Free Republic

“Our journalism advantage is shrinking,” a committee led by the publisher’s son warned. A call to get rid of the metaphor of “Church and State.” A 96-page internal New York Times report, sent to top executives last month by a committee led by the publisher’s son and obtained by BuzzFeed, paints a dark picture of a newsroom struggling more dramatically than is immediately visible to adjust to the digital world, a newsroom that is hampered primarily by its own storied culture. The Times report was finalized March 24 by a committee of digitally oriented staffers led by reporter A.G. Sulzberger....

New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson was abruptly fired from the paper on Wednesday, sources familiar with the news informed POLITICO. Managing editor Dean Baquet will take over as executive editor, effective immediately. The news of her departure was met with shock throughout the newsroom. Senior editors were unexpectedly summoned to a 2 p.m. leadership meeting at the Times headquarters in New York. The news was then announced in a staff-wide meeting by publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. In his announcement, Sulzberger said Abramson’s departure was related to “an issue with management in the newsroom,” and had nothing to do...

¡Ay caramba! Imagine the cries of offensive ethnic stereotyping or worse if Fox News had observed Cinco de Mayo by having one of its yanqui persons of pallor staggering across the set in a sombrero while chugging from a pint bottle of tequila? But it happened on MSNBC, so the PC police probably won't make a peep about it. At the today's transition from Way Too Early to Morning Joe, there was producer Louis Burgdorf with his Halloween-store sombrero and pint bottle. Way Too Early host Thomas Roberts encouraged Burgdorf "to drink the whole thing and eat the worm," meaning...

Bill O’Reilly said there’s no question that the White House misrepresented the Sept. 11, 2012, terror attack in Benghazi. Five days after the attack, then-Ambassador Susan Rice told the world that the attack was not pre-planned and was a spontaneous reaction to a YouTube video. “That was not true, that was not even close to being true,” O’Reilly said. According to a White House memo obtained by Judicial Watch, Ben Rhodes sent an email to prep Rice about the attack, listing the following two goals:

How do the journalists at Nightline define news? On Monday night, co-host Dan Harris and reporter Mariana van Zeller spent an astonishing nine minutes and 33 seconds on the salacious, gossipy phenomenon of "bootleg butt injections." Yet, it's been 123 days, 17 and a half weeks, since the show's hosts have focused on ObamaCare and the problems with the law's implementation. Harris educated his audience: "In the iconic rap song, Baby Got Back, Sir-Mix-A-Lot professes his love for women with large rear ends." He continued, "Since that song came out in 1992, the world's obsession with plus-size backsides has only...

The thing I like about most sports are the rules and how the winner is determined are pretty unambiguous. Score more points, cross the finish line first, jump higher, whatever, and you win. Should there be any foul play or skirting of the rules, there’s an official or referee there to cry foul. It’s simple and, to borrow a word from President Obama, fair. Politics, on the other hand, is quite different. Truth used to be the most potent weapon in the game of politics. It was the best tool with which to garner the most votes, and whoever got...

There was a great article at the Save America Foundation recently. The author does a great job detailing the collusion of big government and the media as they attempt to give the impression that Obamacare is a colossal success. While it can be argued that many people are awakening to the totalitarian nature of the ACA, it can also be said that the fight for restoring liberty is about to take an ugly turn. In this article, David Mckalip points to the facts that a refusal to enroll in Obamacare is now being portrayed as unpatriotic, selfish and a failure...

MSNBC host says newborn infants don’t count as ‘alive’ unless parents decide they do; infanticide is the new abortion Today Natural News denounces Melissa Harris-Perry, the latest talking head “death worshipper” to publicly imply that she supports the murder of living, breathing newborn children. According to Harris-Perry, life begins when the parents feel like life begins. And together with some twisted new “ethics” arguments from the radical left, this can include months or years after a child is born. That’s why I need to premise this article with a disclaimer: This article is not about abortion. It’s about the murder...

CBS News chairman Jeff Fager held meeting with “CBS This Morning” staffers Tuesday and took questions about the botched “60 Minutes” report, Politico’s Dylan Byers reports. Correspondent Lara Logan and her producer Max McClellan are on a leave of absence, following the results of an internal report on their discredited story. Logan was notably absent from Sunday’s “60 Minutes” open...

It might seem like another day in Tea Party Land when a conservative columnist accuses President Barack Obama's White House of "airbrushing history" like the Stalin-era Soviet Union. But the columnist isn't a conservative. It's Dana Milbank of the liberal Washington Post complaining about what's happened to White House news photographers. He's not alone. A New York Times photographer has publicly compared Team Obama to the Soviet Tass news agency. What is going on? As the wheels come off the Barack Obama Hope-and-Change Bus, the White House is now restricting access to the very media that have done little but...

Remember the terrible murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyo. in 1998 -- tortured, beaten and left hanging on a fence to die -- because he was gay? The American people were led from the outset to believe that Shepard was the victim of a hate crime, murdered because he was gay. And that is how virtually every American still views the story. In the words of Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), "Matthew Shepard is to gay rights what Emmett Till was to the civil rights movement." A play based on Shepard's killing, "The Laramie Project" became, according to the...

One of the oldest rules in psychology and economics is that if you reward a behavior, you can expect to see it more often. In America, we reward victimhood. That makes us feel good about ourselves and in some cases, it helps improve the lives of the people who've been victimized, but there's a dark side to it as well. It creates perverse incentives for people, it helps legitimize a victimhood mentality, and it also encourages people to fake hate crimes. Under normal circumstances, that would seldom happen. However, in a society where we celebrate victimhood and savagely attack people...

Hunting show hostess Melissa Bachman recently shot a lion in Africa, posted the triumphant picture on Facebook and now ABC (among many other enlightened parties) are all over her. An ABC World News segment shows New York-based Lana Zak petting a tame and cuddly cub on location in a South African zoo, while purring that: “lions like these are beloved in Africa.” Maybe by some of Zak’s yuppie counterparts in places like Capetown and Nairobi. But not by Africans who live among wild ones. Lions are certainly beloved in Hollywood, the Upper East Side, Georgetown, etc. It’s a different story...

Whether we like it or not – and we don’t – there’s a significant chance that Chris Christie will be the 2016 Republican nominee. Perhaps he can use a few helpful hints from the GOP’s Tea Party/Constitutional Conservative/Actual Conservative wing. Let’s start by establishing a baseline: We don’t like you and we don’t trust you. Now, that’s not a deal breaker. You feel the same way about us. There is nothing that says we conservatives can’t grow to like and/or trust you. Maybe we just got off on the wrong foot. So, in that spirit, let’s share our feelings. We...

As the Obamacare fiasco deepens and broadens, and one watches the panic enveloping Team Obama, which strategy looks more desperate: Defending the indefensible or savaging critics as somehow responsible for this mess? The spin control is actually amusing when you consider that it isn't Team Obama trying to influence the media. It's the media doing damage control for Team Obama. Both the offensive and defensive approaches are being tried at NBC and MSNBC. Even as journalists softly acknowledged that Obama's you-can-keep-your-insurance pledge was a cruel lie, the president's super friend and NBC anchor Brian Williams was all about the damage...

The president's passive-voice expression of vague regret was so half-assed and self-serving that conservatives can simply sit back and let the mainstream media tee off on its inadequacy. He's not sorry for lying repeatedly in furtherance of his political goals, and he's certainly not sorry that people are losing their coverage. His law required that outcome. His promise was an intentional lie. Let the MSM opprobrium flow: The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza: "The lowest low of the Obama presidency." National Journal's Ron Fournier: I'm sorry, too, Mr. President...I'm sorry you campaigned for reelection on the famous false promise: "If...

As we approach the Holiday Season and Black Friday, there will inevitably be a number of media reports purporting that employees at large companies like Wal-Mart are striking throughout the country. Last Thanksgiving, prominent media outlets like CNN, NBC and the Huffington Post widely and falsely reported that hundreds of protests were being staged by Wal-Mart employees throughout the nation. Before reporting the same false story this year, reporters should consider asking a few basic questions like exactly how many of these protesters are in fact Wal-Mart employees? They might be surprised to find that an overwhelming proportion of...

History judges a leader exclusively through his actions and their ultimate results rather than through fleeting words. It appears that U.S. President Barack Obama is finally putting the brakes on his mouth after flooring it down Hope-and-Change Highway for most of his tenure. Remember the Syrian crisis that dominated chatter for months before all but vanishing? Recall how critics were talking about grievous incompetence and even possible impeachment? Fast-forward to today, and just try to start a conversation with, "Obama really botched the situation in Syria." Now that the Russians have overseen a plan for the destruction of that country's...

The big headline from USA Today says it all: Democrats beginning to support Obamacare delays. Of course, what the article does not say is that a delay of Obamacare is exactly what conservatives have been demanding for months. The intrepid reporter also forgot to mention President Obama’s refusal to discuss even a miniscule delay caused parts of the federal government to shut down. The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel proclaimed this week “a turning point” because “After 16 long days of vowing to Republicans that they would not cave in any way, shape or form on ObamaCare, Democrats spent their...

The president's remarkable speech in the Rose Garden yesterday, the high point of which was his claim regarding Obamacare --"It's really good!"-- sets the stage for another MSM fail, because the president made several specific, verifiable claims that ought to be the subject of real, deep and sustained reporting over the next few days. I had a lot of fun with the "It's really good!" exclamation by the president on yesterday show, mixing his remarks into a 1974 Pinto ad, and calling forth memories of New Coke, Rosanne Barr singing the Star Spangled banner, the launch of Microsoft's Zune, the...