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The number of foreign journalists in Baghdad is declining sharply, a media withdrawal that reflects Iraq's growing stability and the financial strains faced by some news organizations. In a stark indication of the changing media focus here, the number of journalists traveling with American forces in Iraq has plummeted in the past year. U.S. military officials say they "embedded" journalists 219 times in September 2007. Last month, the number shrank to 39. Of the dozen U.S. newspapers and newspaper chains that maintained full-time bureaus in Baghdad in the early years of the war, only four are still permanently staffed by...

Since the Associated Press announced its controversial rate change last year, many newspapers have started considering other content options. And things are not likely to calm down any time soon. A handful of dailies — including several who admit their AP rates actually fell — have given notice to drop the service, editors in several states are forging content-sharing alliances, and Politico and PA SportsTicker are quickly positioning themselves to help replace the 160-year-old news cooperative in daily news pages. "AP is going to lose newspapers, it is a question of how many," says Editor Dean Miller of the Post...

FRANK RICH: Fire stoked by McCain/Palin raging out of control... MAUREEN DOWD: McCain/Palin rouse the mob against Obama... Developing... =========== Mainstream Liberal Idiots get it WRONG AGAIN! McCain/Palin didn't stoke anything! This explosion of emotion happened because McCain foolishly put a lid on it for the past 2 months letting it build up more and more pressure until it finally exploded on its own!!

Who wants to start a nation-wide protest of all tv and newspapers next week or the week after? We would demand that the media tells the truth about Obama, the economy, the war and everything else they lie about. We could make signs and hand out flyers. Telling everyone how the media is literally destroying this country with there lies and deception. We could set up a website to promote our cause and sign up for protests at different media outlets. If this went national, the media couldn't ignore it. What do you say? Do you think it could be...

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post often writes with a good deal of attitude, and his Tuesday column was no exception. In his report on Sarah Palin’s campaign speech in Clearwater, Florida, laced with mocking Palinisms (“darn right,” “betcha”), he wrote that “the self-identified pit bull has been unleashed, if not unhinged.” The “unhinging,” in Milbank’s assessment, came when Palin charged that Obama still has some explaining to do about his relationship with 1960s Weatherman bomber William Ayers. Milbank also wrote that Palin blamed Katie Couric for her “less-than-successful” CBS interview. Other newspapers reported a more light-hearted Palin response to...

Conservatives know by now that the dominant liberal media is not just out to criticize Gov. Sarah Palin. They are on a drive to destroy her. But conservatives are missing the reason why. It's not really about defeating John McCain. Running mates do not decide a presidential election. The real reason is the future. Never again will the Left media (New York Times; Washington Post; the networks; Hollywood) allow a young politician to ascend to the leadership of a national conservative movement -- at least not without all-out character assassination. The media have learned their lesson. They generally tolerated the...

I would have thought the answer self-evident, but Roger Simon adds some nuance. Among other instances, he refers to Obama's apparent membership in the socialist New Party: And now we learn of yet another strange obfuscation or omission. In 1996, Obama was apparently a member of the Chicago “New Party,” a now defunct socialist political party of some stripe or other. There’s nothing wrong with being a socialist. I called myself one for the better part of twenty years. Millions of people have and many still do. But there is something very wrong with hiding who you are or who...

Are these decent pictures of Gov. Sarah Palin published by Reuters and Associated Press?

This is the first part in a two-part series. Gov. Sarah Palin doesn't know the ways of Washington, so she has started telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about Sen. Barack Obama. For some reason, even Sen. John McCain has been too kind in campaigning against the most unqualified and most dangerous candidate in our history, made all the more dangerous by the dangerous and uncertain times we now face. We are now in a severe economic crisis and must fight a war with a new kind of enemy, the Islamofascist terrorists, who pose an...

Brian Williams is the only network anchor who hasn’t had a shot at interviewing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, and the NBC anchor wants the McCain-Palin campaign to know he’s ready to do it –- they just have to say the word. “I have access to the three metropolitan airports,” Williams told David Letterman on Friday night. “I cannot wait to interview Sarah Palin. “You know, Katie’s airing Part 17 tonight,” he joked. “And Sarah Palin and Charlie Gibson are in a pottery class together, so I’ve been shut out so far.”

The public should know that ethical principles are down the drain, at least for journalists. The mainstream media has already conclusively and extensively demonstrated it doesn't let the facts on Sen. Barack Obama get in the way of their reporting and now it demonstrates it has little regard for the prohibitions against conflicts of interest. Take the case of Gwen Ifill, of PBS, who moderated the vice presidential debate. She's writing a book on The Age of Obama, scheduled for release on inauguration day, but doesn't bother to relate that to the folks setting up the debate at the Commission...

(FORT MYERS, FLA.) On the day when the McCain campaign released a new attack ad not-so-subtly titled “Dangerous,” Sarah Palin made a concerted effort to use words like “fearful” and “afraid” to describe Barack Obama, signaling her campaign’s decision to make the election a referendum on Obama’s character, rather than the issues facing the country. “I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way that you and I see America—as the greatest source of good in this world,” Palin said at a rally this morning in Clearwater, Fla. “I’m afraid this is someone...

An expert on terrorism is warning the United States should be fighting Islamization, which she believes already is under way. And author Brigitte Gabriel should know: She watched it happen in her native Lebanon. "Lebanon used to be the only majority Christian country in the Middle East," Gabriel told radio talk show host Andrea Shea King in a recent hour-long interview "Most people today do not know that. We were the majority, the Muslims were the minority, but as the years went by, the Muslims became the majority because of their birth rate, but also because of our open-border policy....

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign, helped by the mainstream media, is successfully speaking George Orwell's "Newspeak" to the American people, which means they can believe that two plus two is five, that ignorance is strength, that war is peace. The reason Sen. Obama is running ahead is that the mainstream media's biased, dishonest and fraudulent reporting, dedicated to electing Sen. Obama and vilifying Sen John McCain, has succeeded in selling the opposite of the truth. Take the great financial crisis we're going through. The Republicans, including President George Bush and Sen. McCain, saw many years ago that there was a problem...

For another candidate, it might have been characterized as a “passionate defense.” But for Senator John McCain, who has long battled accusations that he has a short temper, an interview today with The Des Moines Register could be more damaging. Some of Mr. McCain’s responses to questions about issues that have been prominent in the press for the past few weeks came across as sarcastic – sometimes testy. Furthermore, the Iowa newspaper put his interview with the editorial board online, leaving him vulnerable to unflattering mash-ups. “Really?” he responded to a question about possible concern from voters about Gov. Sarah...

At a March 3, 2002 Presidential Gala at Ford’s Theater, in Washington, President George W. Bush was seated in the front row. When emcee Kelsey Grammer introduced blind musician Stevie Wonder, the president smiled and raised his right hand in a perfunctory wave. It was clear to those seated nearby that his gesture was intended for Grammer, one of Hollywood’s few unabashed Republicans. Nevertheless, the Washington Post published a story the following day implying that Bush had waved at Stevie Wonder, saying, “The Prez is such a dolt, he waves at blind folks,” and Democrats all across the country repeated...

A month after Gov. Sarah Palin joined Senator John McCain’s ticket to a burst of excitement and anticipation among Republicans, she heads into a critical debate facing challenges from conservatives about her credentials, signs that her popularity is slipping and evidence that Republicans are worried about how much help she will be for Mr. McCain in November.... "I think she has pretty thoroughly — and probably irretrievably — proven that she is not up to the job of being president of the United States," David Frum, a former speechwriter for President Bush who is now a conservative columnist, said in...

( I realize this could all be horse manure, but could not resist posting) Thread begins below: MSM contact-TO everyone, especially Stephen, Lance, and se: written by Anne, September 28, 2008 I know a "top" person in the MSM quite well. I was very fortunate to catch her at a party and discuss this for a few minutes (I asked about the citizenship angle). A little alcohol loosens the tongue. She said (speaking about her "company") "we're hoping Obama wins and then we'll haul in ratings ten times better than the Clinton affair. There's a lot more out there than...

On an earlier thread (Laura Bush: Palin lacks foreign policy experience (AP spin and not even close to accurate)), Freeper nuvista revealed that the Associated Press took a Laura Bush/CNN interview and deliberately distorted it to make a hitpiece they could spread all over the Net. Unfortunately, YouTube has a copy of the very same interview, proving beyond a doubt that the interview was distorted to make Laura Bush "say" something she didn't say: YouTube: Laura Bush: "Thrilled" About Sarah Palin Upon searching for the anonymous AP author of the hitpiece, I discovered that Dan Eggen of The Washington Post...

If Gov. Sarah Palin had ever looked at her first grade teacher cross-eyed, that would be a front-page story in the newspapers of the dishonest, fraudulent and biased mainstream media. Papers like that include The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer. However, if you're running on the Democratic side of the ticket, you can have a long record suggesting you're stupid, arrogant and dishonest and that will be ignored by the mainstream media. Take the case of Sen. Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for vice president. Most people remember his famous plagiarism of a British politician...

Remember what I wrote last week about the McCain campaign pulling back the curtain and finally allowing the press and the public to interact, however fleetingly, with its long-sequestered vice-presidential nominee? Um, nevermind. Knowing that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is currently visiting Manhattan, Father of Stumper a . . . .

She may be a yokel from a state so far away it's not even considered flyover country, but Sarah Palin has electrified this city, which has seen absolutely everything (and quickly been smugly bored by it all). You hear in the streets: "No, I think she's staying here, at this hotel!" You hear it in the elevator "here" -- the Millennium Broadway Hotel: "She's here, somewhere, maybe on the 52nd floor, in the really big suite." The bellboys ask you when they see your campaign credentials: "Can we meet her, just for a picture?" (Probably, um, not.) She is, in...

In this 2008 presidential season, Republicans are the masters of victimhood. Clearly, Republicans are more masterful at the politics of victimhood than the Democrats, the Independents and the parties-too-small-to-be-presently named. And, because all victims need a boogeyman, fall guy and scapegoat to hang their victimhood on, they have designated this election season's evildoers as none other than that group of people who belong to what is called the Fourth Estate: journalists. That would be folks like me. Commencing with the Republican National Convention, no one has come close to the Republicans in bombastically, self-righteously and ridiculously sounding the alarm against...

Katie Paul at Newsweek alerted me that Newsweek printed a correction to their story claiming that Palin cut funding for teen mothers and the state WIC program. I blogged about it here and had extensive conversations with Alaska officials about the claims. Ms. Paul was also diligent to work with Alaska officials to correct the story once I made her aware of the facts. Here is the correction (at the end of page 2): Clarification (updated Sept. 11, 2008) : A number of readers have challenged the assertion in this story that Gov. Palin “cut by 20 percent the funding...

John Lennon once sang that "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." So, it seems, is politics. The news this morning that two of Wall Street's most storied firms, Merrill Lynch & Co. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., were following their distinguished former competitor Bear Stearns toward extinction was met with misery and fear in living rooms and conference rooms across the country--and rightly so. "The biggest reshaping of the financial industry since the Great Depression," wrote Bloomberg News. "Catastrophe," added the New York Post. But something tells me that Barack Obama's brain trust didn't...

A crucial turning point in the presidential race came when the McCain campaign ended its candidate's habitual informal interactions with the press. The area of the McCain campaign plane where a couch had been installed so the Arizonian could hold court with journalists was cut off with a dark curtain, marking the end of an era. Since 2000, John McCain had thrived on his irrepressible chattiness with the press, talking about anything reporters wanted for as long as they would listen. The press loved the access and avoided "gotcha" coverage, letting McCain explain any seeming gaffes. The arrangement worked beautifully...

Have you had enough of the evening news? Has the condescending lecture of the network anchor gotten old? Are you sick and tired of "reporters" who couldn't tell the story straight if their lives depended on it? I am. I am about fed up with a news industry that fundamentally fails to do its job, and which every day strays further and further from its purpose. I'm tired of partisan lectures and propaganda dressed up like the news. I have had about all I can take of the self-important blowhards who seem to think their role is to rudely mock...

The terrorist attacks on America of September 11, 2001 resulted in a wave of patriotism that had not been seen in decades. The shared enthusiasm for the country and the flag were strong and widespread. It created difficulties for reporters, however, who try to professionally earn and keep people's trust by avoiding personal partisan displays while reporting the news. It was not only ABC but many other media outlets who struggled with trying to preserve their image as journalists

To my knowledge no Vice Presidental pick has come under this kind of fire storm from the media. The latest article in USA TODAY http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-09-10-rape-exams_N.htm Is nothing more than an attempt at a high tech lynching. By linking Palin to this policy that she didn't make, nor did she fight against the law that was subsequently passed to stop this practice, they have smeared her. I am calling for a boycott of USA TODAY not only that though I am calling for community action. I have sent an email to USA TODAY that I have copied below. Since USATODAY hasn't...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- There were no surprises, no knockout zingers, but also no bloopers Thursday night in Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's first TV interview since becoming the Republican vice presidential nominee. Charles Gibson of ABC News was out for blood and inherently applied a double-standard compared with the kid gloves George Stephanopoulos used on Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois on Sunday night. Gibson was out to embarrass Palin and expose her presumed ignorance from the word go. By contrast, when Obama referred to his "Muslim faith" on Sunday and did not correct himself, Stephanopoulos rushed...

Did ABC cheat in Palin interview? Perhaps. It’s not unusual for news anchors to wear almost hidden earpieces during their live anchoring. It allows the producers to clandestinely talk to the anchors during the newscast and anchors to hear reporters in the field, receive time cues and other important audio. It’s not unusual to see anchors holding their earpiece a little tighter into their ear if they are having trouble hearing what is being fed and said to them. But an earpiece during a supposedly one-on-one interview would be very unusual. Why would the interviewer need support from producers or...

http://www.mikefrancesa.com/wordpress/?p=1129I can't take it anymore, why do I watch. Matthews just blatantly lied about this part of the interview: The bias continues, here is what Chris Matthews said on Friday’s edition of Hardball: Chris Matthews: What did you make her of answer when she was asked four times by Charlie Gibson, what would you do if the government of Israel….called us up and said we are ready to hit Iran, we think we got the bead on where their nuclear facilities are, we want some help with AWACS, some intelligence, we want some radar, we want some refueling help. And...

A transcript of the unedited interview of Sarah Palin by Charles Gibson clearly shows that ABC News edited out crucial portions of the interview that showed Palin as knowledgeable or presented her answers out of context. This unedited transcript of the first of the Gibson interviews with Palin is available on radio host Mark Levin's website. The sections edited out by ABC News are in bold. The first edit shows Palin responding about meeting with foreign leaders but this was actually in response to a question Gibson asked several questions earlier: GIBSON: Have you ever met a foreign head of...

The first cut of Charlie Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin reveals someone embarrassingly unprepared. His name is Charlie Gibson. Here's the transcript: Gibson: You said recently, in your old church, "Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God." Are we fighting a holy war? Palin: You know, I don't know if that was my exact quote. Gibson: Exact words. Palin: But the reference there is a repeat of Abraham Lincoln's words when he said--first, he suggested never presume to know what God's will is, and I would never presume to know God's will or...

September 13, 2008 Op-Ed Columnist She’s Not Ready By BOB HERBERT While watching the Sarah Palin interview with Charlie Gibson Thursday night, and the coverage of the Palin phenomenon in general, I’ve gotten the scary feeling, for the first time in my life, that dimwittedness is not just on the march in the U.S., but that it might actually prevail. How is it that this woman could have been selected to be the vice presidential candidate on a major party ticket? How is it that so much of the mainstream media has dropped all pretense of seriousness to hop aboard...

ABC "News" Charles Gibson Interviews Barack Obama Presumptive Democratic Presidential Nominee June 4, 2008 (after Hillary Clinton concedes) http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5000184 GIBSON: Senator, I'm curious about your feelings last night. It was an historic moment. Has it sunk in yet? GIBSON: What did your grandmother say? GIBSON: Public moments are not your own. There's a million people pulling you in a million different directions, but when everybody clears out, the staff is gone, you're in your hotel room at night and you're alone -- do you say to yourself: "Son of a gun, I've done this?" GIBSON: (inaudible) when you announced, did...

EXCERPTS: Charlie Gibson Interviews Sarah Palin (September 11, 2008) THE BOLDED & UNDERLINED PARTS WERE EDITED OUT OF THE INTERVIEW

I am sure the NC Peace & Justice Coalition will appreciate us having this list of golden media contacts. Please make good use of it: Network/Cable Television ABC News 77 W. 66 St., New York, NY 10023 Phone: 212-456-7777 General e-mail: netaudr@abc.com Nightline: nightline@abcnews.com 20/20: 2020@abc.com CBS News 524 W. 57 St., New York, NY 10019 Phone: 212-975-4321 Fax: 212-975-1893 Email forms for all CBS news programs CBS Evening News : evening@cbsnews.com The Early Show: earlyshow@cbs.com 60 Minutes II: 60II@cbsnews.com 48 Hours: 48hours@cbsnews.com Face The Nation: ftn@cbsnews.com CNN One CNN Center, Box 105366, Atlanta, GA 30303-5366 Phone: 404-827-1500 Fax: 404-827-1906...

Campaigns are ugly. Watching the way politicians act makes you long for the respect and self-control of the Sopranos. Throughout, there are legitimate attacks and outright lies. Every once in a while, I get a call on my radio show from someone telling me that Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim, who admitted it in an interview with George Stephanopoulos, and has a fake birth certificate. No, no, and no. As I tell them, there are legitimate reasons not to vote for Barack Obama, no need to make them up. But the newest target is Sarah Palin. Let's take a...

The Rumblings In The Jungle – Journalists Turn On Charlie Gibson. The phone lines are again rumbling in New York and Washington. The overriding question: Et Tu, Charlie? I have spoken with a number of old TV journalist friends in last 12 hours. The haze of amazement hanging over the network newsroom is palatable. It’s as if old truths have been proven wrong, old friends abandoned their dearest comrades, and we all awakened up to find out that 2 + 2 really does equals 7. Charlie Gibson’s (well, he has been “Charlie” for years, but since he apparently is not...

Howard Kurtz's column in the Washington Post is surprisingly blunt and surprisingly revealing. The mainstream media, Kurtz says, are mad. Their anger, though, is oddly unidirectional: "The media are getting mad. Whether it's the latest back-and-forth over attack ads, the silly lipstick flap or the continuing debate over Sarah and sexism, you can just feel the tension level rising several notches. Maybe it's a sense that this is crunch time, that the election is on the line, that the press is being manipulated (not that there's anything new about that)." There certainly isn't. Barack Obama has been manipulating the press...

Sarah Palin is sending the MSM around the bend. On MSNBC this afternoon, Andrea Mitchell provided perhaps the most blatant example yet of an MSMer openly admitting she doesn't want Palin as VP. Mitchell, clearly frustrated by Palin's every-woman-appeal, complained: "Is that what we really want in our leaders? Do we want someone 'just like me?' I mean, I don't want someone like me because I know I'm not because I know I'm not prepared to be vice-president or president. What makes people think that having someone like their neigbhor be in the White House is a good thing?" Mitchell's...

There's been ample discussion of late about Sarah Palin being sequestered, away from the media, because the McCain campaign isn't confident in her ability to answer questions about, well, much of anything. But what about McCain's ability to answer questions? AmericaBlog posted a clip of an interview McCain did, via satellite, with Rob Caldwell at WCSH in Portland, Maine. Caldwell noted, for example, that McCain insisted that national security and counter-terrorism is the number one issue facing the United States. McCain denied ever having said that. Caldwell moved on, asking about Sarah Palin's experience in national security. McCain responded by...

This one has got to take the cake for stupidity and lack of journalistic integrity. The Old Media has been gyrating in ever widening circles to find new and unheard of ways to destroy Governor Sarah Palin and now from the Hartford Courant (Connecticut) we find the most ridiculous one yet. With this Robert Thorson column we have now gone from slandering Gov. Palin herself, to attacking every last member of her family -- including her Down Syndrome child, Trig -- to this latest stop on the smear Palin express: attacking Palin's hometown Wasilla, Alaska. Thorson seriously tries to make...

Seven out of 10 voters (69%) remain convinced that reporters try to help the candidate they want to win, and this year by a nearly five-to-one margin voters believe they are trying to help Barack Obama. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 50% of voters think most reporters are trying to help Obama win versus 11% who believe they are trying to help his Republican opponent John McCain. Twenty-six percent (26%) say reporters offer unbiased coverage (demographic crosstabs available for Premium Members). Just last week a Rasmussen Reports survey found that 51% of voters believed reporters were...

Hundreds of angry people in this small town outside Milwaukee taunted reporters and TV crews traveling with Sen. John McCain on Friday, chanting "Be fair!" and pointing fingers at a pack of journalists as they booed loudly...

The mainstream media continue to deteriorate into a world of slime and sleaze with their assault on Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for vice president. They are picking up on lies manufactured in the blogosphere by hate groups such as the Daily Kos, and are transmuting rumors, speculations and outright lies into front-page smears disguised as hard news. As usual, the New York Times (September 2, 2008) has led the way with two front page stories and a third on a full-page inside. The journalism of the New York Times now makes the supermarket tabloids look good by comparison....

First of all, I urge everyone to please VOTE in this poll. Will Bristol's pregnancy affect your vote. http://www.usmagazine.com/ Also, I am new to this board, but just wanted to tell everyone that I called and cancelled my subscription to US Weekly,. I also told them I wanted to leave an editorial comment, and they passed on what I had to say to their editors. To complain about this cover story, call them toll-free: 1-800-283-3956 We cannot let this go. This is gutter journalism, and of course, they didn't see need to spread any vicious lies about Palin like they...

McCain presidential campaign strategist Steve Schmidt went on the record with the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz today, revealing the depths to which the mainstream media has sunk in their efforts to destroy the family of Republican vice presidential pick Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.Schmidt said that the campaign has been deluged with demands from reporters that the Palin family submit to DNA testing to assuage baseless rumors promulgated by the Democratic party's favorite website, the Daily Kos.Schmidt accused the media of being "on a mission to destroy" Sarah Palin.Kurtz writes that Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the Daily Kos, believes the...

Since Governor Sarah Palin's daughter is not running for election this year, it is amazing how much the media has suddenly become obsessed with her. Her pregnancy not only made the front page of the New York Times, a printed announcement of her pregnancy stayed at the bottom of the television screen on CNN for what seemed to me to be about an hour or more. Investigative reporters have obviously been burning a lot of midnight oil, digging deep into the history of Governor Palin's family, for they also found a drunk driving incident involving her husband decades ago— before...