The media we have, not the media we would like to have.

[dude1394]

If the country is losing a war it's the most important story in the news. If on the other hand we are winning the same, it's not that important. Al Queda really knows the west and our weaknesses.

http://blogs.dailymail.com/donsurber...hat-party-war/

AP named Losing in Iraq its top story in 2006. Winning? That’s only No. 3.

Name That Party usually is reserved to show the propensity by news organizations — particularly the Associated Press — to ignore a politician’s political party in a scandal if he’s a Democrat.

Republican? That becomes his first name.

But this time, shall we consider the War in Iraq.

When it appeared hopeless in 2006, AP named it the Top News Story. Said the AP last year:

What started in 2003 as a supposedly straightforward drive to topple Saddam Hussein deteriorated during 2006 into a dismayingly complex and savage struggle, with Iraqis by the thousands killed in sectarian reprisal attacks and the U.S. military death toll nearing 3,000.

President Bush dropped talk of “staying the course” but balked at embracing many of the key suggestions of a bipartisan study group; Iraqi authorities struggled to assert control and avoid fracture.

Bush lied, people died and all that horse manure.

The story — selected was named No. 1 by 176 of the 242 editors and news directors that AP surveyed.

This put it ahead of the elections, in which for the first time in 12 years, both houses of Congress changed hands.

Wrote Ken Stickney of The News-Star at Monroe, La.: “All news paled in comparison to the developments in the Middle East, which are beginning to be felt in every community.”
This year? Not so much.

The war was No. 3 behind the Virginia Tech shootings and people defaulting on their mortgages. Said the AP:

The “surge” that sent more U.S. troops to Iraq was credited with helping reduce the overall level of violence. But thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of U.S. personnel were killed nonetheless during the year, and Iraqi political leaders struggled to make meaningful progress toward national reconciliation.

This does not reflect only the biases of AP which gave the world the fictitious Jamil Hussein and the seditious Bilal Hussein. this reflects the entire news industry.

Ugly.

The top people in my business have forgotten to sketch the world exactly as it goes, with or without offense to friends and foes.

Win, lose or draw, the war in Iraq is the top story in this nation.

[dude1394]

Another chapter in the media we have, not the media we would like to have. It is sort of amazing however that a business could ruin their brand so much that volunteers are more credible.

http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=7492

Or maybe they don't. Another classic of media dissembling.

The lede:

Between railroad tracks and beneath the roar of departing planes sits "tent city," a terminus for homeless people. It is not, as might be expected, in a blighted city center, but in the once-booming suburbia of Southern California.

The noisy, dusty camp sprang up in July with 20 residents and now numbers 200 people, including several children, growing as this region east of Los Angeles has been hit by the U.S. housing crisis.

The unraveling of the region known as the Inland Empire reads like a 21st century version of "The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck's novel about families driven from their lands by the Great Depression.

As more families throw in the towel and head to foreclosure here and across the nation, the social costs of collapse are adding up in the form of higher rates of homelessness, crime and even disease.

Tent city. U.S. housing crisis. Grown from 20 to 200 residents. "The Grapes of Wrath". Great depression. Foreclosure leads to higher rates of homelessness.

Or does it:

While no current residents claim to be victims of foreclosure, all agree that tent city is a symptom of the wider economic downturn. And it's just a matter of time before foreclosed families end up at tent city, local housing experts say.

Or put another way, everything in the first few paragraphs is apparently a crock of crap.

It's just a matter of times folks. They just have to show up there, because that fits the narrative so darn well.

Yes, foreclosures are up this year and we know why. But the Guardian article claims:

Nationally, foreclosures are at an all-time high. Filings are up nearly 100 percent from a year ago, according to the data firm RealtyTrac.

In fact, per RealtyTrac, they'd up 67.82% from last year but now trending down. In fact, the numbers for this November are down 10% from last November.

The Guardian further claims:

California ranks second in the nation for foreclosure filings — one per 88 households last quarter.

Actually, the figure, per RealtyTrac is one per 325 households for California, and that is 1.9 times the national average (one per every 617).

No one is arguing that there isn't a housing crisis or that foreclosures are somehow a good thing. But this sort of slipshod and agenda driven "journalism" is just inexcusable.

And it is also another example of the great editing we've become accustomed too from the MSM. Nowhere in the Guardian article was this sort of information to be found:

"The 10 percent drop in November is the first double-digit monthly decrease we've seen since April 2006," said James J. Saccacio, chief executive officer of RealtyTrac. "This could indicate that foreclosure activity has topped out for the year, but the true test of whether this ceiling will hold will come at the beginning of next year - when we anticipate that a seasonal surge in foreclosure filings and another possible wave of resetting mortgages could place further pressure on the housing market. But if the trend of flat or decreasing foreclosure activity we've seen over the past three months continues in the first quarter, it would certainly bode well for 2008."

Couldn't have that show up if you're trying to build a tent city, could you? Great job Dana Ford. And a hat tip to your editors as well.

UPDATE: Of course, dependable as dawn, the usual suspects swallow the nonsense hook-line-and-sinker and predictably blame it on Bush.

[dude1394]

And another.

http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=7491

Media on Holiday Retail Spending: Good news or a sign of depression?
Posted by: McQ

This is a classic. Here are the first two paragraphs from a Washington Post article:

The housing market is tanking, the credit markets are in crisis, and economists fear that a recession could be on the way — but in November at least, that wasn't enough to slow down the American consumer.

Personal spending rose 1.1 percent last month, the biggest gain in two years, the Commerce Department reported yesterday. Disposable personal income rose only 0.3 percent in November, meaning that on average, families either withdrew savings or took on more debt to buy goods and services.

No mention of the unrevised 4.9% economic growth last quarter - only doom (housing market) and gloom (credit crisis). And to really ensure you didn't miss that, well, there's the savings/debt angle to throw in there. But the laugh-out-loud moment was this:

"Apparently Americans are really depressed so are compensating by going shopping," said David A. Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's. "It's retail therapy."

If you haven't figured out yet that the media is bound and determined to talk us into a recession - or at least fear of one - you haven't been paying attention. The rest of the article is more of the same. But, come on, how freakin' low can you go when you try to claim that millions of individuals doing their holiday shopping are engaged in collective "retail therapy" because they're "depressed" about the economy?

Ye gods.

[Usually Lurkin]

From TheCorner
http://corner.nationalreview.com/pos...Q2YWE1Njg5YmY=


Steve Capus

President, NBC News

30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, N.Y. 10112

Mr. Capus:

This e-mail is to formally request that NBC Nightly News and The Today Show air for their viewers President Bush's actual answer to correspondent Richard Engel's question about Iran policy and "appeasement," rather than the deceptively edited version of the President's answer that was aired last night on the Nightly News and this morning on The Today Show.

In the interview, Engel asked the President: "You said that negotiating with Iran is pointless, and then you went further. You said that it was appeasement. Were you referring to Senator Barack Obama?"

The President responded: "You know, my policies haven't changed, but evidently the political calendar has. People need to read the speech. You didn't get it exactly right, either. What I said was is that we need to take the words of people seriously. And when, you know, a leader of Iran says that they want to destroy Israel, you've got to take those words seriously. And if you don't take them seriously, then it harkens back to a day when we didn't take other words seriously. It was fitting that I talked about not taking the words of Adolph Hitler seriously on the floor of the Knesset. But I also talked about the need to defend Israel, the need to not negotiate with the likes of al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas. And the need to make sure Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon."

This answer makes clear: (1). The President's remarks before the Knesset were not different from past policy statements, but are now being looked at through a political prism, (2). Corrects the inaccurate premise of Engel's question by putting the "appeasement" line in the proper context of taking the words of leaders seriously, not "negotiating with Iran," (3). Restates the U.S.'s long-standing policy positions against negotiating with al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas, and not allowing Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.

Engel's immediate follow-up question was, "Repeatedly you've talked about Iran and that you don't want to see Iran develop a nuclear weapon. How far away do you think Iran is from developing a nuclear capability?"

The President replied, "You know, Richard, I don't want to speculate – and there's a lot of speculation. But one thing is for certain – we need to prevent them from learning how to enrich uranium. And I have made it clear to the Iranians that there is a seat at the table for them if they would verifiably suspend their enrichment. And if not, we'll continue to rally the world to isolate them."

This response reiterates another long-standing policy, which is that if Iran verifiably suspends its uranium enrichment program the U.S. government would engage in talks with the Iranian government.

NBC's selective editing of the President's response is clearly intended to give viewers the impression that he agreed with Engel's characterization of his remarks when he explicitly challenged it. Furthermore, omitted the references to al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas and ignored the clarifying point in the President's follow-up response that U.S. policy is to require Iran to suspend its nuclear enrichment program before coming to the table, not that "negotiating with Iran is pointless" and amounts to "appeasement."

This deceitful editing to further a media-manufactured storyline is utterly misleading and irresponsible and I hereby request in the interest of fairness and accuracy that the network air the President's responses to both initial questions in full on the two programs that used the excerpts.

As long as I am making this formal request, please allow me to take this opportunity to ask if your network has reconsidered its position that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war, especially in light of the fact that the unity government in Baghdad recently rooted out illegal, extremist groups in Basra and reclaimed the port there for the people of Iraq, among other significant signs of progress.

On November 27, 2006, NBC News made a decision to no longer just cover the news in Iraq, but to make an analytical and editorial judgment that Iraq was in a civil war. As you know, both the United States government and the Government of Iraq disputed your account at that time. As Matt Lauer said that morning on The Today Show: "We should mention, we didn't just wake up on a Monday morning and say, 'Let's call this a civil war.' This took careful deliberation.'"

I noticed that around September of 2007, your network quietly stopped referring to conditions in Iraq as a "civil war." Is it still NBC News's carefully deliberated opinion that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war? If not, will the network publicly declare that the civil war has ended, or that it was wrong to declare it in the first place?

Lastly, when the Commerce Department on April 30 released the GDP numbers for the first quarter of 2007, Brian Williams reported it this way: "If you go by the government number, the figure that came out today stops just short of the official declaration of a recession."

The GDP estimate was a positive 0.6% for the first quarter. Slow growth, but growth nonetheless. This followed a slow but growing fourth quarter in 2007. Consequently, even if the first quarter GDP estimate had been negative, it still would not have signaled a recession – neither by the unofficial rule-of-thumb of two consecutive quarters of negative growth, nor the more robust definition by the National Bureau of Economic Research (the group that officially marks the beginnings and ends of business cycles).

Furthermore, never in our nation's history have we characterized economic conditions as a "recession" with unemployment so low – in fact, when this rate of unemployment was eventually reached in the 1990s, it was hailed as the sign of a strong economy. This rate of unemployment is lower than the average of the past three decades.

Are there numbers besides the "government number" to go by? Is there reason to believe "the government number" is suspect? How does the release of positive economic growth for two consecutive quarters, albeit limited, stop "just short of the official declaration of a recession"?

Mr. Capus, I'm sure you don't want people to conclude that there is really no distinction between the "news" as reported on NBC and the "opinion" as reported on MSNBC, despite the increasing blurring of those lines. I welcome your response to this letter, and hope it is one that reassures your broadcast network's viewers that blatantly partisan talk show hosts like Christopher Matthews and Keith Olbermann at MSNBC don't hold editorial sway over the NBC network news division.

Sincerely,

Ed Gillespie

Counselor to the President

To View The Edited Version Of NBC News' Interview, Click Here

To View The Full Interview Of The President, Click Here

05/19 03:38 PM

[dude1394]

With obama hussien messiah in the race, it's going to be particularly egregious I expect.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ..._election_2008

Just 17% of voters nationwide believe that most reporters try to offer unbiased coverage of election campaigns. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that four times as many—68%--believe most reporters try to help the candidate that they want to win.

The perception that reporters are advocates rather than observers is held by 82% of Republicans, 56% of Democrats, and 69% of voters not affiliated with either major party. The skepticism about reporters cuts across income, racial, gender, and age barriers.

[jefelump]

The major media outlets generally show a bias towards the Democrat party. Now that they aren't fighting over whether it will be Obama or Hillary, I agree with you that it is only going to get worse.

[DirkFTW]

Putting Money Where Mouths Are: Media Donations Favor Dems 100-1

By WILLIAM TATE | Posted Wednesday, July 23, 2008 4:20 PM PT

The New York Times' refusal to publish John McCain's rebuttal to Barack Obama's Iraq op-ed may be the most glaring example of liberal media bias this journalist has ever seen. But true proof of widespread media bias requires one to follow an old journalism maxim: Follow the money.

Even the Associated Press — no bastion of conservatism — has considered, at least superficially, the media's favoritism for Barack Obama. It's time to revisit media bias.

True to form, journalists are defending their bias by saying that one candidate, Obama, is more newsworthy than the other. In other words, there is no media bias. It is we, the hoi polloi, who reveal our bias by questioning the neutrality of these learned professionals in their ivory-towered newsrooms.

Big Media applies this rationalization to every argument used to point out bias. "It's not a result of bias," they say. "It's a matter of news judgment."

And, like the man who knows his wallet was pickpocketed but can't prove it, the public is left to futilely rage against the injustice of it all.

The "newsworthy" argument can be applied to every metric — one-sided imbalances in airtime, story placement, column inches, number of stories, etc. — save one.

An analysis of federal records shows that the amount of money journalists contributed so far this election cycle favors Democrats by a 15:1 ratio over Republicans, with $225,563 going to Democrats, only $16,298 to Republicans .

Two-hundred thirty-five journalists donated to Democrats, just 20 gave to Republicans — a margin greater than 10-to-1. An even greater disparity, 20-to-1, exists between the number of journalists who donated to Barack Obama and John McCain.

Searches for other newsroom categories (reporters, correspondents, news editors, anchors, newspaper editors and publishers) produces 311 donors to Democrats to 30 donors to Republicans, a ratio of just over 10-to-1. In terms of money, $279,266 went to Dems, $20,709 to Republicans, a 14-to-1 ratio.

And while the money totals pale in comparison to the $9-million-plus that just one union's PACs have spent to get Obama elected, they are more substantial than the amount that Obama has criticized John McCain for receiving from lobbyists: 96 lobbyists have contributed $95,850 to McCain, while Obama — who says he won't take money from PACs or federal lobbyists — has received $16,223 from 29 lobbyists.

A few journalists list their employer as an organization like MSNBC, MSNBC.com or ABC News, or report that they're freelancers for the New York Times, or are journalists for Al Jazeera, CNN Turkey, Deutsche Welle Radio or La Republica of Rome (all contributions to Obama). Most report no employer. They're mainly freelancers. That's because most major news organization have policies that forbid newsroom employees from making political donations.

As if to warn their colleagues in the media, MSNBC last summer ran a story on journalists' contributions to political candidates that drew a similar conclusion:

"Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left."

The timing of that article was rather curious. Dated June 25, 2007, it appeared during the middle of the summer news doldrums in a non-election year — timing that was sure to minimize its impact among the general public, while still warning newsrooms across the country that such political donations can be checked.

In case that was too subtle, MSNBC ran a sidebar story detailing cautionary tales of reporters who lost their jobs or were otherwise negatively impacted because their donations became public.

As if to warn their comrades-in-news against putting their money where their mouth is, the report also cautioned that, with the Internet, "it became easier for the blogging public to look up the donors."

It went on to detail the ban that most major media organizations have against newsroom employees donating to political campaigns, a ban that raises some obvious First Amendment issues. Whether it's intentional or not, the ban makes it difficult to verify the political leanings of Big Media reporters, editors and producers. There are two logical ways to extrapolate what those leanings are, though.

One is the overwhelming nature of the above statistics. Given the pack mentality among journalists and, just like any pack, the tendency to follow the leader — in this case, Big Media — and since Big Media are centered in some of the bluest of blue parts of the country, it is highly likely that the media elite reflect the same, or an even greater, liberal bias.

A second is to analyze contributions from folks in the same corporate cultures. That analysis provides some surprising results. The contributions of individuals who reported being employed by major media organizations are listed in the nearby table.

The contributions add up to $315,533 to Democrats and $22,656 to Republicans — most of that to Ron Paul, who was supported by many liberals as a stalking horse to John McCain, a la Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos with Hillary and Obama.

What is truly remarkable about the list is that, discounting contributions to Paul and Rudy Giuliani, who was a favorite son for many folks in the media, the totals look like this: $315,533 to Democrats, $3,150 to Republicans (four individuals who donated to McCain).

Let me repeat: $315,533 to Democrats, $3,150 to Republicans — a ratio of 100-to-1. No bias there.

Tate is a former journalist, now a novelist and the author of "A Time Like This: 2001-2008." This article first appeared on the American Thinker Web site.

Link

[92bDad]

Thank you for putting the proof behind the statements regarding the bias of the mainstream media.

I have another account as it relates to TIME magazine.

I have a friend who is a journalist and has a very strong Conservative belief system. He interviewed for a position with TIME magazine, and in the interview process he was told that he would essentially be a minority hire. Basically, if hired he would be the one conservative voice within the magazine.

Basically all of their stories are written from a Liberal view point.

The proof is overwhelming and just as no liberal will change my view on life, none of us will change the views of liberals. However, we can only hope that as the swing folks begin to pay attention, that they will see the truth behind the smoke.

I hope that people vote after becoming informed on what is reality, rather than cast a popularity vote.

I'm worried that we are seeing politics manipulated by what people want to hear, rather then research the truth. It's like a major sports all-star game being voted by fans...how often do we see this being a popularity contest rather than one where the top players are actually rewarded?

[DirkFTW]

LOL! Mic malfunction?

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by DirkFTW

LOL! Mic malfunction?

Posting olbermann is bad for your mental health. But I understand the point.

[dude1394]

It cracks me up to hear the liberals talk about how "Fox" is so biased.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_L6pDyjqqsv...alin+homes.jpg


So you think that Mac/Palin were talking about homes??

[Usually Lurkin]

v.

[rabbitproof]

http://ccinsider.comedycentral.com/c...ewart-ann.html

lol.

[DirkFTW]

LMAO!

How can anyone not like this man??

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by rabbitproof

http://ccinsider.comedycentral.com/c...ewart-ann.html

lol.

Good grief. Can we just collect all the postings of this video into 1 thread?

[Mavdog]

jon stewart has the funniest show on television. period....

jon stewart show
"Guantanamo isn't a prison, it's a leadership academy!"

fell out of my chair when he did the "foghorn leghorn and droopy dog with a response by looney toons" bit

[Usually Lurkin]

http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Pu...5/548bfqty.asp

Here are the headline and the first two paragraphs from an article posted online that apparently will be on the front page of Friday's Washington Post:

"Palin Links Iraq to 9/11, A View Discarded by Bush"
By Anne E. Kornblut 
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 12, 2008; A01

FORT WAINWRIGHT, Alaska, Sept. 11 -- Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans."

The idea that Iraq shared responsibility with al-Qaeda for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself. On any other day, Palin's statement would almost certainly have drawn a sharp rebuke from Democrats, but both parties had declared a halt to partisan activities to mark Thursday's anniversary."

Kornblut's interpretation of what Palin said is either stupid or malicious. Palin is evidently saying that American soldiers are going to Iraq to defend innocent Iraqis from al Qaeda in Iraq, a group that is related to al Qaeda, which did plan and carry out the Sept. 11 attacks. It makes no sense for Kornblut to claim that Palin is arguing here that Saddam Hussein's regime carried out 9/11--obviously Palin isn't saying that our soldiers are now going over to Iraq to fight Saddam's regime. Palin isn't linking Saddam to 9/11.
She's linking al Qaeda in Iraq to al Qaeda.

People can debate how intimate that connection is, and how much of the fight in Iraq is now against al Qaeda in Iraq--but it's simply the case that Palin is not saying what Kornblut says she is, and that the Washington Post is, right now, leading its paper with a clear distortion of what Palin said.

Update [Ed. Note by John McCormack]: It appears the Washington Post has tried to (partially) walk back Kornblut's distortion that Palin tied responsibility for 9/11 to Saddam Hussein's regime. The second paragraph of this story, as noted above, originally read:

The idea that Iraq shared responsibility with al-Qaeda for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself. On any other day, Palin's statement would almost certainly have drawn a sharp rebuke from Democrats, but both parties had declared a halt to partisan activities to mark Thursday's anniversary."

It now reads:

The idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a view once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself. But it is widely agreed that militants allied with al-Qaeda have taken root in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion.

The Post still ascribes an idea to Palin that she evidently wasn't promoting. It's nice that the Post threw in the sentence: "But it is widely agreed that militants allied with al-Qaeda have taken root in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion."

[Usually Lurkin]

http://media.nationalreview.com/post...MwM2Y0NWUyMTU=

Sarah Palin Running for President -- Unopposed ... [Kevin D. Williamson]
... or so you'd think from ABC's The Blotter. A reader shares:

Here’s all you need to know about the state of the elections…



A tally of name appearances at 4:15 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, September 16, on the ABC News website at “The Blotter from Brian Ross and The Investigate Team”



Palin: 24

McCain: 2

Biden: 1

Obama: 0



One is tempted, and I think I will, to use the “Send Tips to Brian” link in the upper right of the page to let him know that not only is Sarah Palin not running for President, but I have heard Barack Obama might be….

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/

[aquaadverse]

Live by the media, die by the media. Probably should force media companies to have a total separation firewall from the entertainment holdings.

We have a population that now reads less than a book a year, and a majority would look for Pakistan in South America. The old big three networks have turned the news divisions into fluffy McNews. Murrow, Cronkite and Couric.

ABC is owned by Disney, a company that has no problem totally destroying classical children's literature so it can sell more crappy merchandise tie ins. Expecting journalistic integrity instead of maximizing profit is going to leave you disappointed.