's investigative reporting and accountability journalism, Executive Editor John Solomon said Sunday.

The three-hour morning show will feature investigations by The Times, exclusive interviews with national newsmakers and discussions with reporters from The Times newsroom.

The move is part of an overhaul of The Times' products started last year, including a redesign of the Web site and newspaper, as well as new online videos, podcasts and mobile updates.

"I think the goal here is to take what we've done so successfully in print and translate it to radio," Mr. Solomon said. "The concept is that when you tune in in the morning, it's not going to be yesterday's news."

Talk Radio Network, home to such nationally syndicated talkers as Laura Ingraham and Michael Savage, will carry the show.

This has to be nipped in the bud, folks...

Imagine a World in Which Journalists Report the News

Once upon a time, just after the earth cooled, I think, I wrote for the Baltimore News American, a major big city newspaper that bit the big one about ten years after I was there, in the first round of newspaper deaths back in the 1980s.

I worked there every Thursday as part of an Independent Study program for my high school. They arranged for me to write news stories for an admittedly goofy, uniquely ‘70s section of the Sunday paper, entitled Young World.

When I started, I just wrote basic copy, which is a clever way of saying, I rewrote things people sent me, in order to fit them into a smaller space, around the ads. This was in the extremely early days of computerized typesetting; in fact, I remember the typesetters were increasingly nervous even then, more than 30 years ago, about the encroachment of computers on their jobs. So I would write the stories,  on a manual typewriter (I was such a shitty typist; still am) and someone would load them into the one computer we had in the corner of the city room, and they had to fit.

I did nothing but that for a month or two, but my editor (whose name was Jon Stewart, coincidentally) had confidence in me, and started giving me stories to follow up on – stories with a byline.

That Wacky Mainstream Media! We Passed This Story on Last Week!

UPDATE: Want to know why the public in this country seems so mud-dumb sometimes?

It's because the major news media doesn't pick up on stories for a long time after bloggers do.

Check out the story that was on CNN.com today. We passed this along to you last Wednesday, when Truthdig featured it.

Read our take right here...  There's a link to the original Truthdig story right there...

Let this be a lesson... if you want to know the truth, you have to dig...

IS CBS Trying to Be the New Fox News?

Pity the poor eye.

At one time, CBS News was called the Tiffany network in part because of its brilliant commitment to news. Even when Walter Cronkite stepped down and was replaced by Dan Rather, one got the sense that the network's interest in reporting the news in a way that was actually fair (not balanced; we'll get to that in another post -- balanced is not a good thing) and presented the news in an unbiased, less-filtered way.

For all of the things you could say about William Paley, he knew how to run his business, and he knew how important the news division was to the rest of the network.

Now, Viacom doesn't seem to know what to do with the news division, and their latest move is one of the strangest.

Beginning today, Jeff Ballabon becomes Senior Vice President of Communications for CBS News. According to CBS News Chief Sean McManus, Ballabon "will oversee all media relations and public affairs for CBS News, including strategy and planning, day-to-day publicity, internal and external communications, and coordination with CBS Interactive regarding CBSNews.com."

Why should we care?

Because a formerly reputable news organization has hired itself a Republican mouthpiece. Isn't it bad enough we have to deal with Fox News? Now, we have to worry that Ballabon will play Roger Ailes at CBS?

Previous to this position, Ballabon Group, a lobbying and right wing consulting group. One of the testimonials on his web site comes from none other than G. Gordon Liddy, who says, "When Jeff Ballabon tells you he can do something, consider it done, and done well."

According to Ira Forman in the Huffington Post, Ballabon said the following during the 2008 campaign; "Obama is incredibly dangerous."

Forman also recounts a time when he personally debated Ballabon in New York:

During the debate, Ballabon claimed that, after his most recent job in Washington, he became convinced that Democrats are inherently bad people and Republicans are fundamentally good people.

Gee, it's good to know that CBS will be so "Fair and Balanced," run by a guy who thinks Democrats are bad and Republicans are good.

David Gregory's Question Deserves an Answer

David Gregory's Latest Tweet:

Q for Obama on housing: does keeping people in their homes (who can't afford to be there) help the economy or is it only social policy?

deserves an answer...

With apologies to President Obama, I'm going to answer it, even though I am just a regular guy; not an economist, or even a genius.

Before the Republicans took over the economy, it was possible for a family to own a home with one income, and the economy boomed at almost all levels for the first 28 years after World War II. The economy started to hit the skids while Nixon was president, and we never really recovered, because Ronald Reagan threw the entire economy into supply-side nonsense. Bill Clinton had the economy on the right track in the 1990s, with the first real increases in wages since 1973, but Gramm-Leach-Bliley put the economy back on the skids.

The problems that President Obama and the Democratic Congress face were a long time in the making, and they stem from several decades of mismanagement, and an economic model that was unsustainable in the long run. If you look closely at the economy in the post-war period, it was marked by a constant investment in infrastructure, a strong manufacturing base, and an almost constant investment in technological development.

Zogby Sacrifices Its Credibility With a Push Poll

I used to be a huge fan of John Zogby and his polls. But for whatever reason, in recent years, the entire Zogby organization seems to have gone off the deep end. Zogby himself seems to have gone out of his way to demonstrate personal bias, which is not good for a pollster, as evidenced by his latest project, for which he is rightfully taking a lot of heat, to the point that the organization has had to issue a plaintive rationalization.

 

Meet John Ziegler. Ziegler, who is/was one of the worst right wing talk show hosts in the country (is he still on KFI?), is doing a documentary called "Media Malpractice… How Obama Got Elected." Of course, he mostly leaves out the "Media Malpractice…" part on his web site for the film, probably because he knows how popular Obama is, and how unpopular a negative film about Obama's election would be. And after all,  right wingers are about nothing but making money, even if you have to fool people to do it. And let's face it; fooling people is essentially what right wing talk radio IS.

 

In all fairness, however, Ziegler's intentions with this film are pretty much up front, when you actually read the web site. Here is the first paragraph:

 

On November 4th, 2008 millions of Americans were shocked that a man of Barack Obama's limited experience, extreme liberal positions and radical political alliances could be elected President of the United States. For many of these Americans, the explanation was rather simple... the news media, completely enamored with Obama, simply refused to do their job.

Rupert's Fox Post: Worried About NBC's "Fairness"

Okay, so I'm perusing the news this morning, and the following pops up, from this morning's Page Six in the New York Post:

NBC is under fire for having correspondent Andrea Mitchell cover the economic crisis because she's married to former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan - but some people are also wondering about David Gregory, who has a show, "Race for the White House" on MSNBC. Gregory is married to Beth Wilkinson - who until a month ago was general counsel, executive vice president and corporate secretary for mortgage giant Fannie Mae, which is now being investigated by the FBI. We wonder how Gregory will cover the story if his wife is implicated in the Fannie Mae meltdown.

Why did I laugh at this item?

Well, first of all, it comes from Rupert Murdoch's slime machine; it's a kissing cousin/training ground for Republican propaganda arm "Fox News." In other words, the same group of buffoons who euphemistically use the word "News" to describe the antics of people like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly; the same idiots who allow a Republican operative, Roger Ailes, to run their "News" operation, and who present Karl Rove as a "news commentator," at the same time he's actively working for John McCain; are complaining about two of NBC's best reporters, because they happen to be married to people involved in the current economic meltdown caused by the Republican Party?

The inaccuracies in the above are breathtaking to behold; another irony in a news story regarding the potential "conflicts of interest" of two NBC reporters. For one, NBC is "under fire" from whom, exactly? A quick Lexis search shows that the only "concern" seems to be coming from the right wing blogosphere, and a few far-right "News" outlets. And I hate to break the news to the Post, but Fannie Mae has been under investigation for years.

Funny, but no one in Rupert-land seemed to mind when David Gregory and Andrea Mitchell were reporting the news while the Republicans were lying and telling us the economy was fine when it wasn't, and when Fannie Mae was following financial institution protocol and overstating its profits. Now, all of the sudden, as the economy is melting down because of Greenspan's acquiescence to Republicans, and the Republican refusal to either regulate or oversee, NOW suddenly, they're "concerned" about two of the best reporters in the business, and their ability to be "objective" in their job?

The folks at the "Fox Post" really couldn't care less about "objectivity." They're just concerned because ratings for Fox News are down a little, and MSNBC is surging.

Katie Couric Doesn't Get It...

I used to give Katie Couric some credit for her interview style. But these days, she seems to have forgotten whatever journalistic credibility she once had, in favor of inane questions, and a tendency to attack her interview subject, at least when that interview subject is Barack Obama. After watching her interview with Obama today, I came away shaking my head and saying, simply, WTF.

Katie Couric seems to have decided that she needs to become completely hostile to Barack Obama, a development that should be considered absolutely shameful by a professional journalist. I'm not just talking about tough questions; I'm talking about beliigerence, I'm talking about lying, and claiming he's not answering a question when he  absolutely is answering the question. I'm talking about badgering the man, to the point that you have to wonder what happened to her journalistic chops?

Perhaps it's because she came from morning television. I wonder that, because the formerly tolerable Charlie Gibson has become insufferable, as well; he has become far to willing to demonstrate his political leanings in his work these days; a practice that used to be absolutely forbidden by a journalist, and should be forbidden for a journalist who values his or her intergrity to any great degree. Is this the result of the baggage that comes with being a jourmalist on a morning show? Do they feel the need to attack an interview subject and be rude and obnoxious, just to "prove" to someone that they're "real reporters"?

Well, whatever it is, it has to stop. In her interview with Obama yesterday, Katie Couric embarrassed herself. She should go back and watch some Tim Russert tapes. He was one of the toughest interviewers around -- I know I would cringe at some of the questions he asked, and there were times I'd scream at the television. But ultimately, he was never rude, and he never badgered an interview subject. But even more importantly, he listened to the answers, and only accused someone of not answering a question when, in fact, the subject didn't answer the question.

Katie needs to chill, and re-evaluate her purpose as a journalists. Her job is to uncover the facts, not create new facts, or offer up her opinion on the veracity of her subject. The opinions are the viewer's job. The journalist is supposed to be giving the voter the information he or she needs to make a decision, not to create any sort of impression in the voter's mind. Deal with facts, and only facts.

The following exchange, regarding the "surge," is unbelievable:

Liberal Media, My Ass!

Yeah, I'll admit that Barack Obama is getting good press. No one can deny that. But has it ever occurred to anyone that the REASON Obama is getting good press is because he makes very few mistakes, and the mistakes he does make are generally minor misstatements that really don't matter to most people?

John McCain, on the other hand, has admitted that he knows nothing about the economy, and has demonstrated a complete and utter ignorance when it comes to foreign affairs. It's assumed that, because he spent five years in a Vietnamese prison camp, he somehow knows more about the world than Obama. yet, he keeps on making mistake after mistake, aqnd the press covers up for him, and suppresses the facts, in order to make McCain look more knowledgeable than he is.

Look, news media idiots! The survival of democracy depends greatly on an informed electorate. How can people know who to vote for, when they're not given the unvarnished truth about each candidate?

The latest is CBS News, and it's one that must have Uncle Walter shaking his head, and Edward R. Murrow burrowing to the earth's core with his spinning. masterp2323 has the evidence on YouTube:

I don't want a liberal media, and I don't want a conservative media. I want a media that can depended upon for the facts. Has that become too much to ask?

Why The New Yorker Cover Failed

Let me start off by saying that, in another context, the New Yorker cover that is generating so much buzz this week, would actually be funny. I get what the artist was going for, and if it was inside the magazine, accompanied by an article or caption of some sort, which explained what the drawing was about, it would have been received differently.

Unfortunately, we live in a country ruled by two types of very oppressive forces, both of which make this sort of cover pretty much a non-starter..

On the one side, we have political correctness gone nuts, in which everything said, done or displayed must comply with a certain code of "morality" and "respectibility" in order to even exist. For example, it's perfectly okay to show an Archie Bunker in reruns on cable, as some sort of time capsule look at how people in this country "used to be," but if a sitcom were to debut, which featured a white bigot, screaming and yelling about minorities and gays in derogatory terms, it's very likely pickets would force the show off the air in a short period of time.

The other side of this, of course, is the problem that Archie Bunker has actually gone mainstream, and is far less honest. These real-life Archies now occupy the radio airwaves, in the form of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, Neil Boortz, et al. The reason a cover like this, without accompanying explanation, is in poor taste, and displays an incredible political insensitivity, is actually the same  reason this drawing should have been funny in the first place; there are actually millions of morons out there who actually believe that everything in the drawing is true.

That's the problem in a nutshell. On the one hand, you have a bunch of people who have no sense of humor, who think it's offensive. But worse, and even more insurmountable, is the problem of gobs of people who think every misconception depicted in the drawing is actually true. Barack Obama's campaign has actually had to start a web site to specifically counter such rumors; and now, a bunch of people will be passing this cover at their local newsstand, and the rest of us will have to work even harder at debunking all of those rumors.

Case in point: this is from G. Gordon Liddy's program from yesterday, July 14, 2008 (courtesty of Media Matters for America):

CALLER: Mr. Liddy, I think America's going to have a problem with Mr. Obama, who wants to tell us to quit driving my diesel so that he can fly jets and have a limo. I really resent someone doing that. I want to drive my diesel, but I don't want to pay $5 a gallon.

LIDDY: Yeah, I don't suppose you've, by any chance, have seen the cover of the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine, which is, you know, a huge thing. It's got Obama in his Muslim dress with a turban, and he's there with his wife. His wife has a "mad at the world" afro, circa 1968, she -- she's got bandoliers and an assault weapon, and there in their fireplace is burning the American flag. The New Yorker finally got it right.

The reality is, the fact that the artist and New Yorker editors have had to blanket the media to explain themselves demonstrates the actual problem. The drawing is supposed to accompany an article, and if it had done so inside of the magazine, where few right wingers would ever even notice it, the effect might have been as intended. But it wasn't, and rather than defensive, New Yorker's editors will not have to issue an apology at some point.

Brave New Films on Fox Trashing of Michelle Obama

This is Robert Greenwald's latest short film, demonstrating Fox News' strategy of attacking Michelle Obama, because they think that's how thye can help McCain win in November. Do what the film says; call them on it...

Stop Jerking That Knee and Become a Skeptic!

I can't tell you how many times in the last few weeks I've heard from another liberal about something Barack Obama supposedly said that was apparently outrageous or scary or somehow out of character. Liberals are often absolutely hysterical over many of their perceptions of Obama's positions on issues, and their screeching can be heard all over the blogosphere.

But then a funny thing happens. I actually look up what Obama actually said, and I think to myself, "Is that all?" Basically, what I'm finding is that a lot of people are hysterical about information that isn't actually true. For example:

• Barack Obama isn't in favor of expanding faith-based initiatives because he just loves combining government and religion. He's not planning to send tax money to churches for their basic operations. In other words, he's saying it's possible to assist churches in helping the poor and the sick, without violating the separation between church and state.
• Barack Obama hasn't reneged on his promise to extract us from the Iraq occupation, just because he says he will continually re-evaluate, based on what military experts tell him. Keep in mind, Bush SAYS he's listening to generals on the ground, but he's not; he only listens to those generals whose opinions he agrees with. He's fired every military expert that said anything he didn't like, remember? Basically, Obama's talking about responsibility. We broke the country of Iraq, and we owe it to the people there to pull out, but to pull out in a responsible way, that results in the least loss of life possible.
• Barack Obama has not abandoned his desire for campaign finance reform. The problem is, there's a large contingent of people who think the only way to reform the campaign finance system is by public financing, and the fact that he decided not to finance his campaign using tax money is seen by many as tantamount to treason. It completely disregards the reality that many of us feel that the public IS financing Obama's campaign, and he's actually demonstrating a campaign financing structure that works and is strangely not controlled by incumbent politicians, which would be the case in a public financing scheme.

See, here's the problem...

An Example of Media Puffery on Gas Prices

This kind of things just drives me batty.

This is from  An article in Time today:

Those labor protests reflect the hit millions of Europeans are taking at the gas pump. As American drivers groan over prices nearing $4 a gallon, the French are paying $8.67 for a gallon of super, compared to $7.10 in January, 2007. A gallon of diesel in French gas stations averages $8.54, up from $5.35 just a year ago. And in the U.K. diesel costs $11.50 per gallon, compared to around $3.90 in the U.S. Across the European Union, the average cost of a gallon of gas runs to about $8.70 — more than twice what Americans are shelling out to fill up. And Europe's dizzying fuel costs would be even worse if it weren't for the considerable appreciation of the euro and the British pound against the dollar over the past year, which has partially offset the price escalation in dollar-traded oil.

You see, articles like the above try to make our situation look better, by making ridiculous comparisons that simply cannot be made.

Five years ago, a Euro was worth about $1.10. Now, it's worth about $1.60 and climbing. A British Pound Sterling was worth $1.60; now, it's worth $2. And Europeans -- and I know this sounds crazy -- aren't paid in dollars; they're paid in Euros or Pounds Sterling. That's not to say prices aren't high over there, but they don't pay for petrol with dollars. You see, it would cost US that much for a gallon of petrol if we traveled over there, if we got the best exchange rate possible.

The average price for a gallon of petrol in Britain is £5.12, according to this web site.  Three years ago, the average price of a gallon of petrol in Britain was £3.89. That's a 32% increase.

The average price of a gallon of gas here is $3.94. Three years ago, the average price was $2.08.  That's an 80% increase.

In other words, in REALITY, if we had seen the same relative increase in the price of gas as the Europeans, our price should be around $2.75 per gallon.

It's simply a ridiculous comparison to compare gas prices in Europe and here, without taking into account the differences in currency. The British are being hit a lot less hard by gas prices than we are. That's not to say 32% isn't a sharp increase over 3 years. But wouldn't $2.75 a gallon seem like a cheap price right about now?

Don't buy this crap. This is one of those puff pieces to make you feel good about oil companies scamming you...

When Are We Going to Demand that Journalists Report News?

Did you know that, the other day, Hillary Clinton pretty much guaranteed that, as president, she would wage war against Iran?

Well, if you read this blog (and keep reading and tell your friends, because we are just starting to make some serious waves, folks), you know this. This is what she said, in an interview with Christ Cuomo last week on "Good Morning America;"

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran. In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

We actually had a presidential candidate essentially declaring a continuation of the Bush foreign policy, in a year when we are all anxious to see the end of the Bush foreign policy, such as it is.

Yet, what was the main topic of conversation in the mainstream press last week? it was whether or not Barack Obama can win an election.

First, let me settle that stupid argument, may I? Thank you.

Barack Obama has won twice as many states as Hillary Clinton. He has received far more votes in primaries, and he's won all but one caucus state. Pennsylvania is, and always has been an anomaly when it comes to Democratic politics. it has one of the most conservative Democratic constituencies in the country. it is not indicative of anything, except that conservative Democrats in Pennsylvania prefer Hillary Clinton.

I would also point out that the only states Clinton has won since Super Tuesday are Ohio and Pennsylvania (she didn't win Texas). Ohio has an open primary system, and it was the first primary after the GOP decided its nominee, so it's impossible to tell how many of those votes for Hillary were from Republicans trying to stir the pot. And Pennsylvania has the opposite problem; they're a closed primary state, in that independents didn't get their two cents. One of Obama's strengths has been his appeal to independents. She, on the other hand, has shown no strength among independents, which actually makes her seem like the weaker candidate in November.

Pennsylvania doesn't matter. And you know what else doesn't matter?

We don't give a damn about Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Last I heard, he's not running for president. I also watched his interview with Bill Moyers Friday night, and a large portion of his speech before the NAACP over the weekend. This is a guy who speaks from his heart, and his heart hurts. He's honest, and he's blunt, but in no way does that man hate America.

We don't give a rat's ass whether or not Barack Obama knew William Ayers when they were both living in Chicago. For one thing, the Williams Ayers of today is a far cry from the William Ayers of 40 years ago. According to a recent article in The Washington Post, Ayers and his wife are downright "mainstream" these days:

Ayers is an informal adviser toMayor Richard M. Daley and has been awarded more than $50 million in charitable grants for his promotion of small schools as a solution to a crisis in education. Dohrn (his wife) lectures widely on children's law and serves on a variety of boards and committees. Together, they have raised three boys in the intellectual haven of Hyde Park, where Sen Barack Obama is a neighbor.

We don't care if Obama wears a flag pin. In fact, anyone who actually wears one is committing a serious breach of flag etiquette, anyway. We don't care whether some rightard pundit considers him "patriotic," and frankly, Obama has been running such a superb campaign so far, I'm thinking that all of the advice the pundits are offering is, shall we say, superfluous. Okay, let's just say it's vacuous and leave it at that.

Obama isn't kidding when he calls this "silly season" in politics. Every pundit has his or her own idea as to what Obama should do, when the absolute reality is, NO ONE but the press is focusing on any of this extraneous bullshit. If the opinion writers and talkers in the press would quit flapping their goddamn gums for five minutes, they might actually find out that the general public, by and large, cares a hell of a lot more about the price of gas, the price of food, the looming food shortage, global warming, and the reputation of the United States around the world, than they do about what Obama's pastor once said during a sermon, or whether or not he wears a goddamn flag pin.

The press is so big on lecturing everyone else on what an "elitist" Barack Obama is, but the fact of the matter is, they themselves seem to be completely out of touch with what Americans actually think and talk about. They tend to listen to the people with the biggest mouths, because they're the easiest to hear, and well, most reporters and pundits are too lazy to try to dig a little deeper, and find out what's really on people's minds. They listen to talk radio, and think those callers represent the majority. They look at polls and think they know what people are thinking, which is purely ludicrous, and then report those polls as if they're news.

Seriously; they report as fact that polls put Obama and McCain or Clinton and McCain in a dead heat in November. They always try some lame analysis, but in their analysis, they betray the fact that none of them has any real contact with any actual "regular people." They're always trying to "explain" why the polls are "so close," and yet, the explanation is right in front of their face, and they ignore it in favor if "the big story." Do you want to know why the "race" between Obama and McCain is so close? It's real simple. Suppose you're a rabid Hillary Clinton supporter, and you want to prove she's the stronger candidate against McCain. Now, if a pollster asks your preference between Obama and McCain, what are you going to answer? And if you're the same type of Obama supporter, and the pollster asks you about Clinton and McCain, what will you answer?

Politics isn't rocket science, folks, and yet all of these pundits keep trying to make us believe they're as smart as rocket scientists. No matter how many times they get it all wrong, everyone acts surprised, but it's not a surprise to those of us who are close to the ground, with our eyes and ears open.

The purpose of the press is supposed to be to impart information on us, and they pretty much no longer do that. Instead, they comb YouTube and look for something inflammatory, and don't even question the context. They hear some schmuck like Sean Hannity talk about some rumor regarding Barack Obama, and they repeat it without question, because it sounds good. What they don't do is dig deep, and find out the truth about a subject. They stir up controversy, they build candidates up and they tear them down, but they almost never report on actual facts about actual stories that actually make a difference in people's lives.

The fact that Hillary Clinton has threatened to nuke Iran is far more newsworthy than Reverend Wright emerging to clear his sullied name. The fact that John McCain now only wants to continue the Iraq boondoggle for many years to come, and still doesn't seem to be able to differentiate between Sunni and Shia is far more newsworthy than whether or not Obama wears a flag pin.

I'm sick of this, people; it's time we started putting the media's feet to the fire. They need to start reporting more actual news, and stop making it up out of whole cloth.

The Press Has Become Irrelevant

I find it amazing that, while there are still some exceptional journalists out there who do some amazing investigative work, most of the press seems to strive to be as slovenly and pointless as possible. Why is that? You have pieces such as last Sunday's New York Times piece on the Bush Pentagon propaganda machine that shine out as diamonds in a very large rough. But as even that story shows, much of the press seems to be happy just getting a paycheck for simply repeating White House releases, without even the slightest investigation as to the veracity of the story itself.

Note to reporters and news anchors; the purpose of the press isn't to inform the rest of us of what the government says. If that was all that was necessary, then we could go to a government web site and download press releases, and read away. Just because George Bush and Dick Cheney, or even Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold, say something, doesn't mean it's right or true. If most so-called journalists have no purpose other than to repeat what someone says, with no follow-up questions to anyone, to determine the veracity of the claims, or worse, to simply offer his or her opinion on it based on the assumption that the statements made are true, then there is no reason to read, listen to or watch the news, is there? I can go to the government web site on my own and read what they have to say. The journalist's job is to go beyond that step, and confirm whether what the government, or any other entity, feeds us is a line of crap. I have plenty of friends in various government positions; if I want to hear rumors and innuendo, I would have no problem finding that.

It used to be that journalists dug in their heels and created adversarial relationships with the people they covered. The reason was simple; it was impossible to be unbiased when reporting on people who were friends. Journalists used to be required to hand stories to others, when the story got too close to the journalist's sphere.

Now, journalists have largely become something akin to "partners" with the very people they're supposed to watch. All of these get-togethers they have with people in power is treated as if it's just a joke by most of the press, but it's not a joke. The various "correspondents dinners" and other parties, in which reporters and powerful government officials schmooze would have been considered nothing short of major ethical breaches many years ago, and are no less serious now.

Journalists are supposed to have an adversarial relationship with those in power, not a cozy, friendly relationship. For some reason, journalists now consider it an "honor" to be invited to such shindigs. They have this idea that being close to power is somehow a "plus" for them and their careers, and unfortunately, that has become true. The people in charge think "easy access to power" is a laudable goal. They encourage their reporters to kiss the ample asses of those in power, so as to maintain that "easy access to power."

The problem is, when reporters have "easy access to power," they become huge wimps, and they really only get the scraps of information those in power choose to hand them.  The greatest journalistic coups in the last century weren't obtained through "easy access to power." Woodward and Bernstein worked outside the corridors of power and pissed a whole bunch of people off in the process. The Pentagon Papers weren't obtained by journalists glad handing those in power and asking to see their secret plans. Good journalism usually requires going through the back door, and talking to the decidedly un-powerful. Seriously, reporters, do you honestly expect your buddy, George W. Bush to tell you, "Sure I approved torture! And here's all the e-mails and memos to prove it!"??

The current incarnation of the mainstream press has largely become superfluous, and those in change of it seem to be absolutely stunned that this has happened. Listen to them, and you would think that the Internet, especially blogs, is killing them. This, of course, is a crock. Say what you will about blogs and their questionable accuracy, but if the press wasn't largely falling down on the job -- wait, let me re-phrase that -- if it wasn't for the press not doing their job, bloggers would be a far less necessary entity. But editors, publishers and news directors all over the country are largely clueless as to their position in the grand scheme of things. They see declining audiences/circulation, and in their zeal to puff the numbers up, they have a tendency toward laziness, and instead of solving their own problem, they copy whichever media entity qualifies as the most successful failure. And when everyone's numbers continue to go down, they scratch their heads and cut staff.

This, of course, exacerbates the problem they already have, but they're too dumb to notice.

 

On any given day, if you were to combine all of the audiences for all of the major nightly news programs, and the "hard news" first hour of the morning news programs, the most-watched hour of news on each of the cable news networks, and the circulations of all daily newspapers in the country, and assumed that no one was watching more than one of these, you would still find that roughly two-thirds of the country never watches the news. And yet, the people who run news departments and newspapers keep on trying for a larger share of the one-third who do watch.

Wouldn't it be smarter to try to appeal to a chunk of the people who don't watch?

The nightly network news programs "boast" of roughly 23 million nightly, for example.  CBS News is in third place, drawing roughly 6 million viewers per night. Yet, if you watch what they do, they go after a larger chunk of the 17 million who watch the other two major networks, rather than a chunk of the 250 million people who never watch the news. CNN and MSBNC spent years trying to copy Fox News, in order to try to cut into their 2 million, rather than going after a chunk of the 280 million who don't watch any of the cable news channels. Newspapers keep raising their prices and cutting their newsroom staffs, and then wonder why fewer people are buying their wares.

I can remember the day that I realized that Katie Couric would fail as the anchor for the CBS Evening News. It was before she even started, when i read a news story wherein she was quoted as saying she would go on tour to promote herself, and ask Americans -- are you sitting down? -- what they wanted to see on their nightly news program.

Now, it looks like I'm picking on Katie, but I'm not. This is the problem with the entire news media; she's simply a product of it.

Here's a clue, folks -- how about reporting the NEWS! How about dealing with facts, telling us what the government is up to, what's happening in other parts of the world, and just telling us what important events happened today? The news is supposed to be a surprise -- do you guys get that? It's not your job to tell me what I want to hear about; it's your job to report on those events which will impact the most people.

Why hasn't it ever occurred to most of the mainstream media that they have become largely irrelevant? Why would they even think that a person who works hard every day just to put food on the table and keep a roof over the family's head, would give a rat's ass about whether or not a celebrity was picked up for drunk driving? When the average person turns on the news to find out which presidential candidate might actually do something to make things easier for him or her, do the people who run and work inside of these mainstream media organizations really think they care one bit about whether or not one of them wears a Chinese-made flag pin, or another was actually fired upon when they visited Bosnia? How about doing stories about their positions on issues? Go to their web sites, download position statements, and then compare what they say with their past actions, if that's possible?

I'm going to be talking about this a lot on this blog, because I think it's important, and I'm not the only one. The press is supposed to be our eyes and ears to those in power. There are some great journalists out there, and I will point you to the good pieces, of course. But it's time someone started ripping them a new one when they do something completely boneheaded. Yes, I know, I could make an entire blog just on Fox News alone. In fact, that will happen soon, when I start foxnewsblows.com at the end of next month.

You people can help, too. Spread the word about this blog, and send me stories and clips, if you can, of press irresponsibility.

Journalists Bought and Paid for With Your Tax Dollars

There is an excellent but ultimately very disturbing article in this morning's New York Times which deserves a look. It demonstrates two things; it shows that the Bush Administration has been actively propagandizing to its very own people, which is disturbing enough. But it also demonstrates the extent to which the press, which is supposed to be our advocate to the government, actively pushes the Bush propaganda line. Here are a few excerpts;

Behind Analysts, the Pentagon’s Hidden Hand - New York Times.

In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.

The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized.

If the mainstream press wants to know why it's losing money and having to lay people off this is it. The reason people go to blogs for their information is because traditional journalism has let them down. Can you say "unethical"? There is nothing ethical in the above practice, journalistically speaking.

George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson are but a tip of the iceberg, folks, as are their main apologists, including the hack, David Brooks. This is a systemic problem, whereby the entire journalistic profession has completely forgotten what their purpose is. Their purpose is to keep public officials honest, by watching what they do.

Let me engage you in a little Journalism 101. First off, actual journalism should be hard. A good, investigative piece of journalism can take months, or even years, to complete. It requires a lot of very arduous research, and often, the information can be difficult to impossible to come by.  But that's your job. If you want to just repeat whatever bullshit the president's people dictate to you, then go work in his press office.

The fact that journalists today value "inside information and easy access to senior officials" demonstrates the biggest problem with journalism today; reporters are lazy and slothful, by and large. They all want to be millionaire anchors; they don't give a rat's ass about journalistic integrity, and the thrill of working their asses off to get the "good story." It shouldn't come as a shock that many of the best journalists in this country have foreign accents. Christiane Amanpour, for example. And has anyone done a better job of reporting on Iraq than Australian reporter Michael Ware?

Here's a clue, reporters; "easy access to senior officials" is usually a sign that you're NOT doing your job. If someone inside the Bush Administration is offering you "easy access" to any information, you should assume that the information is bullshit. Actually, if anyone in government from either side of the aisle offers you information without you having to dig for it, you should treat it as if it was a piece of moldy cheese, and be very  suspicious of it.

And why doesn't it piss off more people that they are using our tax dollars to feed us this crap? (Okay, in the interest of accuracy, they're using your grandchild's tax money, but still...) We are being soaked for the whole enchilada, folks; they're making us pay for the war, they're making us line the pockets of Bush cronies who are profiteering on the overpriced contracts in Iraq, and they're even making us pay for the lies that are designed to hide the facts that they screwed up an occupation, and that they're stealing from us.

I don't understand why people aren't more pissed off at this stuff.

 

Debate Analysis Shows ABC Really Did Embarrass Themselves

For those of you who wonder if Hillary Clinton's supporters were right, and if Obama's supporters are just a bunch of whiners, Nico Pitney, at the Huffington Post has actually done something the rest of the media (especially ABC, apparently) is too lazy and slothful to do -- he analyzed the questions asked at this debate, and the other three one-on-one Clinton-Obama debates, and came up with the facts.

Check it out here: Debate Analysis: ABC Asked Most Scandal Questions, Obama Was Clear Target - Politics on The Huffington Post.

It turns out that the allegedly "pro-Obama bias" on the part of the media is purely fictional, and that ABC definitely asked the worst questions. Surprise...

For Those of You Who Think the Hannity-Stephanopoulos Connection was Exaggerated...

This is one of the most disgraceful episodes in the history of American journalism.

Not only was Stephanopoulos once the head of the Clinton campaign, which should have disqualified him from participation in the first place. Now, we find out he's being fed debate questions from the extremely biased Sean Hannity (who doesn't just work for Fixed Noise, by the way; his radio show is syndicated by ABC), and feeding them to the candidates without even attempting to find out if there was a factual basis for the question.

Link: Think Progress.

Last night’s ABC News Democratic presidential candidates debate was co-moderated by George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson, but the unseen influence of Fox News’ Sean Hannity was also on stage.

Hannity, who for months has been aggressively pushing a story about Barack Obama’s connections to a former member of a radical anti-Vietnam 1970s organization called the Weather Underground, interviewed Stephanopoulos on his radio show on Tuesday, where he pressed the ABC host to ask Obama about this:

HANNITY: There are two questions that I don’t think anybody has asked Barack Obama, and I don’t know if this is going to be on your list tomorrow. One is – the only time he’s ever been asked about his association with Bill Ayers, the unrepentant terrorist from the Weather Underground who on 9/11 of all days in the New York Times was saying “I don’t regret setting bombs. I don’t think we did enough.” When asked about it by the Politico, David Axelrod said that they have a friendly relationship, and that they had done a number of speeches together and that they sat on a board together. Is that a question you might ask?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, I’m taking notes right now.

HANNITY: September 11, 2001 of all days, there was an article in the New York Times. And there are a number of quotes about Bill Ayers. The Politico had in there the comments from David Axelrod.

Absolutely disgraceful...

The audio of the conversation is at the link, as is the video of the question... remarkably similar... who'd a thunk that, huh?

Olbermann Channels O'Reilly

This is just too funny

Fox Noise Tub Ailes to Faux Business: Pretend to Be....

Check out this last line.... it's a scream... This is from TV Newser:

Roger Ailes, chairman and CEO of FOX News/FBN and chairman of FOX TV Stations, gave a field speech to the FBN troops Friday, in their newsroom. We're told it'll be the last time the entire team of anchors and reporters, producers and tech staff will meet together before Monday morning's launch.

Ailes talked about how the press covered the launch of FNC 11 years ago; that, despite the naysayers, FNC grew to become the number one news channel, less than six years after launch. His advice for the FBN team: integrity, attitude, teamwork and excellence are everything.

-------------------------------------------

Fox Noise is a joke among journalists -- absolutely no integrity. If negative integrity is possible, Fox Noise has that...

Fox Noise's attitude is, essentially, "screw the news! We prefer wingnut spin!"

Fox Noise is famous for firing people who don't toe the company's ideological line; you call that teamwork?

And above all, Fox Noise only qualifies for "excellence" if your goal is propagandizing to the idiots who buy your bullshit...

I hate to break it to Ailes, but when it comes to business reporting, the people you have to appeal to don't fall for the same bullshit that dittoheads do. If they do to Faux Business what they did to Fox Noise, CNBC has little to worry about...

Radio's Problem Is Radio People

First, read this whine from a local Baltimore radio general manager.

From: Radio may survive this, too -- baltimoresun.com.

"Because of satellite radio, more affluent people are going to use that service, so we have a smaller piece of the pie to slice up with the people remaining, who are not so affluent," said Bob Pettit, general manager of WCBM, the Baltimore talk-radio station at 680 AM. "The younger people are going to the new technologies. Radio used to be a very effective way to reach people aged 18 to 34. Now, not so much."

As a result, Pettit said, national advertisers are not turning to the old medium the way they once did, leaving the field to cheaper, and often local, ad buyers. In turn, the stations are obliged to charge less money because their demographic is poorer, he said, leaving the stations with less revenue.

In a word, bullshit. I can't tell you in how many ways this is wrong.

 

First off, everyone has a radio -- everyone.  Even people who hate technology have at least a little "transistor" radio they use to listen to ballgames. Most people will NOT opt for a satellite radio. broadcast radio could be extremely healthy, if the people programming it weren't so profoundly stupid, and programming the most boring radio in history.

Seriously, folks, this is the problem with American business; they hire all sorts of consultants, and buy all sorts of surveys, and come up with every excuse in the book, but what it really comes down to is, people don't tune in because radio has become incredibly boring and pointless.

If "affluent" people are buying satellite radio, there are two reasons. If you travel a lot in your car, satellite radio makes sense, because stations don't drift in and out all of the time. The other reason is because there is nothing to listen to on terrestrial radio.

The station this idiot runs, WCBM, is a great example of what I mean by stupid. He operates in a city where the population is so overwhelmingly Democratic that when the Democratic primary happens for mayor next month, the winner will be the next mayor, and in a state that has been overwhelmingly Democratic for generations, yet his lineup features all wingnuts, all the time. And he imagines that his audience is "affluent"? I think perhaps he meant his programming was effluent. This guy thought he scored a coup when the other station in town, WBAL, dropped Limbaugh, and he picked him up. Funny, but with Limbaugh, and Hannity, and Dr. Laura and the Savage Weiner, his ratings are still well below WBAL, which went to all-local, and significantly less offensive conservative talk. In a market that has probably the most liberal demographic in the country? How can that be?

And how about the little slap at the "not affluent." And you wonder why this guy isn't selling advertising? I hate to break it to him, but other stations in the market are making plenty of money , while FOCUSING on the "not affluent" demographic. And which "national advertisers" is he talking about when he says they don't want to advertise, except to an "affluent" audience? Coke? Pepsi? McDonalds? Burger King? Best Buy? Wal-Mart? Target? Hyundai?  Yeah, it really hard to see any of their ads, except on CNBC, huh? 
Only the rich drink Budweiser, folks, and only the rich use FedEx.

This is actually indicative of the attitude that has overtaken most of American business; the people who run things want to be able to sit on their asses and let the money flow in, and when that doesn't happen, they look for someone to blame. Radio these days largely sucks. I did a short stint on a station about 10 years ago; it was the first time I had been on the radio in almost 20 years, and I was shocked then, by how horrible it was. I walked into the studio, and immediately started choosing the music I wanted to play, only to be short-circuited by the PD of the station, who handed me a list of the songs I was to play and when, and even a summary of the banter I would provide between certain songs. It was awful, and I have no doubt it's become worse in the last ten years. And if I'm sitting behind the microphone, bored out of my skull, I can only imagine what the listener is thinking.

The problem with terrestrial radio isn't satellite radio; it's a lack of reason to not buy a satellite radio. If radio people want to fix the problem, they should start with three basic rules, taught to me by one of the great disk jockeys of all time;

Good radio is mostly local;
Good radio is mostly spontaneous; and
Good radio is interactive.

Give radio back to the people, and the radio people will find themselves awash in more money than they can imagine. if they have any imagination, that is...

Bancrofts Allow Murdoch to Kill WSJ

This is a tragedy for anyone who values the news media.

Even though their op-ed pages were horrible, The Wall Street Journal could always be counted on to report the news fairly and completely.

Now, Rupert Murdoch will undoubtedly do to the word "Journal" what he did to the word News, when he created the Republican propaganda arm known euphemistically as "Fox News."

From: Reuters.co.uk.

Dow Jones & Co. Inc.'s controlling Bancroft family "has accepted" News Corp.'s  $5 billion offer to buy the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, an executive of a Dow Jones unit said on Tuesday.

"The Bancroft family has accepted," John Prestbo, editor and executive director of Dow Jones Indexes, told reporters on Tuesday in Chicago. Dow Jones "will be part of News Corp," he said.

    Prestbo told Reuters the information came from an internal company memo.

No wonder blogs are so popular...

Seriously, is everything in this country about money? Why would you sell a family business with a great reputation to a guy who turns every news organization he touches to shit?

Shouldn't We Fine the FCC for "Indecency"?

Want proof that the FCC is completely inept?

For years, we've been treated to the spectacle of grown Republicans pretending to be offended by a one-second flash Janet Jackson's right breast at the Super Bowl, and the "f-word" anywhere, to the point that the wingnuts have hijacked the FCC and turned it into their own little censorship board, increasing fines ten-fold for people who utter one or two choice words, while allowing idiots like Michael Weiner-Savage to utter hate-filled garbage anytime he'd like.

Now, comes a story where the same FCC -- the FCC that is scared to death of boobs and bad words -- has approved certain call letters that should raise eyebrows, if not tempers...

From: starbulletin.com | Business | /2007/07/26/.

THE call letters KUNT have landed at a yet-unbuilt low-power digital television station in Wailuku, Maui.

Alarmingly similar to a word the dictionary says is obscene, the call letters were among a 15-page list of new call letters issued by the Federal Communications Commission and released this week.

The same station owner also received KWTF for a station in Arizona.

From Skokie, Ill., comes a sincere apology "to anyone that was offended," said Kevin Bae, vice president of KM Communications Inc., who requested and received KUNT and KWTF. It is "extremely embarrassing for me and my company and we will file to change those call letters immediately."

(...)

Broadcasters for generations have joked among themselves about call letters resembling off-color words or acronyms knowing the FCC would never approve their assignment -- but that was before computerization.

KCUF-FM near Aspen, Colo. got its F-word-in-reverse call letters in August of 2005 and has been on the air since December, "Keeping Colorado Uniquely Free," its Web site says.

Okay, so who's fining the FCC???

FCC Doesn't Understand its Purpose

Seriously, folks, how clueless is this government when the Chairman of the agency charged with overseeing the public airwaves has such a dismissive attitude toward the concept that everyone in the community owns the airwaves.

From: Print Story: FCC chair: Fairness Doctrine not needed on Yahoo! News.

The Federal Communications Commission has no intention of reinstating the Fairness Doctrine imposing a requirement of balanced coverage of issues on public airwaves, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said.

Martin, in a letter written this week to Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., and made public Thursday, said the agency found no compelling reason to revisit its 1987 decision that enforcing the federal rule was not in the public interest.

Several Democratic lawmakers suggested that Congress take another look at the doctrine after conservative radio talk show hosts aggressively attacked an immigration reform bill when it was on the Senate floor, contributing to its defeat.

Pence and other Republicans in both the House and Senate countered by introducing legislation to bar the FCC from reinstating the rule.

So, here you have a Republican Representative -- you know, a member of the party that has spent the 3 years since Janet Jackson revealed her right boob on national television, and little children fell over dead from the sight, increasing fines for "indecency" without actually defining it and trying to outlaw the utterance of a half dozen choice words that we all know cause cancer.  That party wants to outlaw bad words AND fairness of any kind, even if Congress changes the meaning a bit.

It gets better, folks:

Martin, in his letter, said government regulation was not needed to ensure public access to a wide range of opinion. "Indeed, with the continued proliferation of additional sources of information and programming, including satellite broadcasting and the Internet, the need for the Fairness Doctrine has lessened even further since 1987," he wrote.

Is there someone in the Republican government that is not clueless about their job?

Can we start with the fact that the FCC doesn't regulate satellite broadcasting or the Internet, and they're supposed to regulate the broacast airwaves without regard to the other technologies out there.

But talk about your elitists! (Is it okay for someone NOT on Fox Noise to use that word?)

The only one of the above that he regulates is the one that's free, and he's essentially refusing to regulate it. Therefore, the people who need information the most, only have access to music without news, and right wing talk.  His job isn't to tell a poor single mother in the inner city that, if she doesn't like the choices for information available to her, to go hook up the Internet!

No one's asking to take the right wingers off the air. And no one's necessarily talking about going back to the original Fairness doctrine, exactly as is. But come on; when you're driving in the car and your only choices for information are Hannity and Limbaugh, who just tell bald-faced lies and parade them as truth, is it really too much to expect that OUR Federal Communications Commission demand that the record be corrected?? A radio station license holder is supposed to 'serve the public interest,' but most of the public interest is ignored, and it's the FCC's fault.

Seriously, all of these people need to go, and be replaced with folks who actually understand the concept of 'public interest." I'm disgusted.

 

Senate Prudes Take Action Against.... Bad words?

So,let's get this straight.

These schmucks can't pass a bill to stop the massive killing of our troops and innocent Iraqi citizens. They can't pass a bill to address the 12 million immigrants who are here illegally. They can't find the political will to fix a health care system that's killing people daily. But goddammit, they sure as shit can pass a worthless bill, so that your kids wont hear words like "fuck" or "shit."

Link: FMQB: Radio Industry News, Music Industry Updates, Arbitron Ratings, Music News and more!.

As expected, the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee has voted in favor of the Protecting Children From Indecent Programming Act, which allows the FCC to fine television and radio broadcasters for airing profanities, even if they are fleeting, unscripted words or images. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.VA), came in response to a recent federal appellate court decision that struck down the FCC's attempt to issue indecency violations for broadcasts that inadvertently aired fleeting expletives. If the bill is passed by the full Senate and ultimately signed into law, it would put the blame on broadcasters for unscripted or unexpected indecency.

FCC chairman Kevin Martin commented on the Commerce Committee's passing of the Rockefeller bill, saying in a statement that it "affirmed the commission's ability to protect our children from indecent language and images on television and radio. Significantly, members of Congress stated once again what we on the commission and every parent already knows; even a single word or image can indeed be indecent."

You know what, you worthless idiots? A single word or image CAN be indecent. No doubt about it. But no one can stop a kid from hearing it, no matter what sorts of safeguards you put up. We have a president who flips people off in public, and a vice president who tells people to "fuck off" on the Senate floor, and then claims he "feels good about it." You think that, somehow, if they don't hear it on television, they don't ever hear it?

And while you focus on "cuss words," hate speech rules the goddamn airwaves on a daily basis. Keep watching this blog; you'll see stuff that is REALLY dangerous for kids to hear. Seriously; which words are more damaging to children; the word "fuck" shouted as an expletive, or a scumbag like Michael Weiner-Savage telling your kids that all gays who have kids are child abusers? You think hearing certain words is bad, how about a failed transsexual experiment like Ann Coulter calling everyone she doesn't like a "faggot," as a synonym for "weak"? How about Comedian Rush Limbaugh referring to Barack Obama and Halle Berry as "Halfrican American" because they happen to be the product of a loving couple who didn't let their racism cloud their love for each other?

No one has ever been killed by any of the words the Senate Commerce Committee now wants to waste more tax money on, in  a lame attempt to ban them from the airwaves. No one has ever been maimed by words, no one's ever been actually, physically hurt by words.

On the other hand, if you're going to make the claim that certain words are "indecent" and somehow hurt our children, then the handful of expletives the idiots in the Senate and the FCC want to ban are the least of them.

I think it's time we started making complaints to the FCC, every time we hear something that is actually indecent from our radios and televisions.

Every time you hear something that's actually offensive coming over your airwaves, go to the FCC's Electronic Comment filing system, and lodge a complaint. In all of these years, the FCC has never really fashioned a definition for "indecent"; perhaps we can guide them in the right direction...

 

You Call Glenn Beck's Crap CNN Headline NEWS?

On his Thursday night CNN Headline News crapfest, Glenn Beck (ironically, during a segment called "Real Story") brought on some guy whose seeming purpose in life is to shill for the nuclear power industry. (He's not, which we'll get to a bit later on…) He started off with the basic Beck idiocy; actually, I think right wing talk show hosts have this sort of crap patented somewhere, because they all use it. They simply state something as if it's fact, and since there is no one available to rebut them, it simply lays there, like the steaming turd that it is. IN introducing this guy, he let off a few stinkers;

 

Now, let`s move into another hot topic: $9-a-gallon gasoline in Norway is ridiculous. How about the $3 a gallon that we`re paying here in the U.S. now? It`s no day at the beach. And the "Real Story" is, gas prices are getting so high, most people aren`t even going to be able to afford to go to the beach soon. According to a new poll, nearly half of all Americans would rather reduce their driving, retail and entertainment spending if gas goes to $3.50 a gallon -- and trust me, it ain`t a matter of if, it`s a matter of when -- so what do you do?

 

One newspaper in Norway claims that taxes cause a gallon of gas to cost $9 per gallon, but there is no evidence that it's a fact. According to almost every source EXCEPT that one article, including AA Roadwatch, the price is about $6.50 currently. 

 

About 15 seconds later, Beck begins to get philosophical.

 

The bottom line is that we`re all going to have to keep driving, because it`s a reality. We`re all going to all have to heat our houses, and we`re all going to go on living our lives. So we can`t afford literally, or figuratively, to dismiss any energy option.

 

Okay, so shitting into a large box and burning it in our living rooms to keep warm is still on the table? Putting millions of orphaned dogs and cats onto treadmills to generate electricity is still being considered? Can we burn corpses for fuel? We really can't dismiss ANY energy option?

 

We ALL can't keep driving, to the extent we do now. I mean, for Chrissakes, folks, look at traffic now, and compare it to traffic 20 years ago. The reality is, we must change our lifestyles in significant ways, and part of that is to demand more public transportation, such as electric rail lines, monorails, or whatever we can manage, and we have to stop moving farther and farther out of town. And we have to work toward electric cars.

 

You see, one of the reasons Europeans, like the Norwegians, pay so much more for gasoline is because they tax it and use that money to build transportation infrastructure. Compare that to the United States, where our genius lawmakers reduced the gas tax by almost a nickel a few years back, because that nickel was such an incredible burden on taxpayers (how's that working out for you?), and who keep trying to cut funding for public transportation. Norwegians have a smaller country, so they don't have to drive very far in the first place, but they also have far higher mileage standards than we have, and they have an excellent public transportation system.

 

We need some sort of truth detector when it comes to news. The news channels seem to strive for balance between right and left, but there seems to be little attempt to correct the record, for the record.

 

It used to be that all news outfits had several layers between the reporter and the audience, be it print or electronic media. Woodward and Bernstein weren't allowed to print anything about Richard Nixon, unless there was corroborating evidence that it was true. Fact checkers used to comb over every work, to make sure the story was accurate. Yes there were papers that engaged in "yellow journalism," which were less concerned about the facts, but everyone knew which those were. Nowadays, the line is blurring between The National Enquirer and CBS News. And with more and more radio blithering heads moving their bullshit to the ever-more-aptly-named "boob tube," well, why can they continue to call the channel CNN Headline "News"? Seriously, what does an idiot like Glenn Beck offer in the way of news?

 

This is the kind of garbage that was thrown out there:

 

Dennis Avery is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and author of "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years." Dennis, is there a shortage of three-eyed babies in Russia? Why are they thinking about 26 nuclear reactors when they`re really not good at it?

 

DENNIS AVERY, HUDSON INSTITUTE: Well, the death toll from Chernobyl is only about 50 people, and they think it`s been overstated. And the rest of the world thinks they can build nuclear reactors with safety shields. And the French have done it. They`re getting two-thirds of their electricity from nuclear plants. And we`ve been backed into a nuclear corner by the environmental movement.

 

BECK: Well, I tell you, you know, it is amazing. I mean, Dennis, let`s not kid around here. Chernobyl was a bad thing. But...

 

AVERY: Yes, it was.

 

BECK: ... you see on the news about Tokyo, it`s my understanding that the nuclear spill that has happened is one one-billionth of the legal level. Is that even possibly true? Because I sure don`t hear that on TV.

 

AVERY: How many people die in coal mining accidents every year?

 

BECK: I don`t know. A lot.

 

AVERY: A lot. The total safety profile of nuclear is very safe.

 

Pasted from <http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0707/19/gb.01.html>

 

First of all, don't you love how these guys just throw the names of their organizations out there, as if every "Institute" or "Foundation" was automatically legitimate. The "Hudson Institute" isn't exactly a purely scholarly, non-partisan group. Its focus these days is on foreign policy and national security issues, and their web site features a smattering of moderate pieces, mixed among a huge number of poorly researched opinion pieces written by former Reagan and Bush 41 appointees. I mean, the Trustees include Al "I'm in charge!" Haig, Pete DuPont and Dan Quayle, although in Quayle's case, the designation (honorary) appears next to his name, so to their credit, they do understand he's not exactly a scholar. But if you read the articles on the Hudson Institute's web site, you find a hodgepodge of articles that do not reveal a tremendous amount of actual research.

 

But let's do some fact checking, shall we?

 

First of all, let's start with Avery himself. Dennis Avery is NOT a nuclear expert. His specialty is food production. He has written about nuclear power before, in which he attempted to discount the ill effects, should the United States nuclear industry proliferate and there were suddenly hundreds of plants all over the country, and even seems to suggest that increased radiation levels decreases the incidents of cander. The article was written in 2004, and to his credit, he did at least acknowledge that the globe was warming, although he included the obligatory right wing anti-conservative non-argument that we're not sure if humans are the cause. He also demonstrated that he is either extremely lazy, intellectually speaking, or just knows he's full of shit, because he mentions study after study in the article, but gives no details about the study. Sorry, Dennis, but I don't buy anyone's interpretation of a study until I can read the whole thing in context. I'm funny that way.

 

So, after reading Dennis's previous writing on nuclear power, I'm not surprised by the enormous number of half-truths and outright bullshit he hands the audience, and village idiot Glenn Beck just lets lay there like so many radioactive turds.

 

The direct, immediate death toll from Chernobyl around the reactor itself was 56. But what Avery leaves out of his instant analysis is the estimated 9000 cases of thyroid cancer among children, and many others who may still contract cancer throughout the area most heavily affected. Sixty percent of the fallout, for example, fell on Belarus. In fact, radiation from the explosion was carried through most of the world, including North America. He also fails to note that more than 336,000 people were evacuated.

 

Avery also failed to note, that the reactor that blew up was being shut down for testing, and was not even close to full capacity. The problem was, the nuclear technicians brought in to test, made a mistake, and shut down the reactor too fast. In other words, human error. He also failed to note that, under the circumstances, what ended up coming from that particular reactor was a cloud of radioactive dust, not water vapor, which meant the radioactivity was more highly concentrated over a smaller area. Still, the highest concentration covered more than 155,000 sq. km, and affected 7 million people. In Belarus, the worst-hit country in the region, more than 6,000 sq km of farm land is unusable, and more than 100,000 people had to be resettled. Throughout the region, they are still finding cancer clusters, and the affected seem to be mostly children. In the nuclear industry article cited above, Avery dismisses cancer as "overwhelmingly a disease of old age." So, how does he explain so many children with thyroid cancer?

 

He is right, that the nuclear industry's safety profile is very good, by traditional standards, but the fact of the matter is, the potential for major damage is unlike anything we've seen before, and the question we have to ask ourselves is, if there are many other ways to generate the energy we need, why put any of our eggs in the nuclear basket? If one small nuclear reactor explosion in the boonies in the middle of the night can displace hundreds of thousands of people and make so much farmland unusable, the only question that matters to us should be, are we willing to take the risk for a few measly megawatts of electricity?

 

See, if the only choices available were oil and nuclear, we'd have to choose oil, because an oil-fired power plant isn't likely to create a plume of radioactivity that could affect hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people. Yes, the French get three-quarters of their energy from nuclear power right now, but the fact that one country does something doesn't mean there isn't a better alternative. They also spent more than a half TRILLION dollars building that infrastructure, for a country that is about the size of Colorado and Wyoming, and with a population roughly one-fifth the size of ours.

 

BECK: It seems to me that the environmental movement has been very, very good at marrying the word "nuclear energy" right to "nuclear bomb." The word "nuclear" scares people. And there is -- you know, you should think of the energy of the sun, not the energy of the atom bomb. There`s a difference. I don`t want to live on the sun, but as long as we use the sun appropriately, it`s a good thing, right?

 

AVERY: They`re suing to stop two geothermal plants in Northern California, which have no emissions of any kind, just two nine-acre sites in the middle of the boondocks. And the environmentalists say, "Well, that was really pretty, and we don`t want to mess it up." It`s 18 acres with no emissions, two power plants.

 

BECK: Yes. The problem is -- and this is what I tried to say to, you know, RFK Jr., I mean, we`ve got to come together. There are no perfect solutions, but it doesn`t seem like they want any solutions. You know, one of the founders of Greenpeace who was on who said, you know, the answer is clean nuclear energy. You`ve got to have energy. This is clean. And when Greenpeace said, "No, no, no," he realized this is all about politics. It`s not really actually about keeping things clean and green. Isn`t it true that nuclear energy has zero CO2 emissions?

 

AVERY: Zero C02. And then we contrast it with corn ethanol, which produces 50 gallons worth of gasoline per acre per year, against an annual demand of 135 billion gallons. How much of America`s forest are we going to destroy to grow low-grade auto fuel at 50 gallons per acre per year?

 

BECK: I`ve got to tell you, the ethanol thing, I`m sorry, heartland, I know you love it. It`s good for the farmers. It is bad, bad news for the environment and bad news for the country and bad news for our energy needs in the future.

 

Pasted from <http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0707/19/gb.01.html>

 

Okay, let's start with the "environmental movement." By implication, Beck means "liberals." But here's the funny thing; the far right has done far more "marrying" of "nuclear energy" with "nuclear bomb" than any liberal. Iran's trying to build a nuclear plant to generate power, but the Bushies (perhaps rightfully) refer to it as a "nuclear program," and imply that Iran wants to build a bomb. Ditto North Korea.

 

As for ethanol, I'm not aware of anyone who is proposing ethanol as a permanent solution to our energy needs. Ethanol should be an interim solution, to break our dependence on oil, but our ultimate goal simply has to be natural energy production, such as solar, wind, tide and geothermal power. And we have to make everything far more efficient, so that the same amount of energy stretches twice as far.

 

They did get one thing right; there are no CO2 emissions from nuclear plants. But do you know what they forgot to mention?

 

The waste.

 

You see, you don't have smoke coming from a nuclear plant, but there is an awful lot of radioactive waste to dispose of somehow. And right now, we have tons and tons of waste just waiting for someplace to dispose of it, and more nuclear plants would mean more of that.

 

Another aspect of nuclear power Avery just kind of blew off include the immense cost. He throws around the French model as an example, but fails to mention that France has spent more than $600 billion on their nuclear infrastructure over the years, for a country that's about the size of Colorado and New Mexico, and has a population roughly one-fifth the size of ours. If you like $1000 a month electric bills, you'll love nuclear power.

 

The bottom line on all of this is, if the idiots in the news media want more viewers/listeners/readers, they're going to have to start supplying the market with a product that it doesn't already have; the facts, unvarnished and certified as facts. In other words, real journalism we can trust. We can all hear blowhards' opinions anytime we want; we all work with people like that, we all have a relative like that; we can overhear that sort of thing out on the street, if we just keep our eyes and ears open.

 

What we need from the news is, well… the news. Unvarnished facts, parading before our eyes and ears without the spin of the person presenting them.

 

If you want to make money hand over fist, just give us the facts. That's all we ask. Glenn Beck doesn't deal in facts, and has no place on CNN Headline NEWS.

And CBS Wonders Why It's in Last Place??

Here is an interesting item, courtesy of media Matters, that is the quintessential example of why journalists throughout the mainstream media absolutely MUST go back to fact reporting, and stop injecting their own analysis into every report.

Look at this report from CBSNews.com through  Media Matters :

At one point, Obama seemed to take aim at Edwards, who has tried to make poverty the main issue of his candidacy.

"This kind of poverty is not an issue I just discovered for the purposes of a campaign," Obama stressed just nine minutes into his comments. "It is the cause that led me to a life of public service almost twenty-five years ago."

The timing of Obama's speech -- scheduled on the same day that Edwards scheduled his tour's finale in Kentucky -- suggests that Obama plans on fighting Edwards for title of defender of the poor. In fact, Obama pointed out he turned down lucrative offers at major law firms to return to the south side of Chicago as a community organizer, while Edwards went on to make millions as a trial lawyer before beginning his career in public service.

Jonathan Prince, Edwards' campaign manager, told reporters on a conference call Wednesday that while Obama had "been working hard throughout his life to make a difference," Edwards was "committed to the issue of poverty long before he was in public life."

Asked about Obama's comment, Prince responded by emphasizing Edwards' record on the issue, adding, "I have no reason to think that Senator Obama was talking about Senator Edwards at all."

You know, one of the things I have found striking about the 2008 campaign so far, is that the near-complete respect the tope-tier candidates have for each other (Clinton and Edwards' overheard discussion notwithstanding, of course.), and Prince's reaction to this absolutely absurd question was right on the mark. Here is an excerpt of Obama's speech, including context, and it is clear to anyone who actually listened to it exactly what Obama is talking about.

 

OBAMA: But poverty is not just a function of simple economics. It's also a matter of where you live. There are vast swaths of rural America and block after block in our cities where poverty is not just a crisis that hits pocketbooks, but a disease that infects every corner of the community. I'll be outlining my rural agenda in the coming weeks, but today I want to talk about what we can do as a nation to combat the poverty that persists in our cities.

 

This kind of poverty is not an issue I just discovered for the purposes of a campaign, it's the cause that led me to a life of public service almost 25 years ago.

 

I was just two years out of college when I first moved to the South Side of Chicago to become a community organizer. I was hired by a group of churches that were trying to deal with steel plant closures that had devastated the surrounding neighborhoods. Everywhere you looked, businesses were boarded up, schools were crumbling, teenagers were standing aimlessly on street corners, without jobs, without hope, without prospects for the future.

 

He's not talking about John Edwards; he's talking about HIMSELF. He is saying that he didn't just discover poverty for the purposes of HIS campaign. He's not casting aspersions on anyone else, and Prince's response was right on.

How about a  quick journalism lesson; who, what, where, why and how.  If you can't answer any or all of these questions, you don't report it. Edwards' name was not mentioned in the speech, so what sort of journalist would report that he was talking about Edwards without asking first. And no, you didn't ask, Whitney Smith, CBS News intern. You asked Prince to comment on what Obama said, and even he said that he didn't think Obama was talking about him. And yet, you STILL wrote that Obama "seemed to" be talking about Edwards.  Given that Edwards' spokesperson didn't think that was the case, don't you think you should have re-read and re-evaluated what you thought you heard?

And I refuse to blow this off, because Ms. Smith is "just an intern." As an intern, it's pretty much a guarantee that someone above her approved this sloppy piece of writing, and did not hold her up to the journalistic standards that CBS News used to be known for.

Again; if you want to know why people don't pay attention to the mainstream press, this is why. if people want personal news analysis, there are a million blogs out there, including this one, to provide that; why in God's name would they go to CBS News to get some intern's take on what she thought Obama might have meant.

Stick to the facts. There is more of a market for them, anyway. The opinion market is saturated.

How News Loses Credibility in One easy Step.

This is a horrible trend, and absolute proof that the people running cable news are all about short-term profits, and have no idea what their actual job is supposed to be.

from The Hollywood Reporter: CNN's Beck in bed with ad.

In the first ever on-air pitch for one of its advertisers, CNN Headline News talk show host Glenn Beck recently plugged one of his radio show sponsors -- Select Comfort mattresses.

Despite the long-standing journalistic practice of keeping news free of commercial messages to preserve editorial integrity, a Headline News spokesman noted that Beck's show is a "point-of-view" program and not a traditional newscast.

"Select Comfort is Glenn Beck's/Headline News' first and only advertiser to have an on-air entitlement, and it's specifically targeted for his show," the spokesman said. "The advertiser has a relationship with Glenn Beck that extends beyond his Headline News program."

Can you believe this crap? During a program on a channel named "Headline news," they have someone purporting to be a "newsman" (yes, I know; it's impossible to take an idiot like Glenn Beck seriously in any forum) stopping in mid-report and touting the benefits of SelectComfort beds.

I understand that he does this on his radio show, and I don't have a problem with that. But CNN Headline News, um, is a NEWS channel. People go there to watch the news. It's bad enough that there are too many opinion programs on these channels in the first place. But why make the water even muddier by removing any semblance of credibility from the channels altogether?

Isn't it bad enough that FNC refers to itself as a "news" channel, despite the fact that they don't report on very much news at all?

Imagine if this catches on. You're watching NBC News one day, and Chip Reid's reporting on today's doings at the White House, when suddenly he pulls out a box of Tide with Bleach, and tells Brian Williams, "You know, Brian, our viewers may not live in the White House, but their clothes can be white..."

Or, imagine you're reading an article in the New York Times: " the robber fled the store and jumped into a 2008 Cadillac Escalade, the luxury SUV that now comes with a 100,000 mile Cadillac warranty, to make his escape."

Once again, if the news people want to know why fewer and fewer people are getting their news from traditional sources, talk to me. Report the news, just the news, and the profits will be greater than you ever dreamed of...

 

Tucker! Man's Man! Spirit Fingers! Jazz Hands!

From the July 17 edition of MSNBC's Tucker (from Media Matters):

CARLSON: Speaking of made up, Mitt Romney -- 300 dollars for a make up company called Hidden Beauty. I would mock him, but I wear makeup for a living, so that would be hypocritical, so I'm not going to.

Can we please stop this bullshit with the double standards?

I mean, what is it with this idiot, anyway? He's always referring to Obama with terms like "wuss," and he's always insinuating crap about Edwards because of his $400 haircut. Could we, at some point, actually discuss the issues?

And may I say, I don't think it's all that credible for Tucker Carlson to be commenting on another's manhood.

Look at these pictures, will you? This guy doesn't exactly strike you as someone who could play linebacker for the Broncos, you know?

And Tucker; you not only wear make up for a living, you also get your hair cut and groomed, and probably at a cost at least comparable to the $400 Edwards paid.

Just cut the crap, and start talking about politics if you're going to pass yourself off as a pundit, will you?

Keith Olbermann Says it Best...

Time to Resign, Presidents Bush and Cheney...

Let's Be Fair

I'd like to address this post to the folks on the left and the right, who seem to be against any sort of Fairness Doctrine; you don't understand the underlying purpose of the Fairness Doctrine, or the reason why broadcast licenses exist in the first place.

The Fairness Doctrine was eliminated back in 1987 by Ronald Reagan, when there was very little political talk radio. Apparently, some station owners felt hog-tied, because they couldn't simply put of misinformation out there, and let it stand, unmolested, for millennia. See, if you repeat a lie enough times, it actually becomes the truth in many people's minds, unless someone else presents the truth.

One of the reasons Rush Limbaugh has been so successful is because he's been able to lie for nearly 20 years without any response from anyone else. The reason HE fears the return of the Fairness Doctrine, is because he can't survive if most people know he's full of shit.

But it puzzles me when moderate liberals like Ed Schultz and Alan Colmes come out against it, especially when they spout goofy reasoning such as the ridiculous claim that it would infringe on a station owner's right to free speech.

Let me clear up a few things.

First off, Megaradio Corp. does not own the public airwaves in any of the markets in which is holds a license. What they hold is a series of licenses, each of which gives them the right to use a particular frequency to broadcast, and perhaps make money. The actual purpose of the broadcast spectrum, according to the Communications Act is "communication," not entertainment; therefore, they are NOT entitled to broadcast anything they wish.

Somehow, a whole bunch of people got the idea (probably from the one-sided airwaves!) that broadcasters have the right to put whatever they want on the air. Worse, apparently we think they're entitled to make money from their license, no matter how stupid they are. Excuse me, but we own the airwaves, not Megaradio Corp, and it's not our fault that the idiots who run Megaradio Corp spent millions of dollars each for many of the broadcast licenses they hold. It also doesn't matter; their first responsibility is to the people in the community served by that broadcast license. And that license requires that they program "in the public interest." If they can make a lot of money (and let's face it -- an awful lot of people earned their fortunes in an era when the Fairness Doctrine was a fact of life), God bless them. But their need to make money should not relieve them of their responsibility to "serve the public interest."

THAT was the purpose behind the Fairness Doctrine. It was a legislative attempt to make sure not only that all points of view were represented, but to also see to it that outright lies were not broadcast unchallenged. The Fairness Doctrine wasn't an "assault" on a radio station owner's alleged "free speech" rights; it was an attempt to assert the public's right to trust the information broadcast to them on their very own airwaves.

Where the hell does this notion of "free speech" come from, anyway? Individuals who hold broadcast licenses don't have the right to say or broadcast anything they want, any more than someone standing on the street corner gets to shout everyone else down 24/7 for as long as he wants. A broadcast frequency is a LICENSE to use a frequency, not a license to lock everyone else out from being able to express an opinion. Liken it to a city issuing permits to hold a parade. Your use isn't open ended, and you can’t use your parade permit to stop demonstrations from occurring on the sidewalk. Making sure that as many viewpoints as possible are represented is not a usurpation of any "free speech rights" on the owner's part, anymore than making it illegal for him to scream anti-Bush slogans in his front yard at 3 AM would be an abrogation of his free speech rights.

You see, this is an example of how the right has brainwashed Americans, folks. The rich keep telling us that all they want are the same rights as everyone else, but what they're actually asking for is more rights than anyone else. They would have us believe that giving money to a candidate qualifies as "free speech," and therefore, limiting their ability to contribute is an abrogation of their right to free speech, which is a ludicrous assertion. Everyone should have the same right to free speech, regardless of money; holding a license to use a broadcast station does not entitle you to program whatever the hell you want on it. In fact, it's quite the opposite; a Broadcast license is an agreement to use that frequency to broadcast "in the public interest."

Look at what we have right now.

Ninety percent of all talk radio is right wing. Not conservative, but far right. And almost all of these stations are far right wing 24/7, with the possible exception being weekends, when they program infomercials. Many of these stations are located in areas where there are only 2-3 radio stations, and choices are extremely limited. That means a large portion of the country hear one thing, and most of the time, it's pure bullshit. Even in places where one would think another viewpoint would be welcome and a money maker, none can be found. In Washington, DC, for example, there are nine commercial talk radio stations, not including sports talk. Of that number, six are predominantly right wing, while three are not. One is "urban talk," one is a mish-mash of news and sports talk that is actually neither left nor right, and the weakest signal of the lot is reserved for "progressive talk." That's right; in the bluest region in the entire country, there are two stations that counter the right wing lies on the other six stations, and one of them can barely be heard in most of the area during the day, and pretty much disappears at night.

It's even worse in Baltimore, also in one of the bluest areas of the country. There are four news/talk stations in the Baltimore market, and one, an urban station, is NOT dominated by right wingers. In Baltimore!

A return to the Fairness Doctrine is not enough, of course. The ownership issue must also be addressed, especially with the dawn of HD radio. I wonder how many folks realize that the ownership situation is about to get worse, and each frequency begins to carry 3-4 stations each? There should be strict ownership limits, license terms should be shortened, and we should return to a regulatory scheme which requires regular news and informational reports, and a mechanism for giving groups access to their airwaves to correct the record, when lies are propagated as truth. But the Fairness Doctrine has to be a part of any new regulatory scheme.

When fairness isn't present in a public institution, sometimes you have to legislate it. And  make no mistake; the  airwaves are a PUBLIC institution.