Dewey Beats Truman!

What happened at Fox News and CNN?!

In what appears to be a case of premature ejaculation on the part of the networks for the intense need to come out with the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act first, they both got it wrong.

 

Now, while I understand the need to put out information as they get it, maybe they could get past the first page of a 50+ page ruling before jumping to conclusions. They were so intent on putting out the news that the individual mandate was not necessarily covered under the Commerce Clause, it is permissible as a tax, and in their haste, they assumed the mandate was struck down and got the story completely wrong. In the case of Fox News, I'm sure it was also a bit of wishful thinking on their part.

As for CNN, they have apologized for the mishap. No so at Fox.

Fox issued a combative statement in which the network claimed they "gave our viewers the news as it happened," and went on to say that CNN's reporting had been worse. CNN issued a statement hours earlier that included a full-throated apology for their misstep.

Mike Wallace Dies at 93

CBS News legend Mike Wallace, the "60 Minutes" pit-bull reporter whose probing, brazen style made his name synonymous with the tough interview - a style he practically invented for television more than half a century ago - died last night. He was 93 and passed peacefully surrounded by family members at Waveny Care Center in New Canaan, Conn., where he spent the past few years. He also had a home in Manhattan.

As faithful reader Nowhere Man said to me today, "He lived a full life. I wonder how he felt about his son becoming a right wing douche."

An Open Letter to Arthur Brisbane

Here is my response to Arthur Brisbane, New York Times' Public Editor after his piece, "Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?" If you haven't read it yet, although I don't know how you may have missed it with all the hullabaloo about it, please follow the link.

Dear Mr. Brisbane:

"[Our readers] worry less about reporters imposing their judgment on what is false and what is true."

This line most struck me in your piece as an interesting take on what you feel is "judgment" as opposed to journalism. I was always under the impression that a reporter's job was not only to report on the facts of what they witnessed or heard, but also to distinguish between what is truth and what isn't.

The Mitt Romney example you put forth regarding his repeated accusation of President Obama "apologizing for America" is a perfect example. But let's take it one step further and ask the following: What if Mitt Romney had said that President Obama goes around the world insisting that the sky is green? Is the reporter bound to play stenographer and simply repeat the quote, or is he obligated to research the truthfulness of that quote in an effort to paint a more accurate picture? Facts are facts, opinions are opinions and lies are lies. The phrase "imposing their judgement" implies the reporter is giving their opinion and facts are secondary and inconvenient.

Maybe there is a difference between journalism and investigative journalism, but there shouldn't be. I would imagine a reporter wants to be as accurate as possible, and if that means researching to prove the subject of their story truthful or not, then in my opinion, that's what the job must entail. Otherwise, anyone can be a reporter simply by recording and transcribing an event.

Thanks,
Broadway Carl

And to me, that's the long and short of it. An entire online industry was born to fact check what journalists don't. Poltifact, Media Matters, FactCheck and others are watch dogs to what politicians, pundits and talking heads pass as news, but even some of them are now afraid to be labeled as biased toward the liberal end of the scale and try to play it down the middle. This was clearly evidenced by Politifact's 2011 Lie of the Year, calling the Democrats' accusation that the Paul Ryan economic plan would end Medicare as we know it, a falsehood.

Anyone looking at Ryan's plan would come to that conclusion - simply keeping the "Medicare" name while making the program an inadequate voucher system does not mean Medicare equals Medicare. I could shit in a box and gift wrap it, complete with a "Medicare" label on it. Does that make it Medicare? But I digress.

I agree with Tweeter @Shoq that the conversation is an important one, but I also understand the blowback when such a question need be asked, and that a reporter fact checking someone he/she is covering would be categorized as "truth vigilantism." There are still a majority of the population who rely on the fourth estate for their daily news. They assume what they read in major newspapers is fact. Opinion should be left in the editorial pages, but front page news must deal with the facts and be accurate. And I believe that it is the responsibility of the reporter to research the subject and double check the accuracy of the subject's statements.

Dumbass Quote of the Day

“We all know there’s a double standard in the media... as we know all 3,400 members of the mainstream media are part of the Obama press contingent.”

~ Michele Bachmann on The Laura Ingraham Show as she was trying to explain away her American history gaffe.

It just never stops with Bachmann. She just can't be gracious enough to admit she made a mistake without lashing out. She's got the Sarah Palin Victimization Syndrome down to a tee.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the reason Bachmann gets all the extra attention when it comes to gaffes isn't because of some journalistic double standard, but because the things she says are so fucking outrageous, to ignore them would be a media sin. The founding fathers worked tirelessly to abolish slavery? Lexington and Concord are in New Hampshire? I would think the general public would want to know that a member of Congress doesn't even know her basic American history; and this is the same person who advocated some kind of test of congressional members to see if they are anti-American.

David Broder Dies at 81

HuffPo: David Broder, the Pulitzer-Prize winning Washington Post political columnist whose even-handed treatment of Democrats and Republicans set him apart from the ideological warriors on the nation's op-ed pages, died Wednesday. He was 81.

...Broder, an Illinois native, was familiar to television viewers as a frequent panelist on NBC's "Meet the Press" Program. He appeared on the program more than 400 times, far more than any other journalist in the show's history.

What's Going On at the Washington Post?

The Washington Post is long removed from it's Woodward and Bernstein/Watergate days.  In the last couple of days alone, its editorial staff is shocked to discover that perhaps the new Republican majority in the House isn't as serious about debt reduction as they claim, despite their own journalists reporting on the hypocrisy, post an online poll asking the reader to prioritize issues that Congress should tackle while completely omitting "job creation" or "economy" as one of the choices until long after the poll was made available thereby skewing the numbers, and now publishes an article about Estonia's growing economy and their success story while they are in the middle of recovering from a depression.

Maybe Judith Miller should apply for a job there.

Hypocrisy, Thy Name Is Miller

Remember Judith Miller? She was the New York Times reporter who drummed up the case for the Iraq War with front page news on weapons of mass destruction; stories that were cited by the Bush administration as evidence for the need to invade and remove Saddam Hussein from power. Where did she get those stories that wound up to be completely unfounded? "Official secrets" and "secret government reports." See how that works?

Anyway, it seems that Miller is now criticizing Julian Assange for his failure to verify the stories in the Wikileaks cable releases.

Miller said that Assange "didn't care at all about attempting to verify the information that he was putting out or determine whether or not it would hurt anyone."

Uh-huh. But stories about WMD that didn't exist didn't hurt anyone either, so that's cool, right?

The funny thing is that when she came under fire for her hack journalism, she responded, "'[M]y job isn't to assess the government's information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My job is to tell readers of The New York Times what the government thought about Iraq's arsenal.'"

So just to sum up, Miller, a journalist who worked for the NY Times for 28 years, who dropped the ball on WMD whether intentional or not, and was involved in protecting Scooter Libby during the Valerie Plame outing, criticized a wanted fugitive for not verifying stories in illegally obtained government cables for his data dump. ... Got it.

Olbermann Takes On Koppel, False Equivalency

Keith Olbermann responded to criticism from Ted Koppel in a Washington Post opinion piece lamenting the "death of real news." Shorter Keith: If it's the death of journalism you're ruing, you should have thought of that when you ignored the run up to Iraq and its aftermath instead of remaining silent for objectivity's sake. Walter Cronkite or Edward R. Murrow didn't do that.

Daniel Schorr Dies at 93

NY TIMES: Daniel Schorr, whose aggressive reporting over 70 years as a respected broadcast and print journalist brought him into conflict with censors, the Nixon administration and network superiors, died on Friday in Washington. He was 93.

...At CBS, Mr. Schorr won three Emmy Awards for his coverage of the Watergate scandal and took pride in his often blunt reporting on the administration. In one instance he hurriedly began broadcasting after acquiring a copy of Nixon’s notorious “enemies list” only to discover in reading the names aloud that his was No. 17.

Lazy Journalism

You know, I don't envy journalists. If you do your job properly, it can be a difficult task between fact checking and research, multiple sources and looking for the scoop. So imagine my surprise when I saw this from the LA Times:
Mississippi officials blast BP, U.S. government as oil hits coast -
Gov. Haley Barbour condemns a lack of resources; Rep. Gene Taylor is 'dumbfounded' by 'wasted effort, wasted money and stupidity.'

Yes, Heehaw reject Haley Barbour is pointing fingers at the federal government for the lack of response and failure to capture the oil offshore before hitting Mississippi's shores. Rep. Gene Taylor, whom I've written about before regarding the BP disaster, was equally outraged:

At a news conference Monday, Barbour said that "the plan we agreed to with the unified command and BP wasn't being given the resources to be totally effective." As a result, he said, "there continues to be more oil in the [Mississippi] Sound than we have the capacity to deal with, unless we get lucky."

Speaking at the same event, Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), whose district lies on the coast, said he flew over the spill Saturday and "was dumbfounded by the amount of wasted effort, wasted money and stupidity that I saw."

I scanned the rest of the article for mention of Barbour's dismissal of the oil spill, tar balls and it's non-toxicity. I looked for quotes from Gene Taylor saying the oil would evaporate within a week. But I saw nothing. The two actors were being reported on, were shaking their fists at the evil government, but there was no perspective. There was no ironic twist being that said actors shrugged their shoulders two months ago, with Barbour especially whining about the media making such a big deal about the spill it would hurt his state's tourism.

So I e-mailed Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Richard Fausset, the authors of the article.

Subject: Re: Mississippi officials blast BP, U.S. government as oil hits coast

From: [Broadway Carl]

Date: June 29, 2010 10:31:39 AM EDT

To: richard.fausset@latimes.com, molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com

Dear Mrs. Hennessy-Fiske and Mr. Fausset,

Perhaps a little perspective on Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and Rep. Gene Taylor would have behooved your article of June 29th, "Mississippi officials blast BP, U.S. government as oil hits coast," such as the fact that for weeks, Barbour has been downplaying the oil spill in an attempt to get tourists to go to the beaches, or that he's had 6,000 National Guard troops at his disposal to prepare for the oncoming oil slick and has only deployed 58. Or that's he's called the oil not unlike a food mousse and not poisonous. Now he's singing a different tune that the oil has reached his shores.

Or Rep. Gene Taylor, who said the oil would evaporate within a week during the first few days of the disaster, also calling it chocolate mousse in consistency.

For these men to dismiss this catastrophe weeks ago when it first began and now turn their flippancy to blaming and finger pointing is absolutely disgusting and should be called out.

[Broadway Carl]

Mr. Fausset was kind enough to respond:

From: Fausset, Richard 

Subject: RE: Mississippi officials blast BP, U.S. government as oil hits coast

Date: June 29, 2010 4:54:12 PM EDT

To: [Broadway Carl]

Mr. [Broadway Carl]:

Hi there. I agree that I should have mentioned Barber's earlier downplaying of the spill. My bad.

Richard Fausset

LA Times Atlanta bureau

That's it. No update on the web article. Sigh. At least he answered his e-mail.

And People Wonder Why Newpapers Are Failing

The New York Daily News commemorates the historic health care legislation signed by President Obama yesterday with this front page:

Don't Fuck With The Maddow

If there is one thing conservatives and Republicans should credit Rachel Maddow for, it's her ability in having absolutely no problem correcting the record when shown that she was wrong in her reporting after it's brought to her attention. But what they should fear is that they'd better be 100% right and not just base their accusation of slander on a technicality. Because if she finds that she's really right, she will fuck. Your. Shit. Up. Watch as she lays down the hammer on Republican Senator and climate change denier James Inhofe, who's office dared to complain of inaccurate reporting on Inhofe.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

BOOM!

Love Life Problems? Ask A Hooker

Whatever happened to Dear Abby? The New York Post is usually pretty reprehensible, but even this move pales in comparison to their usual hackery and takes them to a low of print journalism quality equalling the National Enquirer or Weekly World News.

The New York Post has hired Ashley Dupre, the former call girl whose tryst with former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer led to his resignation last year. The 24-year-old will write a weekly advice column dealing with sex and relationships.

Ann Landers must be spinning in her grave... and writing something nasty about it.

American Hero

posted by Armadillo Joe

This woman is an American hero.  I put her on the same pedestal as the Dixie Chicks as someone incredibly brave, who had the courage to speak her convictions at great risk to her personal well-being at a time when people were routinely punished severely for speaking out.

Recall, if you will, the dark days of early 2003.  We were ramping up to W-A-R (shock and awe) and the retarded chimpanzee in the White House along with his Evil Uncle Dick(head) had so twisted the public's imagination into pretzel knots of illogic and abject fear -- hellbent as they were on some good old-fashioned 'Murrican score settlin' against some random brown-skinned folks to hit the four-for-the-price-of-one bonus of 1.) gettin' even for our most holy of holies 9/11 (Ah-men) 2.) settling a blood-feud between the Bush and Hussein clans with American taxpayer-funded blood and iron 3.) making an example of some ragheads before the rest of them get anymore uppity ideas (I'm looking at you Tom "Suck on this" Friedman) and 4.) making up for having skipped Vietnam by collecting machismo points by proxy via the deaths of other people's sons and daughters -- that anyone anywhere at any time who ever whispered the slightest hint of dissent that maybe, perhaps just maybe, our glorious war in the Middle East wasn't quite the photogenic Greatest Clash of Civilizations since Cecil B. DeMille shod a cast of 10,000 extras in swords and sandals... was roundly persecuted, punished and plowed-under.

I was already living in the sodom of New York City during that time -- easily the place in America most immune to Mr. Bush's "charms" and machinations, amid the assorted degenerates and pinko-lib'ruhl-islamo-fascist-America-hating Lefty terrorist-sympathizers of the entertainment industry -- and even correcting for the emotional distortion field surrounding the smoldering pit at the southern end of Manhattan island, working as I did in the so-called "red zone" below 14th Street hardly ten blocks from Ground Zero, we spoke in dissenting voices rarely and even then in the hushed tones usually reserved for snarky comments during church.

It was a dark time, indeed.  And, other than social ostracization, we actually had very little to fear from saying something negative about the general drift of current events.  Imagine someone who did, who understood that they had a great deal to lose, and spoke anyway.

Ashleigh Banfield is that person.  I used to just think of her (when I thought of her at all) as just another vapid, pretty "news" model -- more famous for her stylish choices of eyewear than anything she might have accomplished as a journalist -- and when she disappeared from the Tee-Vee in early 2003, I hadn't even noticed.  It wasn't until her story finally came out in 2005 that I understood what became of her.  The ramifications of it break my heart in empathy for her struggle and in sadness for what America became, or was revealed to have already become, in the events of the first four years of the Cheney Administration.

She gave a speech to some journalism students at Kansas State University on April 24th, 2003 where she said stuff like this:

You didn't see where those bullets landed. You didn't see what happened when the mortar landed. A puff of smoke is not what a mortar looks like when it explodes, believe me. There are horrors that were completely left out of this war. So was this journalism or was this coverage? There is a grand difference between journalism and coverage, and getting access does not mean you're getting the story, it just means you're getting one more arm or leg of the story. And that's what we got, and it was a glorious, wonderful picture that had a lot of people watching and a lot of advertisers excited about cable news. But it wasn't journalism, because I'm not so sure that we in America are hesitant to do this again, to fight another war, because it looked like a glorious and courageous and so successful terrific endeavor, and we got rid of a horrible leader: We got rid of a dictator, we got rid of a monster, but we didn't see what it took to do that.

[...]

the message before we went in was actually weapons of mass destruction and eliminating the weapons of mass destruction from this regime and eliminating this regime. Conveniently in the week or two that we were in there it became very strongly a message of freeing the Iraqi people.

[...]

If we had paid more attention to Afghanistan in the '80s we might not have had 9-11. If we hadn't left it in such a mess, we might not have had 9-11 and three thousand people would be alive to talk to you today.

[...]

This TV show (the Iraq War - ed.) that we just gave you was extraordinarily entertaining, and I really hope that the legacy that it leaves behind is not one that shows war as glorious, because there's nothing more dangerous than a democracy that thinks this is a glorious thing to do.

War is ugly and it's dangerous, and in this world the way we are discussed on the Arab street, it feeds and fuels their hatred and their desire to kill themselves to take out Americans. It's a dangerous thing to propagate.

[...]

the Fox effect, the Fox news effect. I know everyone of you has watched it. It's not a dirty little secret. A lot of people describe Fox as having streamers and banners coming out of the television as you're watching it cover a war. But the Fox effect is very concerning to me.

I'm a journalist and I like to be able to tell the story as I see it, and I hate it when someone tells me I'm one-sided. It's the worst I can hear. Fox has taken so many viewers away from CNN and MSNBC because of their agenda and because of their targeting the market of cable news viewership, that I'm afraid there's not a really big place in cable for news. Cable is for entertainment, as it's turning out, but not news.

I'm hoping that I will have a future in news in cable, but not the way some cable news operators wrap themselves in the American flag and patriotism and go after a certain target demographic, which is very lucrative. You can already see the effects, you can already see the big hires on other networks, right wing hires to chase after this effect, and you can already see that flag waving in the corners of those cable news stations where they have exciting American music to go along with their war coverage.

And when her corporate masters at MSNBC found out, they did this to her:

I was office-less for ten months....No phone, no computer. For ten months I had to report to work every day and ask where I could sit. If somebody was away I could use their desk. Eventually, after ten months of this, I was given an office that was a tape closet. They cleared the tapes out and put a desk and a TV in there, and a computer and phone. It was pretty blatant. The message was crystal clear. Yet they wouldn't let me leave. I begged for seventeen months to be let out of my contract. If they had no use for me, let's just part ways amicably -- no need for payouts, just a clean break. And [NBC News President Neal Shapiro] wouldn't allow it. I don't know what his rationale was -- perhaps he thought I would take what I felt was a very strong brand, and others felt was a very strong brand, to another network and make a success of it. Maybe that's why he chose to keep me in a warehouse. I will never forgive him for his cruelty and the manner in which he decided to dispose of me.

But "Bloody Bill" Kristol, Tom Friedman and a slew of other Big Media war cheerleaders were all richly rewarded for advocating Bush's Folly, while Ms. Banfield, after her contract finally, mercifully expired, was banished to the hinterlands of cable news on Court TV for having the courage of her convictions.

A promising career stopped dead in its tracks.

Until now.  She has been hired by ABC News.  I hope this is a new beginning for her.  I celebrate it and even sent her a congratulatory note. You should, too, at this link: banfield.info@gmail.com.

But first, you should go read her entire speech.

The More Things Change...

This cartoon was posted by a Facebook friend with the caption, "This cartoon is over five years old. Things have gotten even WORSE since it was drawn."



The slow death march of journalism continues...

More Of This, Please

It's time to start calling a spade a spade, or in these cases, a moron a moron.





I do disagree with Tom Brokaw on one point: he said that this is not a partisan issue. I think that is complete bullshit. The is ALL about partisanship and unfortunately, it's about racism. Previous presidents have spoken to students without incident. Of course, those previous presidents weren't black; their citizenship wasn't ridiculously questioned; their religion was never questioned or brought up as an issue, save for Kennedy.

The problem today is that with a 24 hour news cycle, there is too much time to fill with actual news, so we became witness to the ushering in of the era of Infotainment. What used to be a public service has now become a for-profit news industry that has to be controversial and titillating, and if there isn't any "news" that fits that description, the media manufactures it.

All one has to do is to look at last month's town hall meetings full of disinformed, idiotic, tea party freaks blubbering about how they "want their country back." All you have to do it witness the hyperventilating about health care reform to know that as far as the mainstream media is concerned, "if it bleeds, it leads." The uneducated town hallers protecting the insurance company sodomizers in comparison to actual polls showing that a majority of Americans want a public option included in health care reform is a perfect example of the blind leading the moronic, otherwise these people would realize that they are opposing something that would benefit them... not that that's anything new for middle and lower class Republican voters.

So I'd like to see more of this, please. More of so called "journalists" actually being reporters instead of stenographers. I want them to start calling a spade a spade again. I want them to earn their paychecks and dig a little deeper to show their audience the facts, instead of showing the truth and a damnable lie as two equal sides of an argument.

It's not only time to take our country back from the 30% freaks, it's time for journalists to take their journalism back.

Walter Cronkite Dies at 92

NY TIMES: Walter Cronkite, who pioneered and then mastered the role of television news anchorman with such plain-spoken grace that he was called the most trusted man in America, died Friday at his home in New York. He was 92.

Journalism Is Dead

... Or so says Fox News. Why? Apparently, Fox News has a problem with ABC giving a platform to President Obama for an upcoming special on health care reform, complete with a town hall style meeting inside the White House. "Unprecedented," you say? Hmmm... where have I seen something like this before?

The Silence Was Deafening

MSNBC Barely Touches Stewart vs. Cramer

Every time someone uses the phrase,"liberal media," I look for the nearest brick wall on which to pound my head against.

In anticipation for the Jon Stewart/Jim Cramer knock-down-drag-out, Cramer took to the airwaves of the morning shows in his defense to attempt to rehabilitate his image and rebut his main critic with a specific message: "A comedian’s attacking me. Wow. He runs a variety show." I remember him saying it at least twice. He appeared on the Today show, got Joe Scarborough to shill for him on Morning Joe, and even pounded dough with Martha Stewart.

After the bloodletting, Joe Scarborough was touting an exclusive interview with Cramer on Morning Joke™ using Twitter.



I even got up at an ungodly hour to watch. No Cramer. Then this.



So much for Jim Cramer taking it like a man. Did he no-show or was he cancelled? Maybe the latter.

..."MSNBC producers were asked not to incorporate the Jim Cramer/Jon Stewart interview into their shows today." In fact, the only time it came up on MSNBC was during the White House briefing, when a member of the press corps asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs if Pres. Obama watched. Gibbs wasn't sure if the president had, but Gibbs did. "I enjoyed it thoroughly," the Press Secretary said.

Keith... Keith... Why have you forsaken us?

The biggest disappointment in all of this is that the "liberal media" (namely MSNBC according to its detractors) took its marching orders with the culmination of Keith Olbermann completely ignoring what was probably one of the best journalism pieces this short year. Not. A. Word. And the silence was deafening.

Now we all know what side KO's bread is buttered on, but I think this qualified as a pretty big news story and if Olbermann doesn't think he can mention it because of a conflict of interest with separate NBC network entities, then he actually did no better than Jim Cramer.

Luckily, there is still one person on the MSNBC line up that kept her integrity.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Yes, Rachel Maddow framed the feature of this "Dust Up!" story in regards to what millions were interested in, in comparison to other newsworthy stories... but she mentioned it. She didn't ignore it like the rest of the day of MSNBC programming, from Morning Joke™ to hours of inane coverage of that missing Halleigh girl to even more news of Anna Nicole Smith two years after her death. That's what they talked about. But something that happened to one of their own in the NBC family? Mum's the word.

Chris Matthews, who got his own drubbing in my opinion with the Ari Fleischer crapfest, ignored it. David Shuster? Did he mention it? Apparently not, since it seems to be the talk of the intertubes that except for Maddow, the Cramer story was ignored (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Let's not forget that this isn't some little side story about television personality rumbles. This was the true outing of the lack of financial oversight and regulations that have put our government in an economic crisis that we all fear, an admission from a former hedge fund manager as to how the inside game is played because the SEC doesn't understand it, as well as a complete deficiency of investigative journalism on the part of the financial "reporters" on financial news networks like CNBC and Fox Business Channel. If they have doubts about a certain company, do they seriously expect a CEO of said company to come on their show for an interview and be honest?

As for Jim Cramer, he was the only other NBC regular that actually mentioned "what happened yesterday" on his Friday broadcast, proving to all that it was going to be "business as usual" on his show, bell, whistles, red buttoned sound effects, plastic sledgehammers and all. So much for the promise of change, Mr. Cramer. So much for the promise of change.

Excuse me while I go find a brick wall.

McDouchebag