Free Republic

Executives at National Public Radio recently asked the network’s top political correspondent, Mara Liasson, to reconsider her regular appearances on Fox News because of what they perceived as the network’s political bias, two sources familiar with the effort said. According to a source, Liasson was summoned in early October by NPR’s executive editor for news, Dick Meyer, and the network’s supervising senior Washington editor, Ron Elving. The NPR executives said they had concerns that Fox’s programming had grown more partisan, and they asked Liasson to spend 30 days watching the network. At a follow-up meeting last month, Liasson reported that...

LONDON (Reuters) – Humanity faces a profound emergency and unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, a joint editorial published in newspapers in 45 countries said on Monday. The 56 newspapers said they were taking the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice to implore world leaders to "make the right choice" at U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen. "The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history's judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw a calamity coming but did not...

NEW YORK Tomorrow 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the perhaps unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. Many if not most will publish it on the front page, warning of a "profound emergency." The Guardian of London, which helped draft the editorial, published it today, with a note at the end. Here it is. * Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past...

Time's cover story denouncing the Bush era (plus a year of Clinton and a year of Obama) as "The Decade from Hell" is overwrought. But Time's guru Andy Serwer tries to claim it's not: Calling the 2000s "the worst" may seem an overwrought label in a decade in which we fought no major wars, in historical terms. It is a sadly appropriate term for the families of the thousands of 9/11 victims and soldiers and others killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the lack of a large-scale armed conflict makes these past 10 years stand out that much more. This...

Weather Channel scrubs historic data for Copenhagen (vanity)

The proposed merger of Comcast and NBC Universal will be the first big test of the Obama administration’s stance on the hot-button issue of media consolidation. It could also put the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress at odds with a few of their largest supporters.

The chairman of Comcast endorsed the Senate health care bill in a letter Thursday to President Barack Obama, saying, "We cannot allow perfection to stand in the way of critically needed and very good legislation." "While there has been much controversy and debate over hundreds of provisions and alternatives, it is my view that the current legislation pending in the Senate provides a workable framework for this country to take an important step toward enhancing health care accessibility, promoting operational efficiencies and technological innovation, and reducing the cost of health care and the federal deficit," CEO and Chairman Brian Roberts...

New York Times Staffers Freaking As Bill Keller Raises The Axe Keith Kelly|Dec. 4, 2009, 11:10 PM | 61 | With just days to go until a Monday deadline, New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller yesterday confirmed that he was unlikely to get 100 newsroom volunteers to accept buyouts -- meaning he'll wield the layoff ax for the second time in two years. Sources said the newsroom was in a state of high anxiety this week because of chatter that just 50 unionized editorial workers from the Newspaper Guild are expected to step forward for voluntary buyouts by the...

Here's the cancellation letter I sent over. I have been a subscriber to Popular Science for a very long time, and enjoyed it most of the time. It seems in recent years, Popular Science has become politically motivated instead of seeking truth and science. The recent revelations about the deceptions from the global warming community made me realize how out of touch with the truth PopSci has been. You guys should have been uncovering the truth instead of swallowing the misinformation without an once of doubt. PS. I'm also sending this letter to your male enhancement advertisers to let them...

The same day Comcast and General Electric announced Comcast would take control of NBC Universal, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts announced his company was supporting the health-care bill currently before the Senate. This is interesting in two ways: First, as Newsbusters points out, this move by Roberts coincides with an announcement of a merger that will likely face anti-trust scrutiny from the same Congress and administration that is pushing the health-care bill. Washington has long used the weapon of anti-trust to extract pounds of flesh from big corporations. One commissioner said yesterday, "My skepticism about the harms imposed by so few...

Watching liberal journalists desperate for a government bailout as they prostrate themselves before Congress can be so confusing: Should we be embarrassed as these media representatives of the "best and brightest" beg for official handouts while proclaiming their devotion to independent journalism? Or should we laugh at the irony of what is left of a once-proud liberal media establishment choosing to become wards of the very state they so vigorously promoted for the past several decades? Speaking as somebody who has made his living reporting and analyzing the news for more than two decades, I tend towards the embarrassment option....

The “temporary” step down of Phil Jones finally forced the NY Times to do some print coverage of the scandal. Missing from the story are any quotes from the incendiary emails and very little about reaction of other scientists over this growing scandal.... The Times’ emphasis on the criminal aspect of the email release, is more than somewhat laughable in light of some of its rather questionable leaks of highly classified comint information. But the important point here is the Times has simply played the same old game of attempting to suppress a story that has been burning up the...

Either MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews let one slip tonight, or it was an extremely poor choice of words. Following President Barack Obama's Dec. 1 speech, which he announced his intentions for increasing troop levels in Afghanistan, MSNBC followed with wrap-up coverage of his speech with arguably three of their most prominent on-air personalities - "Countdown" host Keith Olbermann, "The Rachel Maddow Show" host Rachel Maddow and Matthews. Matthews referred to a scene from "Gone with the Wind" about the American Civil War as an example of "excitement" going into a war. He said that was lacking in the room...

…you referred to her now famous Hardball appearance, and you incorrectly reported that she said that the “government would do well to investigate ‘anti-American’ congressmen.” What she actually said was that the American media should do so, not the government, which is something quite different.

Oprah Winfrey's exit from daytime TV will mean more than just a studio scuffle for the time slot she mined for gold for TV stations. It also likely signals, many experts say, the beginning of an inexorable decline for the daytime syndicated talk show, which has occupied a central spot in mainstream culture ever since "The Phil Donahue Show" rolled out nationwide nearly 40 years ago. snip But many observers say that the all-encompassing cultural role of "Oprah" is unlikely to be duplicated by another talk show on broadcast TV, thanks to the changes that have shaken society and the...

Isn't it an irony that PBS/KCET provides a number of Christmas Specials but their producers and supporters who ask for donations cannot bring themselves to wish its viewers a Merry Christmas? As part of the new Conservative Revolution from Tea- Parties to the Sarah Palin anti-RINOs movement, it's time to bring back the Christ into the Christ Mass . Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat, please put a penny in the PBS hat? No, siree, not a penny from me.

This probably won't surprise anybody. I only took time to search for this because I was asked by someone if GS has his hands in public radio and I couldn't find a direct answer. Well, I found it. I'm not surprised Soros has given money to NPR, what does surprise me is that I didn't see any conservative blogs with this. I'm also surprised that I could find it directly on NPR's site, though it's not often mentioned. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5476317 -----Mr. Soros, thanks so much for being with us. Mr. GEORGE SOROS (Financier, Soros Fund Management): It's my pleasure. SIMON(speaking to...

The widow of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy told Oprah Winfrey in an interview broadcast Wednesday that even as her husband knew he was dying of brain cancer he had been "in training" to make sure he had enough strength to attend President Barack Obama's inauguration. In the most extensive interview since her husband's death in August, Vicki Kennedy said she wouldn't try to run for her husband's former U.S. Senate seat and described how he battled brain cancer — but she would not talk about the last thing he said to her before dying. "I think I'll just keep...

Los Angeles (AP) - The Washington Post will close its remaining U.S. bureaus in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago at the end of the year to save money and will focus news efforts on covering the nation's capital. Six correspondents are being offered jobs in Washington, while three news aides will be let go Dec. 31. In a staff memo Tuesday, Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli told workers that the paper needed to concentrate its "journalistic firepower" on its central mission of covering Washington, D.C. In the last decade, the paper has closed bureaus in Miami, Denver and Austin, Texas....

Allah forbid a major big box retailer send holiday wishes to members of one of the world’s largest religions. But that’s what Best Buy did, including a small message wishing Muslims a “Happy Eid al-Adha” in a circular. And now the Twin Cities-based retailer is facing a boycott by commenters at the rightwing Free Republic forum. Best Buy, as we reporter earlier, was the target of a rightwing “War on Christmas” campaign in 2006 for not using the word “Christmas” in its holiday marketing, but this year, it’s been upgraded on the American Family Association’s list from anti-Christmas to merely...

The queen of daytime will interview the president of the country during an ABC holiday special that brings together Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama.

In one tidy cover story—The Decade From Hell And Why The Next One Will Be Better—Time sums up the last decade and the one to come. Things were "hell" under George W. Bush, but will be better under Barack Obama. Class dismissed: that's really all you need to know. But just to drive home the Manichean message, Time editor Rick Stengel and Andy Serwer [of Time stable-mate Fortune], who wrote the cover story, appeared on Morning Joe today. Of course there's the inconvenient detail about Barack Obama having been elected in this decade. But not to worry. Serwer explains "you...

Washington Post closing all US bureaus outside DC The Washington Post is closing its last US bureaus outside the nation's capital as the money-losing newspaper retrenches to focus on politics and local news. Published: 12:48AM GMT 25 Nov 2009 "At a time of limited resources and increased competitive pressure, it's necessary to concentrate our journalistic firepower on our central mission of covering Washington and the news, trends and ideas that shape both the region and the country's politics, policies and government," the newspaper's editor, Marcus Brauchli, wrote in a memo to employees that was obtained by Reuters. The Post will...

The blogosphere is abuzz with news of the latest global warming scandal. A latter day "Daniel Ellsberg" has released the climate equivalent of the Pentagon Papers onto the web. In 1971 former Defense Department employee Daniel Ellsberg turned over a large collection of Pentagon Vietnam War related documents to the New York Times. Recently an unknown whistler blower released 61 megabytes of documents along with emails involving communications between Professor Phil Jones, Director of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, and various other scientists who support the claim that humans can raise air temperatures by increasing...

Julia Roberts is getting $15 million to make Eat, Pray, Love, but Scarlett Johansson was only offered $250,000 for Iron Man 2. Kim Masters on the tactics Hollywood is using to slash salaries. You’re Scarlett Johansson. You’re pretty and you’re pretty famous, too. And you’ve just been offered the part of the Black Widow in Iron Man 2! That’s got to be some payday, right? How about $250,000, which is what Marvel Studios offered Johansson and Mickey Rourke to be in the film? The stars negotiated the number up to something over $400,000. Still, it’s not hard to imagine that...

From the ugly truth forum: "I KNEW this was going to happen. (That way Obama wasn't lying when he said illegals would not be able to get medical coverage under his ObamaCare plan. His simple fix is to make them all legal first.) EVERY ONE--PLEASE TAKE TIME TO LISTEN TO THIS--IT TELLS ABOUT THE BILL GOING THRU CONGRESS RIGHT NOW REGARDING IMMIGRATION. " EVEN CNN IS GETTING UPSET ABOUT THIS!!!!!!!!!! Pass this on after you watch it. NOTICE THAT THIS IS FROM CNN, NOT FOX!!! This from CNN news:

While U.S. newspapers are losing subscribers at a staggering rate, a few dailies stand out because their circulation is rising. But they aren't necessarily selling more copies. Here's why: Since April 1, new auditing rules have made it easier for newspapers to count a reader as a paying customer. These looser standards are especially helpful to a newspaper if it sells an "electronic edition." That can include a subscriber-only Web site, such as what The Wall Street Journal has, or it can be a digital replica of a newspaper's printed product. Several dozen publications, including USA Today, sell access to...

Resarchers at UCLA prove that the media definitely has a liberal bias. They used the scientific method to arrive at these conclusions, and their research is completely sound. The left no lomger has any claim that the mainsream media doesn't have a liberal bias. For all their bitching about FoxNews, Dumbocrats will be forced to admit that the overall media is left leaning. http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx?RelNum=6664

CHICAGO – For more than two decades, Oprah Winfrey has been the inspirational, change-your-life champion who reigned over daytime television much like Johnny Carson once ruled late night. Now she's ready to say goodbye, leaving a huge void for broadcast TV even as she raises the possibility of more Oprah than ever when she starts her own cable network. Winfrey told viewers Friday that she will dim the lights on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" at the close of its 25th season in late 2011. "I love this show. This show has been my life. And I love it enough to...

Well, it would seem that the AP is all for fair use … when it applies to them........No matter how you slice it, the AP copied Palin's book (without permission), distributed it (without permission) and now stands up to say it was all done under fair use.......... The Associated Press has essentially claimed there is no such thing as ‘fair use’ when it comes to quoting its articles or reprinting its headlines, but when the news organization scans an entire book, then fair use does indeed exist. Bloggers and news aggregation sites such as Google News have felt the wrath...

Bill Moyers to Leave Weekly TelevisionBy ELIZABETH JENSEN; Compiled by DAVE ITZKOFF Published: November 20, 2009 The PBS mainstay Bill Moyers, left, said he was retiring from weekly television and would end his Friday night public affairs show, “Bill Moyers Journal,” on April 30, 2010. That date will also be the last for “Now on PBS,” which has been canceled. Mr. Moyers said he had been planning for some time to retire the program on Dec. 25 but was asked by PBS to raise the funds to continue through April, which he did. “I am 75 years old,” he said...

I want to watch a sci-fi show, not a gay make out on tv.

Beauty and the beast.....

Oprah Winfrey offically announced to her sudio audience that she was ending The Oprah Winfrey Show, her amazingly popular program that began in 1986. Although the announcement was made today, Friday November 20, 2009, the actual end will not be until be until Friday September 9, 2011, over 18 months from now. Oprah said: "Twenty-five years feels right in my bones and feels right in my spirit." ... Due in large part to The Oprah Winfrey Show, Oprah has become a cultural icon. She is the woman who recommends books few people have heard of, then each becomes a national...

Want to know how does the left really feels about free speech? Look no further than Huffington Post editor and co-founder Arianna Huffington. Huffington appeared on MSNBC's Nov. 19 "Countdown" to discuss a report by the Anti-Defamation League that alleges Fox News host Glenn Beck is "the most important mainstream media figure who has repeatedly helped to stoke fires of anti-government anger" and therefore endangering society. "It would be nice to think of Glenn Beck just as a joke, as fodder for this show and the "Daily Show" and others that point out how stupid some of this stuff is,"...

Oprah Winfrey just announced to her staff ... next season will be the last for her TV show. An Oprah insider tells TMZ "Oprah announced there will be layoffs after this season." The final show will air in Sept 2011. 2011 marks the 25th year of the show -- one of the most successful in TV.

Breaking: WABC.com reports Oprah Winfrey will end her talk show. The announcement will come on her show tomorrow with the final airing expected to be Sept. 9, 2011. The Oprah Winfrey Show airs on WABC-TV in the afternoons but originates from Chicago on ABC station WLS where it airs at 9amCT. Winfrey saw her best ratings in two years on Monday with an interview with Sarah Palin.

Here tis: FReep this poll

This girl is probably around 15 years old, and MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell starts hammering her on Sarah Palin supporting the bailout...This is a sight to behold..(Video)...

MSNBC Interviews Sarah Palin Supporters At Michigan Book Signing. This YouTuber calls them clueless which they are anything but!

On the cover of this week’s issue of Newsweek is a photo that was shot for the August 2009 issue of Runner’s World, in which Sarah Palin was featured on the monthly “I’m a Runner” back page. Runner’s World did not provide Newsweek with the image. Instead, it was provided to Newsweek by the photographer’s stock agency, without Runner’s World’s knowledge or permission.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US news agency the Associated Press (AP) laid off dozens of employees on Tuesday as part of a plan to reduce its global payroll by 10 percent this year, a union statement said. The News Media Guild, which covers some 1,300 AP editorial and technology unit staffers in the United States, said it did not have an exact number of layoffs because management had not yet formally notified it of the move. The Guild said it had been informed by members of more than 38 layoffs affecting Guild-covered managers, reporters, editors, photographers, and editorial assistants. It...

For the second time since Sarah Palin stepped into the national political spotlight, a photo of the former Republican vice-presidential candidate featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine is sparking controversy. Palin herself blasted the "out-of-context" cover as "sexist" on her Facebook page. ... The reaction to the Newsweek cover has predictably sparked outrage from conservative supporters of Palin and kudos from liberals who oppose her. CBN commentator David Brady called the cover "a new low" for the "biased" magazine, adding that Newsweek has a history of portraying liberal women as "heroes for the next generation," while portraying conservative women...

Left-wing media matters Cliff Kincaid, November 17, 2009 A professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Robert W. McChesney has said that “media reform” should be part of the march toward socialism in America and that capitalism has to be dismantled “brick by brick.” Van Jones, the ousted communist “Green Jobs Czar” of the Obama Administration, served with McChesney on the board of Free Press, a George Soros-funded organization, in 2007 and 2008. Despite its socialist orientation, Free Press is financially supported by extremely wealthy individuals such as George Soros, the leftist billionaire, and Marcy Carsey, one of the creators...

Ever since Sarah Palin entered the national political arena last summer as the Republican VP nominee, she has caused sheer panic in the hearts and minds of the Leftist Liberals in America. Accordingly, the Leftist media is hell-bent on doing all they can to discredit Palin’s accomplishments and destroy her character at any cost. Even now, much effort and energy is being expended to deceive the American people regarding her considerable achievements. Her popularity among conservatives is astounding, and many believe that she will get the 2012 endorsement for the presidency. The Left and its State-Run Media Minions are now...

So, as I sit here writing this, my mind is reeling and my heart is beating too fast. I'm ANGRY and outraged, and just....SO ANGRY. One short week ago, Major Nidal Hasan, a pyschiatrist in the United States Army, walked into the deployment center at Ft.Hood armed with a 9mm pistol, and a F-N semi-automatic handgun. He walked into a center full of military personnel who were NOT allowed to carry a gun on the base and were unarmed. As they were being examined by dentists and opthamologists, and guided through the onerous paperwork that is necessary to deploying, this...

The largest publisher of newspapers serving the gay and lesbian community in the US has shut down. Laura Douglas-Brown, editor of Southern Voice newspaper in Atlanta, said she arrived at work today to find the locks changed and a note saying parent company Window Media LLC had closed down.UKGuardian"Window Media long provided a very special outlet for the gay community to learn about itself way before there were a lot of other places to find that type of thing," said Michael Musto, an openly gay writer for the Village Voice in New York, which is owned by Village Voice Media...

Atlanta's gay community has lost its Southern Voice. The city's gay and lesbian weekly has shut its doors after 21 years. Southern Voice, along with David Atlanta, a publication about gay men's nightlife in Atlanta, closed after a long-time financial battle to stay afloat. Southern's owner, Washington, D.C.-based Window Media LLC, shuttered the weekly newspaper and a handful of other gay publications nationwide over the weekend, the newspaper's editor, Laura Douglas Brown, confirmed to the AJC on Monday. Employees arrived at the newspaper's offices off of Briarcliff Road early Monday to find the door locked and a sign posted on...

Gay newspapers in several U.S. cities, including the Washington Blade, shut down on Monday, as the company that owned them, Window Media, abruptly went out of business. Window Media had been in serious financial trouble, but employees said they had expected a reorganization or sale, not a liquidation. “We found out when two of the corporate officers were waiting for us when we got to work this morning,” said Kevin Naff, editor of the Blade, a 40-year-old paper that was one of the most important publications written for a gay audience. “It’s not a complete surprise. The abruptness of it...

Washington gay and lesbian newspaper The Washington Blade has ceased publication and is closing Monday, along with its parent company, Atlanta-based Window/Unite Media LLC. Window/Unite published five gay and lesbian publications, including Southern Voice, South Florida Blade, The 411 Magazine and David Atlanta. All will stop publishing, and three of the company's offices will close. The news, first reported by Washington City Paper’s sister paper Creative Loafing Atlanta, was confirmed by a Washington Blade employee. The publication has also stated the news on its Twitter feed: “Washington Blade, like all Window Media publications, is closing today. Thank you for your...