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Media Bias Tag

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on October 18, 2016 17 Comments
In the midst of the furor over the Podesta email leaks, Politico finds itself in the middle of the media bias scandal many of the emails have revealed. In 2015 , Glenn Thrush, Politico’s chief White House correspondent, sent an article he was writing at the time to Podesta so that he could approve it. At least Thrush knew he was acting improperly for a supposed "journalist" and recognized himself as a "hack" while begging Podesta not to "share or tell anyone" he "did this." Fox News reports:
A Politico reporter called himself a “hack” when he asked Hillary Clinton’s top campaign aide John Podesta to look over sections of his unpublished report on the Democratic presidential candidate before publication, a recent email revealed by WikiLeaks shows. The May 2015 story, written by Glenn Thrush, Politico’s chief White House correspondent, was titled, “Hillary’s big-money dilemma.” The article focused on early difficulties Clinton's campaign would face to raise money during the 2016 White House run.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 16, 2016 11 Comments
Donna Brazile, a CNN contributor and at the time DNC Vice Chair (now Chair), was caught through the Wikileaks Podesta email dump feeding to Hillary's campaign a question to be used at a CNN presidential town hall. We covered the story previously, Brazile Gave Hillary Campaign Town Hall Question in Advance:
The Wikileaks dump of Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta emails shows that then-CNN contributor, now DNC interim chair, Donna Brazile gave Hillary a question ahead of a CNN town hall. Brazile sent this email to Podesta and a few aides, with the subject “From time to time I get the questions in advance.”

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 15, 2016 23 Comments
Donald Trump is claiming in his recent speeches that the election is "rigged." It's unclear what he means by "rigged" -- is it physical tampering (for which there is no proof) or a bias in the media to unfairly sway public opinion (for which there is plenty of proof), or both. Regardless, the claim of "rigging" is being treated as one of the worst threats to our democracy ever! https://twitter.com/RyanLizza/status/787303407312838656 I did some searching, and it seems that presidential election fraud claims were made against George W. Bush in 2000 (mostly related to the Florida recount) and 2004.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 15, 2016 15 Comments
You may recall that the State Department produced certain Sidney Blumenthal emails with Hillary Clinton that were not included in the emails Hillary turned over to the State Department. The story of more Blumenthal emails beyond what Hillary turned over called into question Hillary's repeated claim that everything work-related was turned over to the State Department, and only purely personal emails (like regarding Yoga) were deleted. In searching the Wikileaks database of the Podesta email hack, Mary found the email exchange below which shows that the Clinton campaign received a heads up that the State Department was to produce the emails to a House committee, and team Clinton scrambled to prepare a response in advance of the State Department turning over the emails to Congress. There are several aspects of this email that are important, including that the State Department was considering planting a story with a friendly reporter at AP and that the Clinton campaign and the State Department were working together to create messaging for Hillary:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 14, 2016 24 Comments
I mostly missed the Ken Bone phenomenon. I either wasn't watching or wasn't listening when he asked a question at the last presidential debate. He then became a media darling, though I'm not really sure why. Something to do with his red sweater, apparently. And the fact that after the debate he said he started off leaning towards Trump, but was impressed with and considering Hillary. It was a perfect pro-Clinton media meme, common guy journalists otherwise would mock becomes cool because he moves from Trump to Hillary; a good example for the common folk to hear about. Bone then sought to cash in, selling a version of his red sweater and doing other stuff to make a buck and promote himself.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 11, 2016 13 Comments
You may remember the October 28, 2015 Republican Debate held by CNBC. Memory as in bad memory. The moderators were abysmal, but John Harwood stood out as the worst among them. National Review wrote at the time:
The emerging consensus from tonight’s CNBC debate is that the moderators were rude. John Harwood in particular distinguished himself by not just asking tough questions, but asking them in the most insulting possible way — interrupting candidates mid-reply, offering his own editorializing, and shouting down candidates attempting to defend themselves. Chris Christie seemed to capture the mood of the candidates and the crowd when — angry at Harwood’s hectoring — he finally said “even in New Jersey what you’re doing is rude.”
I wrote at the time, GOP needs to make an example of NBC News:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on October 09, 2016 10 Comments
In an exclusive report, the Intercept has published a series of documents that show how Hillary and her team worked closely with the media in order to coordinate messaging and showing Hillary in a positive light. The Intercept reports:
The emails were provided to The Intercept by the source identifying himself as Guccifer 2.0, who was reportedly responsible for prior significant hacks, including one that targeted the Democratic National Committee and resulted in the resignations of its top four officials. On Friday, Obama administration officials claimed that Russia’s “senior-most officials” were responsible for that hack and others, although they provided no evidence for that assertion. As these internal documents demonstrate, a central component of the Clinton campaign strategy is ensuring that journalists they believe favorable to Clinton are tasked to report the stories which the campaign wants circulated.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on October 06, 2016 26 Comments
Right, Donny. Because who could ever come up with an argument against Hillary Clinton, possibly the most corrupt, scandal-ridden, jaded candidate in the history of presidential politics? On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough, to his credit, fulminated against anti-Trump MSM reporters who are supposed to write stories down the middle but are instead "openly cheering for Hillary Clinton." That's when Donny Deutsch defended media bias, saying that reporters have a "conscience" and that "sometimes there's no other side to an argument."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 02, 2016 52 Comments
The Clinton campaign's rollout of the "fat shaming" claim against Donald Trump has been a thing to see. This is part and parcel of what has become media collusion with the Clinton campaign, including the coordinated campaign and media rollout of the “fat-shaming” claim. (As to which Trump has completely taken the bait, as the Clinton campaign in-house psychological profilers likely predicted.) Molly Hemingway at The Federalist notes, Alicia Machado Is 2016’s Sandra Fluke, A Democratic Public Relations Scam:
But when Clinton talks about Machado, and runs conference calls for the media with her, and sets up photo shoots with her, and whatnot, everyone just complies and forgets to mention they’re taking marching orders from the campaign. How else to explain how everyone chose the same angle as the Clinton campaign asked them to? Media outlets could have noted that they themselves were calling Machado a fatty-boombaladdy at the exact same time Trump made his remarks. They could have noted that beauty pageant winners are generally judged by their … how do you say it … BEAUTY. Or they could have chosen entirely different angles.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 01, 2016 10 Comments
Remember when Mitt Romney stated the obvious at a private fundraiser, that 47% of people want government handouts because of their life circumstances? And there was an unending media feeding frenzy that likely cost Romney the election? The fact that the initial leaked tape was incomplete and left out context made no difference. Well, Hillary Clinton just had such a moment in a private fundraiser, in wording (listen to audio later in post) eerily similar to Romney's, but directed at younger people and Bernie supporters. Politico reports:

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 17, 2016 16 Comments
Missouri lawmakers have overridden a veto to allow concealed carry (Missouri already had open carry) and to grant more legal rights for self-defense. KSDK reports:
Missouri lawmakers have overridden a veto of a wide-ranging guns bill that will let more people carry concealed weapons and give them greater legal rights to defend themselves. The Republican-led Legislature enacted the law Wednesday by a 24-6 Senate vote and a 112-41 vote in the House. Both exceeded the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto of Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon. The legislation will allow most people to carry concealed guns without needing a permit. That means they won't have to go through the training currently required for permit holders. Missouri will join 10 other states with what supporters describe as a "constitutional carry" right. The measure also expands legal protections for those who use deadly force to defend themselves in both public and private places.

Posted by Mary Chastain on September 14, 2016 13 Comments
Members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) have sued producer Katie Couric and director Stephanie Soechtig for $12 million after an edit in their movie Under the Gun showed members could not answer a question. From Fox News:
"Katie Couric has publicly admitted that the film, which was presented to VCDL as a 'documentary,' was misleading and misrepresented VCDL," Phillip Van Cleave, President of the VCDL, tod FOXNews.com. "However, Couric and the other filmmakers have refused to fix the film or to even stop promoting and distributing it. The only way to hold Couric accountable was to file a lawsuit."
Here is the clip:

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on September 14, 2016 42 Comments
If there's anything good to come out of the 2016 dumpster fire, it's that charlatans, opportunists, and other sillies and n'er do wellers have been exposed. Such is the case of Sean Hannity, Fox News host and talk radio personality. Last month, Hannity had one fantastic Twitter meltdown, and prematurely blamed Republicans for a potential Trump loss. Hannity's unwavering fanboy loyalty to The Donald has turned his cable and radio shows into a Trump lovefest, complete with rebukes and threats to anyone who looks disapprovingly at his precious. The reader may remember when Hannity yelled at Senator Cruz (who was still in the presidential race at the time), for actually understanding how the whole primary delegate thing works. In any case, what's left of his integrity inched a little closer to the cliff Tuesday when Hannity threatened Never Trumpers with his karate skills.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 14, 2016 16 Comments
Gallup has released its survey of public trust in the media. The findings are confirmation of what we already knew: Democrats still mostly love the media, Republicans despise the media more than ever. First the top line number. Overall trust in the media is at a historical low and has fallen off a cliff: http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx?utm_source=alert&utm_medium=email&utm_content=morelink&utm_campaign=syndication

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 14, 2016 15 Comments
How deeply has Joe Scarborough dived into Hillary's tank? On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough offered Hillary a script of how she should attack "right-wing Republicans." Howard Dean was so impressed by Scarborough's work on Hillary's behalf that he exclaimed "I actually think you could actually be her speechwriter. That's exactly what she should be saying. I'm sure you don't want that job, but I'm just saying, you know?" Howard, don't be so sure Scarborough doesn't want that job. Sure looked this morning like Joe was auditioning for a spot in Hillary's West Wing.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 13, 2016 36 Comments
As liberal pundits go, I find Sam Stein among the least objectionable—a low bar to be sure. The HuffPo editor has a streak of fairness to him. But on today's Morning Joe, Stein served up some absurd spin on Hillary's "basket of deplorables." "Deplorables," according to Stein, in a way "does work to her advantage." Why? Because some moderate Republicans will "look at this division between the deplorables and the non-deplorables . . . and do say to themselves: do I want to be part of that?" A kind of snob appeal, Sam? Don't think so, and even Joe Scarborough, who continued his attacks on Trump throughout the show dismissed the notion, saying "you don't win voters by calling other voters irredeemable."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on September 12, 2016 51 Comments
The history of Hillary Clinton is one of deep paranoia. From the secretive health care taskforce during her husband's presideny to the secret home server, fear of sunlight drives her actions. And the mainstream media is a willing participant most of the way until the obvious can no longer be denied or covered up. There is no better example than Hillary's "medical event" at the 9/11 Memorial service yesterday. For weeks the mainstream media and the Clinton campaign have been berating anyone who pointed out that her coughing fits were not only odd, but perhaps a sign of deeper trouble. The wagons were circled. Then, yesterday Hillary collapsed. The video is devastating. Hillary starts out propped up by a stone auto barrier, but even then looks wobbly. As soon as the van pulls up Hillary goes into obvious convulsions as she tries to move towards the van while being held up by her arms. Even so, she falls forward towards the ground as she is dragged into the waiting van. Hillary Clinton Helped to Van 9-11 Memorial 2016 Those around her, presumably mostly Secret Service, create a visual barrier preventing cameras from capturing what happened in the van.
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