Free Republic

Tucker proves people have a hunger for information In a hotly anticipated interview that began with a history lesson for Americans on the founding of Russia, President Vladimir Putin told Tucker Carlson that NATO expansion eastward and a 2014 coup that installed an anti-Russian government in Ukraine forced his country into war in 2022. “In 2008… the doors of NATO were opened for Ukraine,” Putin said to Carlson in a sweeping conversation posted to X on Thursday, February 8. The former Fox News host has become the focus of intense vitriol within big-box media and political circles for traveling to...

The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and others almost exclusively endorsed Democrats. The most widely circulated newspapers in key states throughout the United States have overwhelmingly endorsed Democrats during election years throughout the modern political era. A review of major newspapers throughout the country found that endorsements for president, governor, and Senate seats leaned Democrat for a majority of the papers, including The New York Times, Washington Post, and even papers in some conservative-leaning states...

In his second term, the outgoing US president has grown fond of fundamental considerations. Now, at press conferences, his responses are long and philosophical. His speech in Athens, perhaps the last he will make as US president on European soil, fit the pattern perfectly. All in all, it was about democracy and his steadfast belief in the democratic political order. The problem is that its present form is doomed to failure, as some of its most important traits, achievements and outgrowths are now attacking their own foundations. Almost like a schoolteacher, Barack Obama explained to his audience why free press...

The "fourth estate" refers to freedom of the press. The term may have first been used by the philosopher-statesman Edmund Burke, who in 1787 highlighted the press as free and apart from the other three British "estates" -- clergy, royalty and commoners.The modern meaning, however, refers to the press as a fourth and free power -- as even a "watchdog" -- over the executive, legislative and judicial branches of our government. Today, however, it is the watchdog that needs watching.The foundation on which the United States is built, freedom of speech and freedom of the press, is enshrined in the...

There was a time when members of the press were concerned with ensuring that the American public was informed on the issues that matter. They spoke truth to power and exposed corruption occurring in our governmental institution. People in the profession were not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. Bias still seeped into their reportage. But they had not yet descended into the depths of political hackery that we have seen over the past four years. Now, establishment media outlets have transformed into something that barely resembles journalism. At this point, it does not make sense to refer to...

I knew this review was coming, I just wasn’t sure where it would appear first. Today the Daily Beast published a nakedly partisan review which barely spares a thought for its artistic merit or quality. What matters is that this film seems to make a point that could be seen as Trump friendly: Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell wants to be a gripping, outrage-inciting drama about an innocent victim persecuted by—and driven to fight back against—institutional power. Unfortunately, what it turns out to be is a MAGA screed calibrated to court favor with the red hat-wearing faithful by vilifying the...

WASHINGTON: Donald Trump sat down for an interview on Thursday with Fox News, a network he has consistently praised, as his chief strategist used an interview with the New York Times to lash out at the mainstream American media, which he said was “the opposition party” to the current administration. “I want you to quote this,” chief strategist Steve Bannon told the Times. “The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.”

<p>The fall out from media bigwigs on the receiving end of a smack down of epic proportions from President-elect Donald Trump continues, with several participants whining to The New Yorker about how mean Trump was.</p> <p>Four executives who attended the off-the-record meeting are quoted without being identified and if there’s a common theme in the remarks, it may be the liberal application of f-bombs.</p>

CNN has formally severed ties with commentator Donna Brazile, a spokesman confirmed to Mediaite Monday. CNN and ABC News had both suspended Brazile after she was tapped to serve as acting DNC head following the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz. In theory, that arrangement was only temporary, but CNN made it permanent as late as two weeks ago in the wake of hacked emails showing she provided questions in advance to the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Germans are losing faith in their media. Nowhere is this more apparent than in mistrust of refugee crisis media coverage. Where did journalists go wrong? And how much of this skepticism reflects a preference for rumors over facts? [...] It is a phenomenon that defies simple description. According to polls, 40 percent of Germans believe the media are not credible. And the loudest of them all, people like Tatjana Festerling, an organizer with the anti-immigrant, Islamophobic PEGIDA movement, have even taken to calling on the public to get out the pitchforks to chase journalists out of newspaper offices. The criticism...

How long it would have taken from the time of its exposure for the press to have prominently reported on an email sent from the the Bush 43 White House to its Justice Department asking, "Any way we can fix the New York Times?" We can be confident that it would have taken less than a New York minute, and that saturation coverage would have continued for days. Well, one revelation in a series of Saturday tweets by former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson, one of only a very few establishment press journalists who did serious reporting on the Department of...

We are told by careful pollsters that half of the American people believe that American troops should be brought home from Iraq immediately. This news discourages supporters of our efforts there. Not me, though: I am relieved. Given press coverage of our efforts in Iraq, I am surprised that 90 percent of the public do not want us out right now. Between January 1 and September 30, 2005, nearly 1,400 stories appeared on the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news. More than half focused on the costs and problems of the war, four times as many as those that discussed...

For those that still refuse to forget!

Barack Obama is one of the most spoiled politicians ever to capture the imagination of a nation. He has enjoyed what author and newsman Bernard Goldberg has described as “a slobbering love affair” with the American media. So many members of the Fourth Estate in this country have so thoroughly compromised themselves to sell his radical agenda that the American people no longer trust them even to report the news. And now, as the president and his toadies in Congress run into a brick wall in their efforts to take over the American health care system, they are shocked to...

I'm shocked!...OK, maybe not..... http://www.weaselzippers.net/blog/2009/05/video-white-house-press-corps-stands-for-obamanot-for-bush.html

Sorry sight last night, post-Palin speech, seeing the Fourth Estaters pooh-pooh Republican charges that the media are pro-Obama. But perception is reality in politics, and according to a new SurveyUSA poll, this limited to Washington State registered voters, folks believe the press is pressing for the Democrat candidate. When asked "Is the media rooting for Barack Obama? Rooting for John McCain? Or trying its best to be fair to both?" 52% said "for Obama," 8% said "for McCain," 35% said "being fair to both." Interesting: 28% of Democrats, 28% of liberals, and 42% of moderates chose "for Obama." It would...

The new year means resolutions, and we can only hope that the Fourth Estate will make at least one of its own: A resolution that, for the sake of the nation, puts honorable journalism before political, cultural or religious bias, before competition, and before ratings. While complaining about bias and unprofessional conduct by the media is nothing new in the post-Sept. 11 world we inhabit, the consequences of purposely flawed reporting have been magnified exponentially. At the end of the 18th century, historian Thomas Carlyle quoted Edmund Burke as saying, "there were Three Estates in Parliament; but in the Reporter'...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the source who revealed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame to syndicated columnist Robert Novak in 2003, touching off a federal investigation, two sources familiar with Armitage's role tell CNN. The sources said Armitage revealed Plame's role at the CIA almost inadvertently in a casual conversation with Novak, and it is not clear if he knew her identity was classified at the time. Armitage was not indicted by the federal grand jury that investigated the disclosure of Plame's name to Novak and other journalists. Deliberately revealing the identify...

White House press secretary Scott McClellan today got a bit impatient with reporters asking him about the possibility of Harriet Miers withdrawing her nomination to the Supreme Court, asking rhetorically at one point, "Isn't it my right to talk and say what I want to?" The verbal jousting began as a reporter asked about a possible withdrawal by Miers, President Bush's choice to fill the seat of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. "Some conservatives have suggested this week, or speculated, that while President Bush would never withdraw Miers' nomination, that she might decide that she can't weather the storm...

Here’s a touching scene, featuring Cindy Sheehan and the Reverend Al Sharpton, in front of crosses, looking solemn and sad.Now let’s zoom out and see the media swarming around this manufactured event: (Hat tip: Bill P.) UPDATE at 8/28/05 5:36:04 pm: More pictures of this moving tableau at Getty Images. Co-starring “Army Mom.”UPDATE at 8/28/05 5:42:51 pm: Several LGF readers point out the Jewish star at lower right of the second photograph. Somebody tell CODEPINK not to let the Nazis know.