Free Republic

One of the lessons most people carry away from the schoolyard is that picking an avoidable quarrel with somebody who really likes to fight generally is a losing proposition. It's too bad nobody reminded the Obama administration of that before it launched into its ill-advised campaign against Fox News. First of all, even though the White House is right on the merits when it describes Fox News as operating mainly as a surrogate for the Republican Party, making an issue of that fact is a tactical mistake. Fox News' core audience is a cadre of true believers whose regard for...

LOS ANGELES — “Law & Order,” the long-running NBC series about crime and punishment, rarely shies away from inflammatory topics, and Friday night it takes on one of the most contentious — abortion — for just the third time in the program’s 20 seasons. In the show’s customary ripped-from-the-headlines style, the new episode focuses on the murder, in a church, of a doctor who performs late-term abortions. Though the episode, which will be broadcast at 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific time, begins with the disclaimer that the story “is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event,” its...

A spate of media hoaxes that have entertained viewers and lit up the blogosphere have prompted a new round of hand-wringing over a news industry already worrying that it is losing the public’s trust. Within the past two weeks, US news channels have cleared their schedules to track an oversized balloon flying across Colorado, in the mistaken belief that a six-year-old boy was trapped inside, and been taken in by a fake press conference purporting to announce a change in the US Chamber of Commerce’s stance on climate legislation. In the UK, a celebrity-obsessed media’s vulnerability to spoofs has been...

VANITY Fair yesterday took some of the deepest staff cuts at Condé Nast, but Editor Graydon Carter didn't deliver the bad news himself. Although Carter was said to have been at his restaurant, The Monkey Bar, Wednesday night, he was a no show in the office yesterday because he had jetted off on a vacation yesterday morning. Vanity Fair's layoffs were said to be in the double-digit range, and hit as high as senior editors and as low as fact checkers, and were deep, in part, because Carter largely ignored the edict to chop 5 percent late last year.

Conservative web journalists and radio talk show hosts are beside themselves at the stupidity of the Obama administration, and rightly so. We, too, bewail the squander of America's wealth, the weakening of her military, the traitorous, despicable mishandling of the CIA, the celebration of moral wickedness, the encroachment of constitutional liberties, the blind commitment to environmental myths, and so much more. While Bush conducted a war on terrorism (though he didn't really take off the gloves), Obama appears to be conducting a war on the war on terrorism. All of these things, though, are mere symptoms of a deeper problem,...

Whether the White House's "war" against Fox News is a ruse to divert attention from President Barack Obama's plummeting poll numbers and unfavorable policies, or an all-out attack to exclude Fox News from the White House press pool, the self-proclaimed government "watch dogs" are virtually AWOL or turncoats. The leading exception, ABC News senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper, had the following exchange with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Oct. 20:Tapper: It's escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations "not a news...

TALK-SHOW host David Letterman has been recorded on tape having sex with a female staff member - and he is worried that the footage will eventually be leaked, it's reported today. Letterman, 62, recently admitted to having a series of sexual relationships with some of the women that work for him. The chat show host and a much-younger female co-worker have apparently been captured on a studio surveillance tape in a compromising position. “If the tape makes its way into the criminal case, it’ll explode his marriage to smithereens,” a source told the National Enquirer magazine.

This just came out this evening during the Special Report with Brett Baier, The White House invited everyone BUT Foxnews to the press pool interview of the Pay Czar...They are stepping in up instead of down...here's the video from the 6:00p.m. Special Report (Video)

I preset this post to post at 2 a.m. I am in bed as this thing posts. Not everyone is in bed at 2 a.m. Eastern time. 2 a.m. is when Glenn Beck’s 5 p.m. show is rerun on Fox News. His 5 p.m. show is running neck and neck with Sean Hannity in the ratings as to who is the No. 2 show on all the cable news channels. Last Thursday, he drew 3,222,000 viewers to his 5 p.m. show. It is boring to point out that this is more than triple the audiences of Keith Olbermann at 8...

Not only is it dangerous and wildly inappropriate for the White House — any White House — to start compiling enemies lists, it's also not very smart. Government should not make a habit of insulting and isolating a major news organization. Better to just ignore whatever bothers you. Otherwise, people might get the idea you have a thin skin and that you have something against being asked tough questions. And the next thing you know, there are tough questions coming from all directions. Earlier this week at the White House press gaggle with reporters, ABC News' Jake Tapper tore into...

Applause must be given to U.S. Congressman Mike Pence, for stating what should be obvious to everyone except the self-proclaimed Obama sycophants in the "mainstream media," and the Marxist Obama administration. Given that polls show self-identified conservatives outnumber liberals by almost a 2 to 1 margin, and that there are, amazingly, more conservatives than liberals in all fifty states, it's ironic that the "mainstream media" (CNN, New York Times, LA Times, MSNBC, etc.) is even referred to as the "mainstream media," considering only slightly over 20% of Americans refer to themselves as "liberal".

During the Cold War, the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe were among the broadcast entities that effectively penetrated the Iron Curtain to deliver truth to the “captive nations” that were being fed a steady dose of propaganda by their communist rulers. Those dictators did everything they could to “jam” the signals so that their people would only hear what their unelected overseers wanted them to hear. Contemporary versions of jamming and other forms of censorship occur today in Venezuela, Cuba, and many other places where dictators believe public ignorance is essential to their unchallenged rule. While the Obama...

HATE SPEECH IN THE MEDIA: WHO DECIDES? Another First Amendment Attack GIVING THE WAR ON FOX NEWS MORE CONTEXTHave you heard the one about "hate speech in the media" yet? You will--though one has increasingly little faith that the Dinosaur Media will report on this development. IS the War on Fox News merely one front in the rapidly-escalating War on Free Speech? The heavy hand of the Obama commissars is about to be laid upon: "hate speech in the media". Anyone want to guess what that is a code phrase for? Any guesses who will be the first to...

First Amendment: Diversity czar Mark Lloyd's FCC votes Thursday on the issue of net neutrality. Advertised as providing access to all, it will do to the information superhighway what Lloyd proposed for talk radio. Not much was said when $7.2 billion was included in the stimulus bill "to accelerate broadband deployment in unserved and underserved areas and to strategic institutions that are likely to create jobs or provide significant public benefits." The administration has big plans for the Internet — like controlling it. Susan Crawford, the so-called Internet czar, told the Wall Street Journal in April that the broadband billions...

It's war! A rumble in Washington. Two titanic political forces locked in a bloody battle to the very end. A confrontation between good and evil. A clash of civilizations. Of course, I'm talking about the scuffle between the White House and Fox News. I'm watching this fight as no disinterested observer. For years I was a rare commodity: a liberal commentator on Fox News. I enjoyed working with the bookers and producers at Fox's Washington bureau. But the place often felt like a foreign territory. On air, I was always the visiting team. The routine usually went something like this:...

Big Brother (or in this case little brother, since TiVo only makes up about 10% of the DVRs) is watching. Several data tables below, and I scrolled right down to them. On a glace it seems that TNT’s The Closer could be the best way to unify a partisan nation. TIVO EXAMINES TV VIEWERSHIP BEHAVIOR BASED ON POLITICAL PARTY AFFILIATION USING ITS POWER||WATCH™ RATINGS SERVICE IN JULY Highlights how True Targets data affords advertisers a better understanding of television behavioral segments and can help significantly improve consumer targeting and ROI No Republicans watched a second of Olbermann, No potential alternative...

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...

THE WHITE HOUSE - Despite the President's promise of a swift and decisive victory, Obama's War on Fox News has developed all signs of an unwinnable quagmire, making the White House even more isolated in its unilateral attempts to crush the growing media insurgency. As the war continues to grind on for a second month, public opinion is shifting towards a quick and complete withdrawal. While many observers still agree that the "War on Limbaugh" is a "just and necessary war," even the former supporters of the war effort are now labeling the War on Fox an "unnecessary war of...

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...

The ABC's of Media Bias By: Lowell Ponte FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, October 14, 2004 IS THE ESTABLISHMENT MEDIA BIASED against conservatives? Dan Rather remains in the anchor chair at the CBS Evening News despite his involvement in recent news stories based on dishonest reporting, fabricated documents and even Internet gossip falsely alleging that President George W. Bush secretly intends to begin the military conscription of students. These stories were obviously designed to damage Mr. Bush in the final weeks before a national election. And now ABC News has left in place its Political Director Mark Halperin. ABC has done this...

I read the news that the New York Times is going to cut another unexpected 100 staffers from it’s “news room”. While sad that these organizations are continuing to bleed staff I find it curious that none of the solutions to the tanking of the newspaper included any sort of recognition that perhaps the brain surgeons behind most every story that emanates from that crap hole of a newsroom are so ideologically one sided that half the nation wouldn’t read them unless paid to do so. It’s called “expanding your reach”.

I am sick to death of Baby Barack whiny like a little baby over ONE STATION not bootlicking and rubber-stamping everything socialist he wants to do. I am sick of the MSM who opposed EVERYTHING the last president proposed because a Republican proposed it. I am even sicker that the MSM, with their obvious bias (why do you think your viewing and circulation numbers are dropping like rocks and you're all getting laid off???), sit there and tell us they aren't biased but Fox News is. They all sound alike, you can pick ANY news day and they are all...

In my essay at this blog entitled, Congress and the Media Have Placed America at Risk of Being Attacked from Within, I argued how the Congress and our media have failed to adequately protect the integrity of the 2008 presidential election and consequently to protect our nation and Constitution by putting us at risk of being attacked from within. I explained that given conflicting evidence about where Obama was born, many in the public have wanted to make sure that Obama was born in Hawaii and constitutionally eligible for the Office of President. I also explained that Obama has asserted...

Obama administration communications director commended the wisdom of mass murdering Communist Chairman Mao in her address to high school students this past June. Dunn cited Mao and Mother Teresa as her two favorite political philosophers. I wrote about Dunn's address here, John here; both posts include video of Dunn's address. Dunn said to the assembled students: A lot of you have a great deal of ability. A lot of you work hard. Put them together and that answers the "why not" question. There is usually not a good reason. And then the third lesson and tip actually comes from two...

Just hilarious: "Maddow And Olbermann Team Up For Top Non-FNC Hour Friday Night"

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...

The New York Times reports today that the paper will cut 8 percent of its newsroom staff, or around 100 people by the end of 2009. Currently, the New York Times employs 1,250 staff members in the news department. The media company is planning to offer buyouts to both union and non-union staff and will need to implement layoffs if they can’t get enough people to participate in the buyout offer.

El Marco reports on nationwide protests in 100 cities this weekend against the liberal media’s culture of information corruption. Not surprisingly, few media outlets covered the events

Every White House complains about its press coverage. A contentious relationship between the Executive Branch and a free and independent media is part of America's DNA. Always has been. But this White House seems to feel they're different. It's not just that the current occupant of the Oval Office has a particularly thin skin when it comes to criticism - which is especially ironic given that he's been the recipient of more glowing press coverage than possibly any candidate or president in modern American history. But not since Nixon conjured up an "enemies list" have we seen the full weight...

Anita Dunn, a senior White House aide, has boasted of how Barack Obama's presidential campaign managed to "absolutely control" the press during the 2008 election. The top campaign strategist who has shot to attention recently as President Obama's main attack dog against Fox News, the conservative-leaning cable network, was speaking at a conference in the Dominican Republic in January. "Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control," she said. "One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe [Mr Obama's campaign manager] videos was not just for our supporters, but also...

And you may recall from my previous post that there have also been 27 TIME Obama covers, so far: http://trackacrat.com/time-magazine-%E2%99%A1%E2%99%A1%E2%99%A1-obama/ With the difference, of course, being that Dubya’s tally appeared over a span of seven and a half years, whereas Barry’s have been concentrated into three years. In addition to the fact that The One has years – nay, decades - of sycophantic coverage left to run. Plus, there's a bit of a discrepancy between the tone of the coverage received by the two men. Gallery after the jump...

By Aaron Klein © 2009 WorldNetDaily Anita Dunn TEL AVIV – President Obama's presidential campaign focused on "making" the news media cover certain issues while rarely communicating anything to the press unless it was "controlled," White House Communications Director Anita Dunn disclosed to the Dominican government at a videotaped conference. "Very rarely did we communicate through the press anything that we didn't absolutely control," said Dunn. "One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without...

"In more than 100 cities across the U.S. protesters converged on newspaper and television offices Saturday to denounce the liberal-left bias in national and international reporting. These latest rallies are a response to blatantly biased media coverage of the center-right taxpayer protests,which began in February as a response to Washington’s unprecedented deficit spending..."

As heard on Glenn Becks show today this is video of Anita Dunn discussing the tactics to be used in controlling the media and press. For Example: She talks about how they would use David Pluths videos to bypass having to talk to reporters. "We'd put those out and make them write what Pluth had said as opposed to Pluth doing an interview.." Here is the video Here is the video of Anita Dunn.

But not before she says that CBS and NBC[!] try to be objective. I think Joe tries to straighten her out by bringing her around to the ultimate confession.

When a daring young man named James O'Keefe and a 20-year-old young woman named Hannah Giles rigged up some hidden video recorders and revealed the true depths of depravity of Barack Obama's ACORN, you might have expected these whistleblowers to be treated like heroes in the media. After all, they were doing the media's work – the work the media had failed to do for so long, as this corrosive and corrupt gangster organization got fatter and meaner while collecting hundreds of millions from taxpayers...

Fightin Words debuts on US Web Talk Radio, featuring a candid interview with Minneapolis firefighter and paramedic John Ackerman regarding the city’s incestuous dependence on “local government aid” which continually threatens the funding of essential services and the safety of the tax payer. We examine how local government aid works, how it affects the budget process, the history of the 911 system, and how it all combines to model society’s incremental trend away from individual sovereignty toward utter dependence on the state. Also, audio from the Can You Hear Us Now rally at the local NBC outlet in the Twin...

Karl Rove Vs. Terry McAuliffe on FNS.

WASHINGTON -- Maybe it happened on an afternoon when no one was looking. Maybe it occurred when everyone was focused on something else, or preoccupied with other matters. Maybe it happened one night. But this is no romantic comedy, and there is no Clark Gable or Claudette Colbert involved. Yet it definitely happened. The Iraq war, once owned by George W. Bush, suddenly became Barack Obama's. So, too, the war in Afghanistan. And the economy. Don't forget the threat from Iran. They're all Obama's now. I'm calling it President Obama's Frank Capra moment, and it's playing on a video screen...

Tea Partiers Take Aim at Major Media Outlets The Tea Party movement -- a group of conservative protestors opposed to massive government spending -- are taking to the streets again, this time targeting the media. FOXNews.com Saturday, October 17, 2009 The "tea party" movement is back. Groups of conservative protesters opposed to massive government spending are taking to the streets again, this time targeting the media. The "Can You Hear Us Now" rallies are planned for Saturday in front of NBC studios in Burbank, CNN in Atlanta and affiliate stations of NBC, ABC and CBS across the nation. "American citizens...

American taxpayers are e-mailing and fax-blasting mainstream media and preparing to storm press offices and stations from Maui, Hawaii, to Atlanta, Ga. – and more than 100 locations in between – this Friday and Saturday.

Where's Sarah Palin when you need her? The fourth-season premiere of NBC's Emmy-winning "30 Rock" was down a steep 27% in the adult demo from last fall, when star Tina Fey was generating national buzz for her "Saturday Night Live" parody of the Republican veep candidate. "30 Rock" returned to 6.3 million viewers and a 3.0 rating among adults 18-49, falling 25% from its "Office" lead-in. Meanwhile, ABC's "FlashForward" (9.1 million, 3.1) stopped its ratings descent, reversing for the first time to climb a tenth of a point. ABC just picked up the drama for a full season, so this...

It is telling that Rush Limbaugh’s enemies — and they are enemies, not critics — always avail themselves of the same three weapons: fat jokes, addiction jokes, and lies. There was a predictable surfeit of the first two in the Democratic media’s recent campaign to prevent Rush from becoming part-owner of a professional football team, but the lies reached a level that is remarkable even by the standards of the corrupt and incompetent American media. Specifically, a rash of manufactured quotes attributed to Limbaugh was forwarded to the usual media suspects — CNN, MSNBC — which then incorporated these falsehoods...

A 10th person in Maryland has died of swine flu, state health officials said Tuesday. The person, an adult from Western Maryland, had underlying health problems. As with other deaths related to the H1N1 virus, officials would not release further details.

RC-East Media Ground Rules: 1. Media on Bagram Air Field will not take photographs, video or conduct interviews unless escorted by Public Affairs personnel. 2. All interviews will be on the record. 3. During interviews, no questions will be asked about the politics of the military. (e.g. Iraq war, equipment, readiness, funding, etc.) 4. When embedded with a unit, media must remain with that unit at all times. 5. The media is responsible for loading and carrying its own equipment at all times. 6. Media will not carry or possess personal weapons, knives, firearms, pornography or alcohol. 7. Visible light...

Media Bias: Not long after pro football welcomed a convicted felon back on the playing field, Rush Limbaugh is dropped for his opinions from a group seeking to buy an NFL franchise. Won't someone throw a flag? When even Keith Olbermann says back off, you know the politically correct critics of the conservative icon and megaradio talk host's proposed part ownership of the St. Louis Rams are guilty of piling on. The prospect of the leading conservative voice in America participating in the purchase of a football team sent the liberal elites into cardiac arrest and into a frenzied campaign...

There will be no voluntary mea culpas from Rush's race slanderers despite the irrefutable fact that they spread poisonous and damaging lies with actual malice. To the left, Rush is the most prominent face of conservatism and the most influential opponent of President Barack Obama's destructive agenda and so must be stopped -- irrespective of the despicable means employed. The left systematically destroyed President George W. Bush with the most egregious lies, repeated to the point that people who knew better even began to believe them. The formerly respected CBS News anchor Dan Rather was so convinced by his liberal...

U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan are retreating somewhat from an effort to ban embedded journalists from publishing photos or video of American soldiers killed in action there, according to ground rules issued Thursday.  But the new limitations on embeds – put in place after a flap between the Pentagon and the Associated Press over a photo of a wounded soldier - have elicited deep concerns from military journalists and press advocates. "It's punishment for war photographers. They're saying if you want access, you have to play by our rules. And our rules are this — the public will NOT...

<p>NEW YORK (AP) - The Wall Street Journal has surpassed USA Today as the top-selling daily newspaper in the United States.</p> <p>The Audit Bureau of Circulations won't be releasing its latest figures until Oct. 26, but the Journal said Wednesday that it gained about 12,000 subscribers in the April-September period, compared with a year earlier. That puts its average Monday-Friday circulation at 2.02 million.</p>

Link only! http://www.justnews.com/news/21303179/detail.html