Free Republic

This incredible revelation came to light in a letter Monday from Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thompson to a number of news organizations. It was a response to a NY Times article by David Carr entitled “Under Murdoch, Tilting Rightward at the Journal.” Carr's somewhat snarky article accused the Journal of tainting its reputation as “one of the crown jewels of journalism” into a more mundane conservative newspaper and that it was assuming a pro-business, anti government stance. The Times accusing the Journal of sullying its reputation with biased journalism??? What chutzpah! The Journal’s response was quoted in Editor...

Media: By now the decline of the newspaper industry has become, well, yesterday's news. Small wonder the industry's own trade publication would eventually close its own doors. But there's a little more to the story. Last week Editor & Publisher magazine, aged 125, finally ended its run as newspaperdom's principal trade pub when owner Neilsen Business Media announced it no longer fit in with the company's reformulated plans. Journalists who had long since ceased reading the print edition offered nostalgic tributes — online. That their posts appeared on the Internet itself tells much of the story. In recent years both...

The mainstream media is oddly ambivalent on the issue of betrayal. When a politician – or, it seems, a spectacularly talented golfer – betrays his marriage vows, moral reprobation rains down upon him like hellfire. But when a pundit or political thinker betrays his ideological brethren – at least rhetorically – he is heralded as a “brave truth teller” and enjoys riches and fame. This is a phenomenon that affects (or, infects?) both sides of the American political spectrum. Many have noted the “Even The Liberal New Republic” principle, where the self-described “liberal” magazine often takes conservative positions, and thereby...

Online conservative media mogul Andrew Breitbart announced Thursday that he is launching a new website in January designed to report its own original journalism and take on “the Democratic-media complex.” The site – to be called Big Journalism – builds on the “Big” brand Breitbart launched in September with Big Hollywood and Big Government. Both sites have made waves with stories exposing past controversial remarks by Obama administration officials and by featuring a series of videos of ACORN officials inappropriately offering advice to two conservative activists dressed up as a pimp and prostitute. He also helps edit the Drudge Report...

December 7th, 2009 3:29 pmDirective Number 9 During the Algerian war, the terrorists promulgated an order which with variations would provide the backbone doctrine for information warfare into the 21st century. Dr. Cori Dauber, the author of the SSI monograph “The YouTube War: Fighting in a World of Cameras in Every Cell Phone and Photoshop on Every Computer� describes the ground zero of the modern information Jihad. The Algerians’ “Directive Number Nine” argued that it was better to kill one man where the American press would hear of it than nine where no one would find out. What Khattab realized...

And while denying that the White House had attempted to influence the NPR journalist, Anita Dunn, former White House Communications Director did state in an interview with NPR: “We see Fox right now as the source and the outlet for Republican Party talking points.” So take that denial for what it’s worth. And NPR mouthpiece Dana Rehr chimed in: “There’s no relationship between the White House’s criticism of Fox and any discussions about Fox that we’re having.” Sure. And since NPR is funded partially by the government, you can imagine that they realize which side their bread is buttered on.

"What they do is their business," Dobbs said yesterday. "I tried to accommodate them as best I could, but I've said for many years now that neutrality is not part of my being." [CNN boss Jonathan] Klein long believed Dobbs was at odds with CNN's desire to position itself as an opinion-free, middle-of-the-road alternative to its cable news rivals -- conservative Fox News and liberal MSNBC. Dobbs got $8M to quit Ny Post ^ | Nov. 16, 2009 | MICHAEL SHAIN A man once, upon learning that I'm conservative, said "You probably think that journalism isn't objective." I was...

This week, the website WikiLeaks.org released half-a-million pager messages sent on 9/11. It wasn’t the first time the site has generated comment or controversy. The two-year-old WikiLeaks has rapidly made a name for itself by posting, often anonymously, secret documents and classified reports. It also posted the e-mails (which were either hacked or leaked) of research scientists from the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University, who in private messages undermined global warming data. Here, editor JULIAN ASSANGE explains the site’s philosophy ...

NOTE: On November 27, 2009 the L.A. Times published a piece by James Rainey that attacked the "guerrilla tactics" of the journalists who exposed ACORN via undercover video for all the world to see. The following is the first portion of the Rainey piece: Guerrilla stings of ACORN don't meet standards of journalismHannah Giles listens to a question at a meeting of the Young America's Foundation in Santa Barbara this month. (Anne Cusack, Los Angeles Times / November 13, 2009) Videos shot of workers at the liberal social service organization offer great political theater but don't shed insight into its...

WASHINGTON -- Like the nearby Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the Newseum -- Washington's museum dedicated to journalism -- displays dinosaurs. On a long wall near the entrance, the front pages of newspapers from around the country are electronically posted each morning -- the artifacts of a declining industry. Inside, the high-tech exhibits are nostalgic for a lower-tech time when banner headlines and network news summarized the emotions and exposed the scandals of the nation. Lindbergh Lands Safely. One Small Step. Nixon Resigns. Cronkite removes his glasses to announce President Kennedy's death at 1 p.m., Central Standard Time. Behind...

"Millions of families have seen jobs and careers vanish in the midst of this recession," House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence of Indiana says in the weekly GOP radio-Internet address, timed this time for Thanksgiving. After trashing Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus package, which he said has failed utterly given the national unemployment rate has risen to a "heartbreaking" 10.2 percent, he ridicules the president's plans for a jobs summit next Thursday. And he says the proposed health care overhaul -- especially a government-run public insurance option -- would make the situation worse. Pence, however, does not offer any specific...

Obama, speaking to CBS in Beijing, says he's "furious' about the stream of leaks characterizing the Afghanistan deliberations... CHIP REID: “Firing offense??” THE PRESIDENT: “Absolutely" M What's odd about this is that many of the leaks (though certainly not all) have seemed deliberate, in tandem with Flickr photo releases from the meetings and in line with a message that Obama is considering deeply. And indeed, leaking has been a signature of the transition from the Plouffe/campaign era to a governing era run by Rahm Emanuel, who talks frequently to the press and whose hiring was one of the first major...

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is planning a Public Workshop/Roundtable on December 1-2, 2009 entitled: From Town Crier to Bloggers: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age? Your comments are invited. Federal Trade Commission Chairman John Liebowitz says by “…bringing together stakeholders — bloggers, journalists, economists, university faculty — who have thought about this issue, we might be able to come up with some ideas about what policy makers or lawmakers might think about doing, or refraining from doing, going forward.”emphasis added

Evan Smith, the longtime editor of Texas Monthly, was helping a wealthy friend put together a nonprofit news site and search for the right person to run it. As it turned out, Smith...quit his job and is launching the Texas Tribune, which is designed to fill the gap left by the shrinking number of newspaper reporters at the state capitol in Austin. "We'll be flooding the zone on this stuff," says Smith, who has hired 11 journalists, half of them lured from the state's top papers with salaries as high as $90,000. That reflects a reality that separates the Tribune...

ABC News fields at least one real reporter. He’s White House correspondent Jake Tapper. Most AT readers, like many Americans, are thoroughly convinced that the legacy media reports with a bias toward Obama and the policies of his administration. So, when a notable exception surfaces, it’s only right that he or she be acknowledged. Jake Tapper has a front row seat at the White House (WH) briefings. He shows all the signs of being a for-real reporter. Here’s visual evidence of that. Remember the cell phone irruption episode back on May 19th during one of Robert Gibbs’ press conferences before...

snip It is not only the demise of big-name papers that should raise concern; the rapid decline of the newspaper industry is playing out quietly, with small, reasonably responsible dailies in cities and rural regions across the country disappearing without widespread notice. Dozens of daily and weekly newspapers have closed this year. Cities that once enjoyed the fruits of newspaper competition (Denver, Seattle) are starving. "Surviving" publications -- and many have filed for bankruptcy -- are cutting reporting staffs to the bone (this month, the New York Times said it would cut 100 more newsroom jobs). International bureaus, statehouse bureaus...

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments as follows:Last Friday on the Washington Post blog, “On Faith,” English atheist Richard Dawkins said the Catholic Church was “surely up there among the leaders” as “the greatest force for evil in the world.” He labeled the Eucharist a “cannibal feast,” adding that “possession of testicles is an essential qualification to perform the rite.” He also blamed the Church for sending missionaries “out to tell deliberate lies to AIDS-weakened Africans” regarding condoms. The Church’s outreach to Anglicans, he said, makes it “a common pimp,” noting that those who convert “will be joining an institution...

Jayson Blair, who was at the center of a major journalism scandal as a New York Times reporter in 2003, will be the featured speaker at Washington and Lee University’s 48th Journalism Ethics Institute on Friday, Nov. 6. The title of Blair’s talk is “Lessons Learned.” The public is invited to the presentation at 5:30 p.m. in Stackhouse Theater, Elrod Commons. Blair resigned from the Times after an investigation found that he had plagiarized and fabricated major portions of stories that he had written during four years with the Times. Some of the stories that he covered in this manner...

<p>EUGENE, ORE. – When I began examining the political affiliation of faculty at the University of Oregon, the lone conservative professor I spoke with cautioned that I would “make a lot of people unhappy.”</p> <p>Though I mostly brushed off his warning – assuming that academia would be interested in such discourse – I was careful to frame my research for a column for the school newspaper diplomatically.</p>

His name was Richard "Ricky" Ramirez, but the nation knew him as "The Night Stalker," a silent menace who cut window screens and crept into homes at night to murder more than a dozen people in California. Ramirez, 49, is being held on death row at San Quentin State Prison after being convicted in 1989 in Los Angeles of 13 murders. His body count is likely going to grow, now that he's been linked by DNA to the 1984 murder of a 9-year-old San Francisco girl. In 1989, I found myself face to face with Ramirez in a Los Angeles...

A report on funding 'accountable' reporting recommends a mix of philanthropy and familiar ideas on leviesTHE SKIES grow heavy with portent when a former editor of the Washington Post and a distinguished professor join forces to write aColumbia University report on "The Reconstruction of American Journalism". And the same skies weep, perhaps, over Len Downie and Michael Schudson's complex prescription for funding "accountability" reporting, interwoven with foundations and philanthropists, rather as though exposing corruption in City Hall were the same as subsidising a symphony orchestra. It's a very American, very particular approach.

As the war between the White House and Fox News escalates, it might be insightful to take a look back and see the path which led to Thursday’s attempt by the White House to completely shut off Fox News. The first skirmish was back in August, when people were complaining about having received unwanted emails from the White House...

Why Can't MSNBC Say 'Sorry' to Limbaugh? MSNBC launches a campaign to discredit Rush Limbaugh but when the network screws up after running a fake quote it can only "clarify" its mistake. Change the meaning of the MS in MSNBC. At least for one brief moment last week, the abbreviation went from “Mostly Stupid” to “Mostly Sorry.” Co-host David Shuster, who seldom has a good word to say for any conservative, gave a classic non-apology apology when he said racial quotes attributed to talk show host Rush Limbaugh could not be verified. He was mostly sorry. Sort of. Maybe. “MSNBC...

Can you do journalism and not be a "journalist"? Do people declared "journalists" get special speech and press rights that other American citizens do not enjoy? Can anyone enjoy the right to free speech and free publication, even if that individual is not a full-time professional reporter? These are some of the important legal questions that American politicians and bureaucrats must confront now that the Internet has made possible for people other than employees of major media companies to reach large and widespread audiences. In recent weeks, federal officials seems to be favoring a view that certain individuals enjoy more...

If, as the saying goes, the perfect is the enemy of the good, then Barack Obama is his own worst enemy. That becomes clear in the upcoming HBO documentary "By the People: The Election of Barack Obama," which is the product of many months of behind-the-scenes access to Obama during the presidential campaign. It reveals -- you will be surprised to learn -- that Barack Obama is pretty close to the most perfect person you will never get to know. This is what he does not do in the course of the primary and general election campaigns: He does not...

Accuracy in Media (AIM), America's first independent watchdog of the news media, is giving FREE tickets to FReepers to attend AIM's 40th Anniversary Conference in Washington, DC on Friday, October 23, 2009. To get your ticket, visit www.aim.org/events and enter discount code "freerepublic" or go to: http://aim40thconference.eventbrite.com/?discount=freerepublic Speakers include Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Tony Blankley, John Fund, Andrew C. McCarthy, Cliff Kincaid, Trevor Loudon, Anita MonCrief, Hans von Spakovsky, Marc Morano, Robert Bluey, Ann McElhinney, J.P. Freire, and Don Irvine. Tickets are regularly $75 and include a buffet luncheon and morning and afternoon snacks. YOU MUST REGISTER IN ADVANCE for...

Journalism Should Own Its Liberalism And then manage it, challenge it, and account for it By Thomas Edsall The floodtide of e-mails and letters to New York Times ombudsman Clark Hoyt after his September 27 column on the paper’s failure to promptly investigate the conservative-initiated stories about Van Jones and ACORN testifies to the failure of the mainstream press to deal with the issue of liberal bias. “Many readers were not buying [the] contention that liberal bias had nothing to do with the slow response to ACORN and, before that, to the resignation of Van Jones, a White House aide,”...

Journalism is at risk and American society must act to preserve it, according to a report co-authored by The Washington Post's former executive editor. In a paper commissioned by the Columbia University Journalism School, the ex-Post editor, Len Downie, and Michael Schudson, a Columbia professor, argue the government, universities and nonprofit foundations should step in as newspapers suffer financially. The authors recommend that the Internal Revenue Service or Congress ensure the tax code allows local news outlets to operate as nonprofits. Downie and Schudson also urge philanthropic organizations to support local reporting. They suggest the Federal Communications Commission establish a...

The New York Times (NYT) newsroom is reeling from today's announcement that the company plans to cut the staff by 100. We spoke with a Times reporter, who told us it was the timing of the layoffs that is hitting everyone the hardest. The layoffs will come at the start of December, meaning a jobless Christmas for lots of reporters. See more reactions from the newsroom > Most of the people at the Times know the paper needs to be slimmed down, but nobody expected it would come in the middle of October. The newsroom is "stunned." When we asked...

Last week, when White House communications director Anita Dunn charged the Fox News Channel with right-wing bias, Fox responded the way it always does. It denied the accusation with a straight face while proceeding to confirm it with its coverage. Take a look at Fox's own Web story on the episode. It begins by quoting a Fox News senior vice president named Michael Clemente, who says: "It's astounding the White House cannot distinguish between news and opinion programming. It seems self-serving on their part." Then it quotes David Gergen, the gravelly voice of Washington's conventional wisdom, who says the attack...

Click here to read El Marco's report on Denver's Operation Can You Hear Us Now ABC and NBC News in Denver were surrounded by Tea Party protesters as part of anti-media rallies that took place in dozens of American cities on Saturday. There was almost a complete media block out of this event nationwide. El Marco dissects ABC News' fraudulent coverage in his latest photo expose. Instead of focusing their camera on Tea Party protesters (above) ABC News interviewed only these interlopers (below). An amazing story of news media malfeasance and blatant liberal bias.

News reporting that holds accountable those with power and influence has been a vital part of American democratic life, especially in places with daily newspapers profitable enough...to maintain substantial reporting staffs. That journalism is now at risk...American society must now take some collective responsibility for supporting news reportings....In a comprehensive report commissioned by the Columbia University Journalism School, we suggest a number of public sources of support for this news reporting: - The Internal Revenue Service or Congress should clarify tax regulations to explicitly allow new or existing local news organizations to operate as nonprofit or low-profit entities, allowing them...

The NYT is calling Marcus Brauchli, the executive editor of the Washington Post, a liar. The NYT has reported this morning -- in a brief, buried "postscript" in the corrections column -- that it now has evidence that Brauchli lied last July when he told the NYT that he didn't know the paper's controversial corporate-sponsored dinner parties would be off-the-record. The NYT doesn't state flatly that Brauchli lied. But the juxtaposition of the two Brauchli statements in the postscript make clear the NYT's position that he misrepresented the truth in interviews with the NYT. [UPDATE: In an email to The...

George Stephanopoulos will be the primary substitute for Diane Sawyer when she becomes anchor of “World News” next year, expanding his already formidable command of the airways as ABC’s chief Washington correspondent and anchor of “This Week.” “As Diane Sawyer prepares to assume her new role at ‘World News,’ George Stephanopoulos is also expanding his duties,” a network official said. “It’s just been established that George will be Diane’s primary substitute on 'World News.' In addition, he will also be at her side on set for all major ABC News special events coverage.” Stephanopoulos has made his George’s Bottom Line...

Lynn Margulis.Javier Pedreira A dispute between the editorial board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and an academy member has put the fate of three studies in question. In the wake of rows over a controversial paper published by the journal online in August — but not in print — two additional papers linked to the same academy member are now in limbo.Last month, PNAS editor-in-chief Randy Schekman wrote to academy member Lynn Margulis, a cell biologist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, asking for "a satisfactory explanation for [her] apparent selective communication of reviews" for...

Respectable news outlets aren't the only ones having trouble processing the fact that a purple-eyed partisan like Andrew Breitbart is producing impactful journalism this season. The ancient Atlantic magazine–which, strangely, appears to have morphed into a sort of Blogger's Monthly–has been furrowing its brows at Breitbart & Co. both in print and online. Regular Atlantic contributor Conor Friedersdorf, writing at The Daily Beast (and earning a high-five from Andrew Sullivan), poses the question: ACORN is just the latest example of how conservative media love to blast The New York Times for its shortcomings. So why can't they live up to...

It all sounds so innocent and good-governmenty: The Federal Trade Commission will hold a workshop Dec. 1 and 2 concerning "How will journalism survive the Internet age?" An assembly of editors, owners, government officials, consumer advocates, advertisers and others is scheduled to discuss a dozen topics. Three ought to make the hair stand up on the necks of every journalist and anybody else who cares about the survival of freedom of the press: » Are new or changed government policies needed to support optimal amounts and types of journalism, including public affairs coverage? » Should the tax code be modified...

What Michael said on his blog is the sting by Hannah Giles, an FIU student who posed as a prostitute and attempted to get grant money from ACORN, was "Internet-age infotainment," not good journalism. Michael was absolutely correct. This was a stunt, pure and simple. Two self-described conservatives hell bent to embarrass ACORN may be appropriate for You Tube, and instant celebrity with Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, but it doesn't qualify as honest journalism. No one is disputing that what some ACORN employees did — trying to find tax dodges and grant money for Giles and her accompanying pretend...

Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw told students that journalsim is alive but on "life-support." From the Yale Daily News Journalism will survive the significant challenges it faces only if it succeeds in engaging and empowering readers and viewers, NBC News special correspondent Tom Brokaw said Tuesday.

For much of 2008, the TV cognoscenti assumed that Katie Couric would be anywhere but in the “CBS Evening News” anchor chair by now But despite some of the lowest ratings in the newscast’s history, she says she will remain there until her contract expires in 2011. Borrowing from Mark Twain, she said cheerfully in a recent interview, “I think reports of my death were greatly exaggerated.”

With journalists being laid off in droves, ideologues have stepped forward to provide the “reporting” that feeds the 24-hour news cycle. The collapse of journalism means that the quest for information has been superseded by the quest for ammunition. A case-study of our post-journalistic age.

Recent videos posted online and aired repeatedly on Fox News Channel that seem to show ACORN workers allegedly advising two 20-somethings dressed up as a pimp and prostitute on how to skirt the law, the community group has taken some major hits as of late. On Friday the Census Bureau severed its relationship with the group for the 2010 census. On Monday the Senate overwhelmingly voted to deny Housing and Urban Development funds to the group. And congressional Republicans in general have been asking the federal government to terminate relationships with the group and investigate various allegations of malfeasance. ACORN...

Is the ACORN scandal worthy of national broadcast news coverage? ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson suggested Tuesday that the answer is no.But Gibson told a radio show Tuesday morning that he wasn't even familiar with the story — and it might be "just one you leave to the cables." ABC reporter Jake Tapper has filed some reports on the scandal, and Gibson was asked on WLS Radio's "Don & Roma Show" what he thought of the story. "I don't even know about it," Gibson said, laughing. "So you've got me at a loss. ... But my goodness, if it's got...

The man who hurled his shoes at President George W. Bush here nearly a year ago in a brazen act that turned the little-known Iraqi journalist into a hero for many in the Arab world and crystallized the seething anger felt by many Iraqis for the consequences of the American invasion, was freed on Tuesday from a Baghdad jail. Muntader al-Zaidi, who had originally been sentenced to three years in prison for assaulting a visiting foreign leader, spent nine months in jail and, according to his brother, would likely leave Iraq now, fearing for his life. “He is free,” said...

The marketing executive at the center of a controversial series of Washington Post-sponsored dinner "salons" has resigned from the newspaper some 10 weeks after the events were canceled, The Post said Friday. Charles Pelton, who had helped organize and promote the monthly dinners as The Post's newly hired general manager of events and conferences, made no mention of the controversy in his resignation letter to Post President Stephen P. Hills. Instead, Pelton wrote, "Given the current circumstances with regard to the resources needed to launch [an events business], my family and I have decided not to relocate to Washington, D.C.,"...

As a curmudgeon who has embraced many of the new technologies of journalism, I want to draw a line. Let’s quit tweet, tweet, tweeting like the birdbrains do. I don’t care what your friend had for lunch. I don’t care how many people are following you through Twitter.com. Or Facebook, for that matter. My intelligence drops just about every time I see a tweet pop up on a web page I frequent. I really like Missouri basketball player Kimmie English. He’s a bright, intelligent, witty kid. He speaks in complete sentences. His expresses opinions clearly in person and I suspect,...

If you want some indication of the disarray that the "progressives" find themselves in, consider that disgraced broadcaster Dan Rather will be keynoting a September 23 event sponsored by The Nation magazine on "What Will Become of the News?" The Nation calls Rather "legendary," ignoring how he was put out to pasture by CBS News after he used fake documents in 2004 to smear then-President Bush. Tickets to hear and see Rather are $200 each. Rather is a legend in his own mind-and apparently the minds of those left-wingers who appreciate his effort to defeat Bush's re-election bid and throw...

A military appeals court has ruled against CBS in a battle over unaired portions of a "60 Minutes" interview with a key figure in the 2005 slaying of 24 Iraqis in the city of Haditha. The U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Court of Appeals rejected the network's claim of reporter privilege in its battle with Marine Corps prosecutors who want access to the outtakes of Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich's interview. Wuterich is charged with nine counts of voluntary manslaughter and related offenses in the incident that was triggered by a roadside bombing that killed one Marine and injured two others. His case...

Two things that would end hypocrisy and make the world a better place: Priests should be allowed to get married, and the New York Times should update its Ethics Policy. The venerable and vulnerable newspaper finally starts talking about the “Pogue Problem” out loud to its readers. For years David Pogue has covered Apple (and other tech companies). And for years he has been authoring books on Apple products. He doesn’t get paid by Apple for the books, but his bias is clear and he has been accused to conflicts of interest more than once by other mainstream media. Dan...

Still no word. A guy threatens the entire First Family, including the President's kids and we never hear from him again. Should be in court. Should appear befor a judge. Should be behind bars. Still no word, maybe somebody forgot to check this story out. I'd be curious to know the profile of this lunatic.