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Media Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 02, 2015 16 Comments
The NY Times refuses to publish cartoons of Mohammed even as part of news stories about cartoons of Mohammed, and the violence that ensues. But The NY Times has no hesitation in publishing Condom Pope artwork, a portrait of the Pope composed of condoms. The Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan, who functions as a quasi-ombudsman, wrote how the Times Standards Editor responded (emphasis added):
The standards editor, Philip B. Corbett, fielded an inquiry about this from The Washington Examiner. Here’s how he responded:
There’s no simple, unwavering formula we can apply in situations like this. We really don’t want to gratuitously offend anyone’s deeply held beliefs. That said, it’s probably impossible to avoid ever offending anyone. We have to make these judgments all the time. Reasonable people might disagree about any one of them.

Posted by Mike LaChance on June 03, 2015 26 Comments
Have you noticed that the same media that uses words like "extreme" to describe Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, and other Republicans finds nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to Bernie Sanders? Sanders, who wants a 90% tax rate for the wealthiest Americans, and recently came under fire for a 1972 column describing female rape fantasies, describes himself as a socialist---yet the media treats him like a viable candidate for 2016. Socialism is the most important aspect of Sanders' political identity and goes a long way in helping us understand the media's kid-glove treatment of him. Jennifer Harper of the Washington Times:
The Bernie Effect: Media normalize socialism There’s yet another trend in the trendy news media, identified by more than one concerned critic. Consider a new Investor’s Business Daily editorial titled “The soft-soaping of socialism in the U.S.” The publication focuses on the happy-go-lucky press coverage of a certain Vermont independent making a vigorous run for the White House as a Democrat.

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 28, 2015 20 Comments
America's foreign policy in the Middle East is falling apart and health insurance premiums are skyrocketing under Obamacare, but the liberal media feels your pain, America. As usual, it's all about Obama. Amber Phillips of the Washington Post:
President Obama’s legacy is increasingly in legal jeopardy President Obama's second-term agenda, it seems, is in the hands of the courts. Same-sex marriage. Obamacare. Climate change. And now immigration. And in many cases, there is significant doubt about whether his signature initiatives will stand legal scrutiny. The latest blow to Obama's second-term plans came Tuesday when a federal appeals court in New Orleans denied the administration's request to move forward with implementing his expanded executive action on immigration to defer deportation for millions of undocumented immigrants.
That's funny. He didn't run on gay marriage. In fact, Obama said in a 2008 interview with pastor Rick Warren that he believed marriage was between a man and a woman.

Posted by Amy Miller on May 12, 2015 42 Comments
The smoke may have cleared, but the Rolling Stone retraction disaster isn't over yet. UVA associate dean of students Nicole Eramo has filed a multimillion dollar defamation lawsuit against Rolling Stone, its parent company Wenner Media, and journalist Sabrina Rubin Erdely for their portrayal of Eramo in the now-retracted and forever infamous "A Rape on Campus." One of Eramo's chief responsibilities at UVA was to handle allegations of sexual assault. In the complaint, she argues that Rolling Stone and Erdely used her to personify the "campus indifferent to sexual assault" narrative and as a result caused her emotional and physical distress, and damaged her reputation. The complaint itself is a parade of horrors. It lays out the allegations Rolling Stone and Erdely made one by one---that Eramo coddled Jackie, that she was indifferent to Jackie's allegations, that she pressured Jackie to not report a rape, that she abused Jackie, and that she attempted to suppress Jackie's rape---and lays out the case that Rolling Stone's own subsequent statements to the media prove that those allegations weren't only untrue, but "categorically false" and defamatory per se.

Posted by Mike LaChance on April 29, 2015 12 Comments
If you're wondering why the Democratic Party's presumed 2016 nominee has been quiet lately, you're not alone. Hillary Clinton has answered only seven questions from the media since announcing her run for president. Zach C. Cohen of National Journal:
Here Are All Seven Media Questions Hillary Clinton Has Answered During Her Campaign Most of the media questions Clinton has answered have focused on policy (the exact type of inquiry she recently encouraged reporters to focus on). They've touched on ongoing trans-Pacific trade negotiations, campaign finance, and foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation... Here are all seven: Question 1: "Secretary Clinton, your reaction please to these book allegations? Did foreign entities receive any special treatment for making any kind of donations to the foundation or your husband?"—ABC in Keene, New Hampshire, April 20

Posted by Amy Miller on April 22, 2015 10 Comments
Happy Earth Day, everyone! Hope you're all enjoying your...composting...and your...carbon offsets? I used aerosol hairspray today, so I'm not even going to pretend I observe this non-holiday. President Obama does, however. Today, he boarded his private jumbo jet and burned down to the Everglades to deliver a blistering take on his political opponents who aren't doing enough to stop people from flying their private jets everywhere. Also, something about protecting fragile ecosystems. In anticipation of Obama's Earth Day stump speech, the media started publishing annoying articles about Air Force One's carbon footprint. How inconvenient, right? When asked about the jet's effect on the environment, White House press secretary Josh Earnest crumbled under the weight of his boss's sanctimony. Watch the madness unfold:

Posted by Amy Miller on April 21, 2015 10 Comments
Earlier today, I wrote about the importance of pointing out every time an official spokesperson gets testy with their press pool over fair-yet-tough questions. Marie Harf got herself in hot water yesterday when she hinted to the corps that the questions they were asking were far too complex to cover in a press briefing, then got caught lying about how much information she had about the Iranian nuclear deal. It was ugly, and told us a lot more about the State Department than Harf's policy bullet points. Today, Josh Earnest ran into a similar roadblock during the midday press briefing with the White House press corps. Earnest has a history of trying to run offense around tough questions, but it's only recently that the corps has responded with soundbite-worthy pushback. Today's little show involved a question about a comment Hillary Clinton made about small business growth under the Obama administration. She said that small business creation has "stalled out" in the United States, and ABC News correspondent Jon Karl wanted a response from the White House. Watch here, via Real Clear Politics:

Posted by Amy Miller on April 04, 2015 26 Comments
We in the conservative media have spent a great deal of time over the past 6 years criticizing the Obama comms shop for freezing the media out of its most controversial decisions. Conservatives are used to a biased press pool, and for the most part, this group hasn't disappointed in that regard, even when they haven't had all the information they needed to write a story. Apparently, though, the lack of information flowing from the White House to the press pool has slowed to a trickle---and the corps is ready to fight back. The White House Correspondents Association is preparing a list of demands promises they hope the White House will commit to. The corps has been working on the list for over a year, but a recent snub on the part of the President's team has kicked the conversation about press access into high gear. The Washington Examiner explains what happened:

Posted by New Neo on April 03, 2015 7 Comments
Religious wars continue:
Islamist gunmen burst into a Kenyan university before dawn Thursday, shooting students and taking hostages in a terror attack that left 70 dead, Kenyan officials said. Two attackers were killed in the ongoing security operation, and one was arrested, authorities said.... Joel Ayora, who was on the campus and witnessed the attack, said gunmen burst into a Christian service. Taking hostages from the service, they then "proceeded to the hostels, shooting anybody they came across except their fellows, the Muslims." The attackers separated students by religion, allowing Muslims to leave and keeping an unknown number of Christians hostage, Agence France-Presse reported... The dangerously porous border between Somalia and Kenya has made it easy for Al-Shabaab militants to cross over and carry out attacks.
The attack is now said to be over, with four terrorists killed and over 140 students murdered. Fifty or so who had been held hostage (mostly females) have been freed.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on March 26, 2015 9 Comments
I have a late entry for the annual “Egregious 8″ tournament, which pits wasteful government programs against each other. It turns out that blogging can be fun and profitable...for those websites on the government dole!
Since Politico, a politics-focused website and newspaper, launched its subscription-based news service Politico Pro in 2011, government agencies have increasingly turned to the service to keep abreast of the latest developments in their spheres of policy. Government records show fiscal year 2011 contracts with the owner of Politico, Capitol News Company, totaling $41,900. By fiscal year 2014, there were no fewer than twenty-eight contracts with sixteen different departments and agencies, including the Executive Office of the President, totaling $431,800. A chart from the USASpending.gov website illustrates the trend (including the first five and a half months of fiscal year 2015) LI #15 Money to Politico The first five and a half months of fiscal 2015 have seen fifteen contracts for $198,188, although at least one agency, the FCC, appears not to have renewed a $50,000 fiscal 2014 contract in 2015.
Who knew such riches awaited!

Posted by Amy Miller on February 14, 2015 28 Comments
Bill Maher has some ideas about what really destroyed Brian Williams' credibility with the American people...and it has absolutely nothing to do with his recent suspension. From Mediaite:
See, what “destroyed” Brian Williams’ credibility in Maher’s eyes was “ten years of wasting precious news time with bullshit stories.” It really bothers him that national nightly newscasts shirk their “sacred responsibility” to report the news in favor of viral YouTube videos, cutesy human interest stories, and lots and lots of weather coverage. He called it “journalistic malpractice” for Williams to spend so little time reporting on climate change and instead covering east coast blizzards “like white Godzilla is on the way.”
Watch:

Posted by Mike LaChance on February 12, 2015 87 Comments
The same mainstream media that refused to demand Obama's (still undisclosed) Columbia University records in 2008 (while reassuring us that he was brilliant) has taken a keen interest in the academic pedigree of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Professor Jacobson repeatedly reminds us that the MSM always tries to kill Republican candidacies in the cradle. The Washington Post did it with Rick Perry's hunting property rock. Jeb Bush's high school antics are fair game, as were Mitt Romney's. Now they're trying to play the same game with Scott Walker's unfinished college degree. David A. Fahrenthold of the Washington Post wrote this yesterday:
As Scott Walker mulls White House bid, questions linger over college exit Scott Walker was gone. Dropped out. And in the spring of his senior year. In 1990, that news stunned his friends at Marquette University. Walker, the campus’s suit-wearing, Reagan-loving politico — who enjoyed the place so much that he had run for student body president — had left without graduating. To most of the Class of 1990 — and, later, to Wisconsin’s political establishment — Walker’s decision to quit college has been a lingering mystery. Not even his friends at Marquette were entirely sure why he never finished. Some had heard that a parent had fallen ill, or maybe there was some financial strain. Others thought he had simply had enough of school. Walker clearly liked college politics more than college itself. He had managed to line up 47 campaign endorsements, including ones from the ski team and the varsity chorus, but he had trouble showing up on time for French. And, after four years, he had faltered on both fronts. He’d lost an ugly race for president. And he apparently had far too few credits to graduate.
Allahpundit of Hot Air notes that journalists are already playing the requisite "gotcha" games with Scott Walker from which Democrats are always exempt.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on February 04, 2015 41 Comments
It certainly looks that way. NBC News Anchor Brian Williams has long claimed he was on a helicopter forced down by RPG fire while reporting from Iraq in 2003. An exclusive report in Stars and Stripes, a military publication, tells the story of Williams' indiscretion. Williams was forced to recant when a soldier protested Williams' rendition of the story. As recently as Monday, Williams claimed, on national news, that he was under fire on a Chinook. Take a look: It was during this commemoration that those involved in the incident stepped up to correct the record:

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 29, 2014 8 Comments
I don't watch CNN anymore, but I'm very familiar with Don Lemon from all the times he's appeared on conservative news sites seeking to correct something he said. According to The Hollywood Reporter, lots of people have noticed Lemon's work:
CNN's Don Lemon Named to 'Worst Journalism of 2014' List Don Lemon has picked up a dubious honor: ranking in a Columbia Journalism Review fellow's list of the "worst journalism" of 2014. The anchor has made headlines throughout the year for controversial moments during his tenure as a CNN newsroom anchor. In a post written by David Uberti, the CJR fellow makes a case for why Lemon deserves to be ranked along with other missteps in journalism over the past year. "As one of the most recognizable anchors on CNN, Don Lemon has helped lead the cable network’s coverage of the biggest stories of the year. Live television is exceedingly difficult to produce, of course, but Lemon’s gaffes this year offer a case study in how to choose words wisely — or not," Uberti wrote.
The fine folks at Twitchy think they may have uncovered the reason for Lemon's new distinction:
Don Lemon’s report on black holes and missing plane help him win ‘Worst of 2014′ award CNN anchor Don Lemon has taken his share of hate on Twitter: a former Miss Teen USA called Lemon a “modern day house negro,” hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons labeled him “a dangerous talking head” and MSNBC’s Goldie Taylor accused him of being a “turn coat mofo.” And those are just the racial attacks; there’s also the matter of Lemon’s skills as a journalist.

Posted by Casey Breznick on December 17, 2014 7 Comments
There’s only one man in the world who is in journalism to get rich. That man is Shane Smith, the CEO and co-founder of Vice Media, Inc. 20 years in the making, Smith's growing media empire has amassed him an estimated $400 million fortune, and according to widespread reports earlier this week, Vice is planning a “deal spree” in 2015 to be possibly followed by an IPO. With a $500 million “war chest,” Vice is looking to acquire “content, technology, and distribution deals” according to CNBC. The spending money comes from dual $250 million investments from A&E Networks,  in part owned by Disney, and Technology Cross Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture firm with notable stakes in Netflix and Facebook. These investments brought Vice’s valuation to $2.5 billion, doubling the company’s valuation previous valuation of $1.4 billion back in late 2013 when Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox bought a 5% stake for $70 million. This year, Vice is expected to report revenues of $500 million, and according to Smith that figure could reach $1 billion by 2016. Smith has also said that Vice’s profit margins are currently at 34%, though he wasn’t specific as to which measure this was (i.e. net income, pre-tax income, etc.). The New York Times, in comparison, has a net income margin of just 10%. So what exactly is Vice?
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