Showing posts with label MSM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MSM. Show all posts

Friday, November 09, 2007

The photo the mainstream media can't ignore

 
This is the photo that captured the essence of sacrifice and victory in World War II.

Now the Iraq war, a controversial struggle to free millions from despotism, has its own Joe Rosenthal.

This incredible photo was taken by our generation's Ernie Pyle. The best journalist working in Iraq -- Michael Yon -- described this scene:

A Muslim man had invited the American soldiers from “Chosen” Company 2-12 Infantry to the church, where I videotaped as Muslims and Christians worked and rejoiced at the reopening of St John’s, an occasion all viewed as a sign of hope.

The Iraqis asked me to convey a message of thanks to the American people. ” Thank you, thank you,” the people were saying. One man said, “Thank you for peace.” Another man, a Muslim, said “All the people, all the people in Iraq, Muslim and Christian, is brother.” The men and women were holding bells, and for the first time in memory freedom rang over the ravaged land between two rivers.

The reason this photo is rippling through the blogosphere at the speed of light is its resonance. It highights a stunning series of succesess spurred by Gen. David Petraeus' surge... while the mainstream media and Defeatocratic Party remain utterly silent.

Splash sums it up perfectly (hat tip: Libertas):

Hey, libs… Hear that sound? That’s history rolling on without you again.

The Iraqi people continue to express their thanks to Americans in hundreds of ways. To read a newspaper or visit a movie theater, though, you'd never know it.

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Job Counseling for Depressed Leftists

 
The numbers are in. Circulation at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, home of the incoherent Tom Teepen, is down 9%. The Washington Post, suffering from the infection known as Richard Cohen, is down 3 1/4%. And the New York Times, which hit the trifecta of addled leftists (Maureen Dowd, Bob Herbert, and Frank Rich), dropped 4 1/2%.

I hear Jiffy Lube is hiring.

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Terrorist Sympathizing Journalist of the Year Award

 
Ray Robison has named the clear winner of the prestigious -- and hotly contested -- Terrorist Sympathizing Journalist of the Year Award. I won't keep you in suspense any longer.

And the winner is:

Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald for her masterful "Terror suspects' beards are safe now."

Rosenberg exposes the terrifying scissors wielded by malevolent Gitmo captors who engage in, dare I say it, beard-trimming.

Oh, the humanity!

Monday, November 05, 2007

Tony Snow explains why newspapers remain in free fall

 
Editor & Publisher reports on the continued hemorrhaging of newspaper circulation:

The Audit Bureau of Circulations released circulation numbers for more than 700 daily newspapers this morning for the six-month period ending September 2007. Of the top 25 papers in daily circulation, only four showed gains... According to an analysis of ABC figures, for 538 daily U.S. newspapers, circulation declined 2.5% to 40,689,617.

For The New York Times, daily circulation fell 4.51% to 1,037,828 and Sunday plunged 7.59% to 1,500,394, at least partly due to a price increase though executives with the paper say the decline from the hike was less than anticipated.

Daily circulation at The Washington Post was down 3.2% to 635,087 and Sunday was down 3.9% to 894,428... Daily circulation at The Boston Globe tumbled 6.6% to 360,695 and Sunday fell about the same, 6.5% to 548,906.

...Daily and Sunday circulation at the San Francisco Chronicle has stabilized, down 2.9% to 365,234 and 0.6% to 430,115, respectively. [Ed: "stabilizing"?]... Both The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News experienced deep declines -- more than 10%...

The numbers point to continued declines among the standard-bearers of the liberal mainstream media: the Times, WaPo, and the Globe. But I'm sure it has nothing to do with Tony Snow's take. The former White House press secretary had some harsh words for today's MSM.

...[We] hear that the First Amendment is under siege. I think that´s true... Yet, while it may be tempting to blame the usual suspects — the government, interest groups, angry factionalists — those forces frequently have always tried to restrict the free flow of ideas, and they always have failed... They´re not the culprits here. Instead, there´s a new and unexpected menace on the block:

The media.

...Reporters and editors for three decades have sneered at accusations of bias, as if the claim were novel — it is not — unthinkable — it is not — or false — which it also is not... The major media organs in this country have become purveyors of conventional wisdom— generally, conventional liberal wisdom.

The Roper Organization conducted a poll after the 1992 election and discovered that 93 percent of Washington political reporters voted for Bill Clinton. Only 2 percent identified themselves as “conservative.”

...This is not a smear or a criticism. It is a fact, and it´s worth examining. My theory is that liberal — Democratic — sympathies flourish among reporters for very practical reasons. Democrats ran every major institution in Washington for 62 years — between 1932 and 1994...

And what about conventional wisdom? For months, the media avoided asking about progress in Iraq. Despite repeated reports from the field that Iraqis had turned against al Qaeda, the news seldom made it into newspapers, and almost never on front pages. Last week, the military reported that civilian deaths in Iraq had hit their lowest point since 2003. U.S. and Iraqi deaths and casualties similarly had declined. So what led the paper the next morning? Stories about Blackwater. The statistics that put the war in perspective were relegated to the back pages of the Washington Post and in some publications, to oblivion.

A vigorous press must be one in which reporters challenge their own sympathies and assumptions as aggressively as they challenge the sympathies and assumptions of others. Unfortunately, that too seldom happens, with the consequence that opinion-mongering has driven out straight news.

...media organizations have been seduced by process, conflict and polling stories, and along the way have sacrificed the tradition of looking for creative ways to understand and explain the world. They have become hostages to the easy and shallow stuff and strangers to stories that touch people´s hearts and characterize their actual lives.

The democratic media provide new tools for examining our world, new competitors for reporting about that world, and new reminders to the press establishment that markets really do work — and people want better than they´re getting.

To highlight Snow's speech, the complete numbers for the top 25 newspapers are as follows:

Total Paid Daily Circulation, Monday through Friday average
Current number, last year -- % Change -- Newspaper
2,293,137 -- 2,269,509 -- (+1.04%) -- USA TODAY
2,011,882 -- 2,043,235 -- (-1.53%) -- THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
1,037,828 -- 1,086,797 -- (-4.51%) -- THE NEW YORK TIMES
779,682 -- 775,765 -- (+0.50%) -- LOS ANGELES TIMES
681,415 -- 693,423 -- (-1.73%) -- DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
667,119 -- 704,011 -- (-5.24%) -- NEW YORK POST
635,087 -- 656,298 -- (-3.23%) -- THE WASHINGTON POST
559,404 -- 576,131 -- (-2.90%) -- CHICAGO TRIBUNE
507,437 -- 508,091 -- (-0.13%) -- HOUSTON CHRONICLE
387,503 -- 410,578 -- (-5.62%) -- NEWSDAY
382,414 -- 397,295 -- (-3.75%) -- THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC
373,586 -- 404,652 -- (-7.68%) -- THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
365,234 -- 373,805 -- (-2.29%) -- SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
360,695 -- 386,417 -- (-6.66%) -- BOSTON GLOBE
353,003 -- 363,100 -- (-2.78%) -- THE STAR-LEDGER, NEWARK, N.J.
338,260 -- 330,622 -- (+2.31%) -- THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
335,443 -- 358,887 -- (-6.53%) -- STAR TRIBUNE, MINNEAPOLIS
334,195 -- 336,940 -- (-0.81%) -- THE PLAIN DEALER, CLEVELAND
320,125 -- 328,719 -- (-2.61%) -- DETROIT FREE PRESS
318,350 -- 350,159 -- (-9.08%) -- THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION
309,467 -- 310,805 -- (-0.43%) -- THE OREGONIAN, PORTLAND
288,807 -- 288,679 -- (+0.04%) -- ST. PETERSBURG (FLA.) TIMES
278,507 -- 287,204 -- (-3.03%) -- THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
278,379 -- 304,334 -- (-8.53%) -- SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
265,111 -- 276,677 -- (-4.18%) -- ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Saturday, November 03, 2007

Hard Proof that Press Coverage of Politics is Biased

 
The Project for Excellence in Journalism (Journalism.org) is featuring a new study called The Press, Politics and Public Policy. It confirms what most of us have known all along: the mainstream media hawks the Democratic agenda and pillories the GOP whenever possible.

...findings from the PEJ-Shorenstein study:

* Just five candidates have been the focus of more than half of all the coverage. Hillary Clinton received the most (17% of stories), though she can thank the overwhelming and largely negative attention of conservative talk radio hosts for much of the edge in total volume. Barack Obama was next (14%), with Republicans Giuliani, McCain, and Romney measurably behind (9% and 7% and 5% respectively). As for the rest of the pack, Elizabeth Edwards, a candidate spouse, received more attention than 10 of them, and nearly as much as her husband.

* Democrats generally got more coverage than Republicans, (49% of stories vs. 31%.)...

* Overall, Democrats also have received more positive coverage than Republicans (35% of stories vs. 26%), while Republicans received more negative coverage than Democrats (35% vs. 26%)...

* There were also distinct coverage differences in different media. Newspapers were more positive than other media about Democrats and more citizen-oriented in framing stories...

Taking all the presidential hopefuls together, the press overall has been more positive about Democratic candidates and more negative about Republicans. In the stories mainly about one of the Democratic candidates, the largest percentage was neutral (39%), but more than a third of stories (35%) were positive, while slightly more than a quarter (26%) carried a clearly negative tone.

For Republicans, the numbers were basically reversed. Again the same number as for Democrats (39%) were neutral, but more than a third (35%) were negative vs. 26% positive.

In other words, not only did the Republicans receive less coverage overall, the attention they did get tended to be more negative than that of Democrats. And in some specific media genres, the difference is particularly striking.


One other finding of this study is that the news media also appear to be preoccupied with the head-to-head contest of the first major African American candidate and the first serious female contender for a major party nomination on the Democratic side.

...There are other factors that may have tipped the press’ gaze more toward Democrats. The Republicans candidates with large war chests announced later than Democrats, and that would explain part of why Republicans received less news attention in the first five months of coverage. But it does not explain all of the difference, for even after the GOP race had begun, Democrats continued to get more exposure.

That tilt toward Democrats and elite candidates was truer of some outlets more than others. One news operation studied stands out as offering a contrast to these trends--The News Hour on PBS. It took a measurably different approach, focusing on all the candidates and offering audiences a broad look at their agendas for the country.

As for the more critical tone for Republicans, there are various possible explanations. The strategic context of the Republican candidacies did not always cast them in a positive light. On the plus side, Romney’s fundraising, like Obama’s, exceeded predications. The result was relatively positive coverage even though his national polling was in the single digits... But the failure of John McCain’s campaign to gain traction led to negative coverage for his candidacy.

A good deal of the negative coverage of other Republican candidates may well have resulted from press skepticism about their chances for the nomination... But if, in the early stages of the race, the 2008 presidential campaign represents a possible shift away from the Republican party of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and a generational struggle in both parties, neither of these more idea-oriented themes are heavily evident in the early press coverage. If American politics is changing, the style and approach of the American press does not appear to be changing with it.


Journalism.org: THE INVISIBLE PRIMARY—INVISIBLE NO LONGER

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Mowbray reports on the Mainstream Media's Information Operations

 
Joel Mowbray, writing in the Washington Times ("Media Fantasy Land"):

In the terrorism case of two young Egyptian nationals and University of South Florida students arrested Aug. 4 in South Carolina, fascinating twists and turns abound... Yet this compelling drama has drawn scant attention from the mainstream media. And while apologists might attempt to write off the paucity of coverage for various reasons, a slew of other terrorism cases since September 11 have been met with the same media disinterest.

Following the arrests of Mr. Mohamed and Mr. Megahed on Aug. 4 with explosives in the trunk of their car — just seven miles from a naval weapons base in Goose Creek, S.C. — The Washington Post and New York Times made fleeting references...

When someone with seething anger toward U.S. soldiers drives a car filled with explosive materials two states away to a naval station, how is that not major news?

Contrast that to the coverage afforded the recent mistrial in the government's case against Holy Land Foundation, an alleged front for Hamas.

The mistrial was spun by most mainstream media outlets as a major defeat to U.S. counterterrorism efforts. The New York Times dedicated over 1,200 words in a page-one story...

I have come to the inescapable conclusion that the mainstream media is indistinguishable from the enemy. Read the whole thing.

AP throws a curveball in 'Name that Party'

 
Don Surber has a game he likes to call "Name that Party." It's simple to play.

Pick out an AP article that references some disgraced political figure and count how many paragraphs it takes for the crack AP pro journalist author to name the political affiliation of the culprit.

Today's entry is submitted by the AP's Mike Robinson. Entitled, Ex-Gov. Ryan Ordered to Prison by Nov. 7, it begins:

Former Gov. George Ryan was ordered Friday to start serving a 6 1/2-year prison sentence in less than two weeks, but his lawyers held out hope they could keep him out of prison pending a U.S. Supreme Court appeal.

U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer set a Nov. 7 surrender date for Ryan and co-defendant Larry Warner to report to prison.

Within hours, his attorneys asked the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for an extension of his bond that would keep him free while they take the case to the nation's highest court....

Sixteen paragraphs. No mention of political affiliation, despite the fact that Ryan "was convicted in April 2006 of steering state contracts to friends, using tax dollars to run his campaigns and covering up drivers license bribery... [his] conviction capped one of Illinois' biggest political scandals ever, bringing with it nine years of investigations and trials that wrecked Ryan's career and sent dozens of others to jail."

What's interesting is that Ryan was a Republican and not a Democrat. Well, in truth, he was a RINO, because most of his positions were to the left of his Democratic opponents. He made national headlines in 2000 for his moratorium on executions. He subsequently commuted the sentences of all convicts on the Illinois death row to life in prison. In addition, his position on gun control was the exact opposite of most Republicans -- he believed in limiting the right of citizens to keep and bear arms.

In short, I'm not sure what to make of the AP's curveball in the "Name that Party" game. Are they trying to level the playing field? Or do they just consider Ryan a kindred spirit? Either way, it's a trend we should monitor.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Hi-larious Hi-jinx as the Mainstream Media Melts Down!

 
Morgan Stanley has decided to sell its entire stake of New York Times stock (via Bloomberg):

Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest shareholder in New York Times Co., sold its entire 7.3 percent stake today... sending the stock to its lowest in more than 10 years... Traders with knowledge of the transaction said Merrill Lynch & Co. brokered a $183 million block trade of 10 million New York Times shares this morning.

...New York Times shares slid 43 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $18.48 at 4:04 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, the lowest since January 1997. The stock has declined 24 percent this year.

Good news for Maureen Dowd, though, as she may qualify for SCHIP soon.

Not to be outdone, Newsweek Magazine may have just set a record for errors-per-column-inch (via Powerline):



...the correction posted online by Newsweek for the sidebar above that runs in the current issue:

Editor's Note: In our print edition, several captions for the photographs accompanying this report were inadvertantly transposed. Martin Kramer's photograph is identified as Norman Podhoretz; Daniel Pipes's photograph is identified as Kramer; Peter Berkowitz's photograph is identified as Pipes; Nile Gardiner's photograph is identified as Berkowitz's and Podhoretz's photograph is identified as Gardiner's. NEWSWEEK regrets the errors.

Daniel Pipes writes that the correction "warrants a place in Guiness World Records" and comments:

(1) There are six pictures in all on the page and five of the six captions are wrong; only that of Robert Kasten is correct. Aggregating so many errors at once takes real talent – but count on Newsweek.

(2) The inevitable implication is that, for Newsweek staff, all conservatives look alike.

(3) The accuracy of the picture captions provides an apt commentary for the rest of Newsweek's wretched coverage in this article.

(4) For another example of Newsweek's problem with quality control, see "Lorraine Ali, the Worst Political Reporter in America?" (October 15, 2007).

Pipes's co-conspirator and double Martin Kramer cites his mother concerning Newsweek's regret over its errors: "Believe me, they don't regret them as much as my mother does."

Monday, October 15, 2007

The unassailable integrity of the mainstream media

 
LTG (RET) RICARDO SANCHEZ ADDRESSES THE IRAQ PRESS CORPS:

Tough reporting relies upon integrity, objectivity and fairness to give accurate and thorough accounts that strengthen our freedom of the press and in turn our democracy. Unfortunately, I have issued ultimatums to some of you for unscrupulous reporting that was solely focused on supporting your agenda and preconceived notions of what our military had done.

I have refused to talk to the European Stars and Stripes for the last two years of my command in Germany for their extreme bias and single-minded focus on Abu Ghraib.

Let me review some of the descriptive phrases that have been used by some of you that have made my personal interfaces with the press corps difficult: "dictatorial and somewhat dense", "not a strategic thought", "liar", "does not get it" and "inexperienced."

In some cases I have never even met you, yet you feel qualified to make character judgments that are communicated to the world. My experience is not unique and we can find other examples such as the treatment of Secretary Brown during Katrina.

This is the worst display of journalism imaginable by those of us that are bound by a strict value system of selfless service, honor and integrity. Some of you will compromise your integrity and display questionable ethics as you seek to keep America informed.

Personal reputations have no value and you report with total impunity and are rarely held accountable for unethical conduct.

The responsibility to accurately and truthfully report takes on an unprecedented importance. The speculative and often uninformed initial reporting that characterizes our media appears to be rapidly becoming the standard of the industry.

Your unwillingness to accurately and prominently correct your mistakes and your agenda driven biases contribute to this corrosive environment. All of these challenges combined create a media environment that does a tremendous disservice to America.

Over the course of this war tactically insignificant events have become strategic defeats for America because of the tremendous power and impact of the media and by extension you the journalist.

When you assume that you are correct and on the moral high ground on a story because we have not responded to questions you provided is the ultimate arrogance and distortion of ethics.

The code of ethics for the society of professional journalists states: ...The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues.... Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility.

The death knell of your ethics has been enabled by your parent organizations who have chosen to align themselves with political agendas. What is clear to me is that you are perpetuating the corrosive partisan politics that is destroying our country and killing our service-members who are at war.

My assessment is that your profession, to some extent, has strayed from these ethical standards and allowed external agendas to manipulate what the American public sees on TV, what they read in our newspapers and what they see on the web. For some of you, just like some of our politicians, the truth is of little to no value if it does not fit your own preconceived notions, biases and agendas.

It is astounding to me when I hear the vehement disagreement with the military's forays into information operations that seek to disseminate the truth and inform the Iraqi people in order to counter our enemy's blatant propaganda. As I assess various media entities, some are unquestionably engaged in political propaganda that is uncontrolled.

Finally, I will leave this subject with a question that we must ask ourselves--who is responsible for maintaining the ethical standards of the profession in order to ensure that our democracy does not continue to be threatened by this dangerous shift away from your sacred duty of public enlightenment?

Our nation has a crisis in leadership. While politicians espouse their rhetoric designed to preserve their political power... our soldiers die!

The Administration, Congress... must shoulder the responsibility for this catastrophic failure... there has been a glaring, unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders.

Since 2003, the politics of war have been characterized by partisanship.

Clearly, mistakes have been made by the American military in its application of power, but even its greatest failure in this war can be linked to America's lack of commitment... without the sacrifices of our magnificent young men and women in uniform, Iraq would be chaotic well beyond anything experienced to date.

America has no choice but to continue our efforts in Iraq. At no time in America's history has there been more of a need for bipartisan cooperation.

Our National Security Council has been a catastrophic failure... it seems that Congress recognizes that the military cannot achieve victory alone in this war. Yet they continue to demand victory from our military. ...In my profession, these types of leaders would immediately be relieved or courtmartialed.

I remain optimistic... our military must embrace you for the sake of our democracy, but you owe them ethical journalism. Thank you for this opportunity. May God bless you and may God bless America.

NEW YORK TIMES:



Hat tips: Hugh Hewitt, Powerline, and USA Today

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Bush Derangement Syndrome Sufferer Comment o' the Day

 
Don Surber links to a fascinating Washington Post op-ed that confirms the startling numbers: the surge is working... stunningly well.

The Washington Post today assailed MSM, liberals and critics of the war. But I repeat myself. It is a fine editorial by a newspaper that too many conservatives dismiss as “lefty.” The Post editorial fact checks Hillary’s claim that “civilian deaths have risen.”


The Post found otherwise: “A month later, there isn’t much room for such debate, at least about the latest figures. In September, Iraqi civilian deaths were down 52 percent from August and 77 percent from September 2006 …

Hillary lied. For political gain, she flat-out lied. She voted for this war 5 years ago to give her credibility in this presidential campaign. In September, she dumped on the efforts of Gen. Petraeus, whom she dared to portray as a liar.


William Safire pegged her well in January 1996 when he called her a “congenital liar.” He took heat for that. He spoke the truth to power before the phrase was co-opted by the power mad on the left...

As might be expected, the BDS sufferers -- not used to seeing positive news of any sort in an op-ed -- exploded in a delirious, Tourettes-like rage. Simply put, the comments are hilarious. The following, offered by 'Red Head Claudine', is typical.

So there is one sure way to end all US troop deaths in Iraq and its real simple,
just bring every one of our troops back home to the US and let the Iraqis kill every member of Nazi Dictator Draft Dodger
Darth Vader Cheney's Blackwater Republican
Guard Mercendary Army and Commander Killer
Condi's Waffen SS Blackwater Death Squads,
and safe us all that legal expense of trying and executing all of Erik Black Prince of Deaths Paid Killers and Hang
President Dry Drunk George W Bush,Darth Vader Cheney,Condoleezza Rice,Nancy Pelosi
Steny Hoyer,Harry Reid,Dickey Durbin,GOP Bush Zombie Mitch McConnell,Scumbag Trent Lott,Congressman Bonehead and Bluntbrains,
and the Black Prince of Death Blackwater CEO Erick Prince and that will help restore the rule of law and our own US Constitution and our world image as well.

Wow! If anyone can translate that deranged mess, please let us know in the comments. If any medical professionals know the author -- "Red Head Claudine" -- I'd recommend that you up her prescriptions.

And the scary thing is that Claudine is more lucid than most the Democrats I know.

More info: Gateway Pundit has the essential data and graphs.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

CNN reveals a 'safe house'... and more!

 
CNN's done it again. Not content with marketing terrorism by airing insurgent sniper videos, the fading network just hit a new low. Gates of Vienna reports that CNN, always aware of the need for extremists to be able to locate artists and writers who "defame Islam," has revealed the safe house of artist Lars Vilks. Shockingly, our reporters have discovered an even more serious breach of protocol by CNN's Blanderson Pooper. Let's watch the tape:

I'm Blanderson Pooper. Artist Blanche Fester has attempted, successfully so far, to elude the religious extremists pursuing her over her controversial artwork. Until now, Fester's safe-house -- at 100 12th Ave. in Waltham, Massachusetts -- has been a closely guarded secret.

CNN can reveal a nearby, unlicensed gunshop where Glock 9mm semi-automatic handguns are sold with their serial numbers scratched off. Ask for Vinny.

Fester's secret residence is located here -- and she has no roommates or bodyguards. The key to the back door is stashed between the second and third bricks on the first step.

For someone quickly leaving the area, CNN recommends heading west on Fifth Avenue, where there are three exit points: the road north intersects with Route 2, heading west hits Interstate 128, and south drops into the Mass Pike.

For a person who wishes to switch vehicles, CNN recommends heading west and taking route 128 to the Burlington Mall exit. A gray, late-model Toyota Sienna mini-van is parked at the southwest corner of the first parking structure. The rear latch is open and the keys are hidden under the rear right floormat.

In the third row of seats, there is a suitcase containing several complete changes of clothing, $5,000 in cash, a Sony mini-cam, and a self-addressed, postage-free envelope for mailing the videotape back to CNN... This is Blanderson Pooper for CNN, reporting.

* * *

Maybe it's just me, but I think CNN may have finally crossed a line here. Hot Air has more.