Free Republic

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...

Yahoo has done Andrew Sullivan proud with their headlines.....and doesn't this have a "deja vue" ring to it? And, didn't we just see this same media trick in September? Of course the article has to go on to mention that the babies Father-Levi Johnston mothers was recently arrested on Drug Charges. Johnston's mother, Sherry, was arrested on drug charges earlier this month after an undercover narcotics investigation.

Let's see. ACORN has been submitting thousands of fraudulent voter registrations and is being investigated by the FBI. However, if you are John McCain you should just keep your mouth shut and not complain about it. That is the absurd assertion of an editorial in today's Los Angeles Times (emphasis mine): John McCain committed a malicious misrepresentation in the last presidential debate when he claimed that ACORN, the liberal activist group, "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." As ACORN acknowledges, it...

I burned Time Magazine this morning to use the ashes as manure on my herb garden. I guess I am too used to reading real analysis on the military blogs. Yesterday I happened to pick up a copy of Time Magazine at the rec center where I work out. Out of curiousity I read the title article from the Jan 15th, 2007 issue with the title "The Surge, Does sending more soldiers to Iraq make ANY sense?"

When a company defrauds its customers, or delivers shoddy goods, the customers sooner or later are going to take their business elsewhere. But if that company has a virtual monopoly, and offers something its customers must have, they may have no choice but to keep taking it. That’s when the customers, en masse, need to raise a stink. That’s when someone else with the resources needs to seriously consider whether the time is ripe to compete. The Associated Press is embroiled in a scandal. Conservative bloggers, the new media watchdogs, lifted a rock at the AP. Curt at Floppingaces, www.floppingaces2.blogspot.com,...

To live peacefully with Muslims and Jews, Christians must put aside the notion that their faith requires the creation of a Christian kingdom on Earth, a Lipscomb University theologian told an interfaith gathering at the university. "We are not going to get very far in our relationship with Jews or Muslims if we do not let go of this idea," Lipscomb professor Lee Camp said at Tuesday's conference. The unusual gathering of several dozen clergy and lay people was devoted to resolving religious conflict in Nashville and around the world. "We need to forsake the Christendom model," Camp said. "The...

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) - The U.S. Embassy in Argentina rejected reports that it had told President George W. Bush's twin daughters to leave the country after a widely publicized purse-snatching incident. ABC News reported on its Web site on Monday that embassy officials had "strongly suggested" that the twins, Jenna and Barbara Bush, cut short their visit to Buenos Aires due to security concerns. Argentine officials confirmed last week that one of Bush's daughters had her purse stolen in San Telmo, a neighborhood popular with tourists. The incident led to teasing by Argentine media about the twins' seemingly ineffective...

Does the mainstream press ever wonder why conservatives distrust them so much? If so, they need look no further than the “fauxtography” scandals of the last couple of weeks. Conservative bloggers have been hard at work sniffing out suspected fakery and staging in the photos sent back on the newswires from the Israel/Hezbollah conflict, and the investigation got pretty smelly. First, there was Reutersgate, in which the international news organization had to pull a photo and fire a freelance photographer because he clumsily Photoshopped thicker smoke into the skyline of Beirut. This incident got bloggers wondering what other photographic evidence...

Posted by Brent Baker on September 19, 2006 - 17:20. Friday's Good Morning America featured a segment with Robin Roberts in Memphis with three Southern women, identified as Republicans, who are all supposedly "having second thoughts about their party" and now plan to vote for Democrats. But a quick Internet search found that two of the three have backgrounds which raise questions about their fidelity to the GOP. Janna Herbison, identified on screen as "Former Republican turned Democrat," declared: "I used to consider myself to be a Republican." She scolded Republicans: "Don't say they're [Democrats] aligning themselves with the terrorists...

The Pope has apologised to the world's Muslim community after making comments about the history of Islam, according to media reports. He said he hoped the speech had not been taken as being intentionally offensive and insisted that the Vatican was "strongly upset" by the Islamic world's reaction, the BBC reports. Delivering a speech on Tuesday at a university in his homeland of Germany, Pope Benedict XVI quoted criticisms of the Prophet Muhammad made by 14th century Byzantine emperor, Manuel II Palaeologus, who claimed that the Islamic prophet had brought "things only evil and inhuman" on the world, "such as...

At the Kettle Diner in Jacksonville, N.C., it's faith, family and the Corps. Jacksonville is home to Camp Lejuene, the largest Marine Corps base on the East Coast...Even some lifelong conservatives aren't hearing the president's message anymore. "I've turned him off," said retired Marine Col. Jim Van Riper. "I've tuned him out." Van Riper is a Christian, card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association who voted for President Bush twice. But as more Marines have died, his confidence in the Bush administration has died as well.

Friday’s "Good Morning America" broadcast yet another bad-news-for-Republicans story concerning the party’s chances in the upcoming mid-term elections. In a report from Robin Roberts, three southern women, all either former Republicans or Republicans considering voting for Democratic candidates, were given air time to express their disenchantment with the GOP: Robin Rasmussen: "I voted Republican in every election since I was 18." Robin Roberts: "But not this year. Robin Rasmussen is thinking of voting for a Democrat and she’s not alone." Janna Herbison: "And I used to consider myself to be a Republican." Tracy Quick Bradford: "...I think that the, the...

Mr. Johnson, one of the most influential, popular, and disliked political bloggers in the United States, says his site offers an "alternative filter": The news comes in and something approaching the truth comes out. Critics, however, say he has an agenda of his own - one that's anti-Muslim, pro-Israel, and full of hate. How did this 50-something computer programmer and Web designer turn into an Internet celebrity, sought out by CNN and regularly roasted by liberal critics? The answer lies in expertise, diligence, and imagination. This week, his website - littlegreenfootballs.com - is attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors, thanks...

Reuters News Agency, reeling from accusations of distortion, deceit and fraud, have decided to go the distance in order to repair their tattered image. "We're coming clean today," spokesman Justin Case explained to his lunch guests, "by re-opening the files on stories long suppressed by our firm. This will aid in the restoration of balance in our reporting, as perceived by our readers." One of the first stories to be covered by their newly hired replacement photographer, is that of the splinter group, Hersbollah. "It is a myth that women are treated like dogs under Islam," Hersbollah strike commander Latcha...

Remember those photos that have been running in the media showing a rescue worker holding a dead child following the Israeli air strike in Qana? The message of those pictures has been powerful: look at what those evil Israelis did to that poor, innocent child. Well, now we learn that all may not be what it seems. Many of those pictures were taken by the photographers for wire services like the Associated Press, Reuters and the always pro-terrorist Agence France-Presse, also known as AFP. But an enterprising British blogger decided to dig a bit deeper. He looked at the time...

SAN FRANCISCO An investigation into the sourcing and accuracy of news stories by a freelance journalist at a leading Internet news site concluded that the existence of dozens of people quoted in the articles could not be confirmed. Wired News, which publishes some articles from Wired magazine, paid for the review of stories by one of its frequent contributors, Michelle Delio, 37, of New York City. It was expected to disclose results late Monday. The review determined that dozens of people cited in articles by Delio primarily during the past 18 months could not be located, said one person familiar...

Mary Mapes, the CBS News producer from 60 Minutes who gave us Rathergate, has won the first journalism award given in memory of two of the worst rogues in the history of the profession, Walter Duranty and Jayson Blair. Duranty and Blair were both reporters for the New York Times, America’s most corrupt newspaper. To borrow from NBA commissioner David Stern, on his decision to suspend Ron Artest and the other Indiana Pacers thugs in the recent “basketbrawl,” the vote “was unanimous, 1-0.” As previously detailed, Mapes was guilty of no less than three major journalistic offenses -- her “Shot...

Well, "Black Rock" isn't the Tower of London, and we no longer behead those who seek to topple the government, as Elizabeth I's executioner did Mary, Queen of Scots, but CBS' corporate headquarters will have to do, as the media world awaits whatever passes for the sentencing and punishment of news fraud Mary Mapes, who gave the world Rathergate, among other infamous episodes. Any day now, possibly even today, the CBS News internal Rathergate report will be completed and read by the "suits" in the suites at Black Rock. When Rathergate became a full-blown scandal, CBS appointed former U.S. Attorney...

A few weeks ago, at Rather Biased , I came across a story about a CBS News producer who'd been fired, "CBS Fires Trigger-happy Producer." "So, they finally got around to Mary Mapes," says I. No such luck. The tarnished Tiffany network had unceremoniously dumped a news producer for interrupting a broadcast of its popular new crime series, CSI: New York, for a report on the death of Arab terrorist Yasser Arafat. It seems while honesty in reporting counts for little at CBS these days, hot entertainment properties are sacred. The November 13 Rather Biased dispatch follows: "Friday both Reuters...

A few days ago, my colleagues and I were noting the absence of any whistleblower in the fraud allegations swirling over the election... and I mentioned that I considered this to be another problem for those making the accusations. Surely, if the election had been hacked, there would be somebody who might brag about it to a talkative friend, or somebody who might know something and would be willing to contact a reporter or stand up for the principle of free and fair elections.

Just because it was November, didn't mean that the Kerry camp and its network shills couldn't come up with some more "October surprises." After all, for the Democrats and their media affiliates, it's always October. No ExitOn Election Day, the early returns from the Big Media-commissioned "exit polls" were that Senator John Kerry was drubbing President Bush across the East, especially in the two states Bush had to carry, Florida and Ohio, if he was to have a chance at winning the election. Keep in mind, that unlike the network election coverage, which begins in earnest only after the polls...

Just because it was November, didn't mean that the Kerry camp and its network shills couldn't come up with some more "October surprises." After all, for the Democrats and their media affiliates, it's always October. No Exit On Election Day, the early returns from the Big Media-commissioned "exit polls" were that Sen. John Kerry was drubbing Pres. Bush across the East, especially in the two states Bush had to carry, Florida and Ohio, if Bush was to have a chance at winning the election. Keep in mind, that unlike the network election coverage, which begins in earnest only after the...

HALPERINGATE = RATHERGATE = WATERGATE: The Nexus Halperin Memo Dated Friday October 8, 2004 It goes without saying that the stakes are getting very high for the country and the campaigns - and our responsibilities become quite grave I do not want to set off (sp?) and endless colloquy that none of us have time for today - nor do I want to stifle one. Please respond if you feel you can advance the discussion. The New York Times (Nagourney/Stevenson) and Howard Fineman on the web both make the same point today: the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions...

Many alleged journalists don't see themselves as helping John Kerry win the election because they are socialists in journalistic drag, but because they believe that this is simply what any decent person in the same position would do. In foisting the Memogate hoax on the American people, CBS' Dan Rather was motivated by the desire for ratings, revenge, and power. (For two excellent chronicles of how Rather misled his audience, see the reports here and here by Andrew Alexander, my editor at Intellectual Conservative.) Ratings Any journalist worth his salt wants to reach everyone, and blow away the competition. Anyone...

Dan Rather's motives in foisting the Memogate hoax on the American people were: Ratings, revenge, and power. Ratings. Any journalist worth his salt wants to reach everyone, and blow away the competition. Anyone who says otherwise, is either lying or in the wrong business. The best way for a journalist to reach the largest possible audience is with scoops on scandals. It's good journalism, and it's popular journalism. One of the reasons why the pc journalism of the socialist mainstream media (SMSM) and even the older, Republican mainstream media (RMSM; think, National Review) have been losing audience share in recent...

Say good night, Dan. Dan Rather's journalism career is surely over. When he got snookered by the forged memos peddled by longtime Bush enemy Bill Burkett, a retired Texas Army National Guard lieutenant colonel, and the fraud was exposed by a 'lousy Internet site,' instead of Rather re-investigating the story, he stonewalled, took the offensive, engaged in a "modified, limited hangout" (the September 21 New York Post) and attacked his critics. Once he admitted that something wasn't quite right about the "documents," he even tried to take credit for determining that a hoax had taken place. Rather acted less like...

On Friday the AP falsely reported that a crowd at a Bush rally booed the news that Bill Clinton had been hospitalized, and President Bush "did nothing to stop them." On Friday afternoon, an Associated Press (AP) story reported that a crowd at a Bush rally in Wisconsin, responded to President Bush's news that former President Clinton had been hospitalized with chest pains and faced bypass surgery, and Bush's best wishes for Clinton's speedy recovery, with boos. The AP, a wire service founded in 1848, describes itself as "the largest and oldest news organization in the world."Audience boos as Bush...

Looks like the New York Times has another ugly Jayson Blair-like scandal on its hands. This time, the young minority reporter is Charlie LeDuff, a part Native-American, part-Cajun writer, known as a rising star and favorite pet of former executive editor Howell Raines. The hotshot LeDuff is now in hot water over his cribbing of anecdotes from someone else's book about kayaking down the Los Angeles River for his own Page One fluff story about — you guessed it! — kayaking down the Los Angeles River. An embarrassing correction published in the New York Times on Dec. 8 explained: An...

What’s THE biggest media myth to come out of the Iraq? War and its messy aftermath? Forget Maureen Dowd’s attempt to trash George W. Bush by altering the president’s words. That kind of "journalism" has become just standard operating procedure at the New York Times. (" All the News Fit to Distort") No, for sheer, long-lasting stamina, we nominate the urban legend about the pillaging of Baghdad’s archaeological museum. Remember how it was supposed to have been emptied by looters? It was THE RAPE OF CIVILIZATION! The anguished comments from distinguished archaeologists sounded more like tabloid headlines. The Death of...

Just reviewed a classified brief on the supposed wedding - no way it was. Here are some unclass details I can provide (brief had lots of pictures to back up the details): > > > - Weddings traditionally held on Thursdays in Iraq to take advantage of Friday as a day of rest - raid took place on Tuesday night. - Only permanent dwelling at the site held large stocks of food, bedding, medical supplies (lots of these - was the wedding going to be a cage match of some sort or were the caterers just bad cooks?), ammunition and...

www.sfgate.com USA Today finds faked stories Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times Saturday, March 20, 2004 ©2004 San Francisco Chronicle URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/03/20/MNGR25OFG61.DTL Washington -- USA Today, one of the nation's largest-circulation newspapers, said Friday it has found that a former star foreign correspondent had made up parts of at least eight stories, committing "journalistic sins" that were "sweeping and substantial." In a front-page article, the Gannett Co. newspaper said that a team of reporters and an editor found evidence of repeated fabrications during an examination of 720 articles written by Jack Kelley between 1993 and 2003. It said the evidence "strongly...

KURTZ: USA TODAY REPORTER PANICKED Sat Jan 10 2004 19:49:51 ET USA Today correspondent Jack Kelley resigned Tuesday after an investigation of his work -- after he "panicked and used poor judgment" during the probe, the WASHINGTON POST is planning to report on Sunday. According to newsroom sources, the POST's Howard Kurtz will report: "In an effort to prove that he had spoken with a human rights activist in Yugoslavia, Kelley said in an interview, he encouraged a translator who was not present during the 1999 sit-down to impersonate another translator who was there. The woman who agreed to help...

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A sportswriter who left his job at The New York Times to become a sports columnist for The Indianapolis Star admitted he falsified his resume and resigned his new post Friday. Star Editor and Vice President Dennis R. Ryerson announced he had accepted Mike Freeman's resignation in an item headlined "note to readers" that was posted on the newspaper's Web site. In a statement included in the Star's note, Freeman said he knowingly stated on his resume and in an interview for the job that he was a graduate of the University of Delaware. Freeman's statement said...

DIEBOLD-FACED LIES    When someone says "this isn't about money," you can be sure it's all about money. And when Paul Krugman says " there's nothing paranoid about suggesting" something, you can be sure that what he's suggesting is a crackpot conspiracy theory, built on lies and innuendo, that only a true paranoid could believe. What "there's nothing paranoid about suggesting" in Krugman's New York Times column yesterday is that touch-screen voting machines are part of a Republican plot to hijack elections. He sanctimoniously warns, "let's be clear: the credibility of U.S. democracy may be at stake." The proof? Krugman...

COVERING UP FOR THAT COVER   A rare Paul Krugman correction in the New York Times? Not quite. Today's corrections section states, "An article last Sunday about the differing covers on the American and British editions of a book by Paul Krugman, the economist and Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, Page, referred incorrectly to a caricature on the British version. According to groups that distribute the image, the drawing of Vice President Dick Cheney, with the words 'Got Oil' on his forehead and a dark mustache, was intended to evoke the 'Got Milk' advertising campaign, not to suggest a...

Receive FREE updates by email: | Before Jayson Blair: AIM and The New York Times By William AlfordNovember 12, 2003 Subsequent to the fallout over Jayson Blair's numerous instances of fraud, inaccuracy and plagiarism, senior staff at The N.Y. Times surely hoped that credibility doubts would end by throwing the 27-year-old journalist over the side in May. Questions nonetheless persisted over such practices as the widespread misuse of unnamed sources, attributing freelancers' work to staff reporters, and insufficient research and 'advocacy' journalism. On an early June "day that breaks my heart," publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. announced the 'resignations' of...

Associated Press Story - Former New York Times executive Gerald Boyd, who resigned last June in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal, is writing his memoirs. Currently untitled, the book will be published in 2005 by Amistad, an imprint of News Corp.'s HarperCollins that specializes in publications by black authors. "The Jayson Blair scandal will be covered, but it will be just a small part of the story," Boyd's representative, Robert Barnett, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney, said Wednesday. Financial terms were not disclosed. Blair resigned from the Times last spring after editors learned he had embellished and plagiarized parts...

So did Mississippi voters support the Republicans, even though they get very little direct benefit from Bush-style tax cuts, because they — unlike New Jersey's voters — understand the magic of supply-side economics? If you believe that, I've got an overpass on the Garden State Parkway you may be interested in buying. Now maybe New Jersey voted Democratic because of irrational Bush hatred. But I think it's a lot more likely that white Mississippi voters, unlike their counterparts up north, are still responding to Republican flag-waving — and it's not just the American flag that's being waved.

November 04, 2003 NY Times Full Disclosure? Today's NY Times includes an op/ed written by Mark Medish, "a lawyer, [who] was deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury from 1997 to 2000." In it, Mr. Medish argues that the Iraq debts accumulated by Saddam over the course of his reign must not be cancelled. As he sees it, "A country like Iraq, with the world's second-largest proven oil reserves, should be expected to be able to pay its obligations. Furthermore, the moral charge that the debts are odious is simply too sweeping. Acting on it would be bad for Iraq and...

Schadenfreude — that's that word for taking pleasure in the other guy's failure. But what's the word for that feeling you get when you've been hoping for the other guy to fail, but he ends up succeeding . . . spectacularly? A schadenfreudian slip? How about Krugmanfreude? The latter was the suggestion of ex officio Krugman Truth Squad member John Davidson. It's the perfect word for what America's most dangerous liberal pundit, Paul Krugman — and the whole Democratic party, for that matter — must be feeling right now as they face the reality of last Thursday's announcement that gross...

It's beginning to look as if the New York Times can't help being naughty – it's somehow become part of its nature to commit outrageous offenses against fairness, decency and balance. This time it's a shameful conflict of interest caught by the New York Post: A book review trashing Nigel Hamilton's "Bill Clinton, An American Journey; Great Expectations" written by one Todd S. Purdom, whom the Times doesn't bother to tell its readers is the husband of Bill Clinton's onetime adoring press secretary Dee Dee Myers. The Post's must-read Page Six quotes one observer as noting: "It is the equivalent...

Premier New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman attacked the Fox News Channel on Thursday, comparing the top-rated cable news network to the pro-terrorist Al Jazeera broadcasting company. Using a recent speech by Vice President Dick Cheney to argue that the Bush administration is too narrow-minded in its handling of postwar Iraq, Friedman complained, "Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein issue messages from their caves through Al Jazeera, and Mr. Cheney issues messages from his bunker through Fox." "Out of fairness, my newspaper feels obligated [to cover the Cheney speech]," the top Times columnist wrote. "But I wish we would have...

We are in a cabin deep down below decks on a Navy ship jam-packed with troops that’s pitching and creaking its way across the Atlantic in a winter gale. There is a man in every bunk. There’s a man wedged into every corner. There’s a man in every chair. The air is dense with cigarette smoke and with the staleness of packed troops and sour wool. “Don’t think I’m sticking up for the Germans,” puts in the lanky young captain in the upper berth, “but…” “To hell with the Germans,” says the broad-shouldered dark lieutenant. “It’s what our boys have...

<p>I could only laugh last April when I first heard about a study claiming that a smoking ban in Helena, Mont., cut the city’s heart attack rate by 58 percent in six months.</p> <p>A prominent op-ed in this week’s Oct. 15 New York Times hailed the Miracle of Helena (search) and urged readers to give it more credit than it deserves.</p>

Remember Jayson Blair? Now, another name will go down in infamy at the New York Times. Lynette Holloway, another affirmative- action promotion at the New York Times, has resigned in the wake of the paper running its second-longest correction in history. That 2,175-word correction ran back on July 14. Holloway’s by-line has not appeared since. Now she’s gone. The Times didn’t want to draw any more attention to this scandal, and her resignation was disclosed by a competitor, Keith J. Kelly of the New York Post. He reported that Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said they had reached "an amicable settlement."

Paul Krugman, an economist who teaches at Princeton University, is a crank. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be particularly significant: Academia, notably at the elite institutions, is littered with Mr. Krugman’s ilk. Isolated from the real world and worshipped by impressionable young men and women, professors collectively form a base of the Democratic Party that’s as potent, in rhetoric if not fundraising, as the country’s unions, trial lawyers, and the vast majority of Hollywood celebrities. But Mr. Krugman is one of the most influential left-wing critics of the Bush administration. Thanks to Howell Raines, he has a twice-weekly op-ed column in the...

NEW YORK, Sep 17, 2003 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- The New York Times Co. reported lower advertising revenues for August and said Wednesday that its third-quarter earnings would be well below Wall Street expectations. The Times said it expected to earn between 30 and 32 cents per share in the third quarter, compared with 38 cents in the same period last year. Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call had been expecting the company to earn 39 cents per share. Advertising revenues in the company's newspaper group fell 1.4 percent in August compared with the same month last year. "The...

conservative columnist says the liberal bias of The New York Times extends far beyond the environs of New York and should be a matter of concern to every American. As a native New Yorker, Bob Kohn grew up reading the Times. But now the columnist for WorldNetDaily has written a book about the newspaper called Journalistic Fraud: How The New York Times Distorts the News and Why it Can No Longer Be Trusted (WND Books, 2003). Kohn says every other liberal news agency follows the Times, even broadcast news organizations. "The old joke applies -- Peter Jennings is not a...

The ombudsman is here because the doctrine against it collapsed. But pride says the Times cannot copy the Post. What's Bill Keller to do?The argument for why an ombudsman would never be needed at the New York Times went like this. Every editor should represent the interests of the reader. That’s what good editors do. No ombudsman. Before you start poking at the logic, appreciate how long it stood and how well it served the authority of the Times. First ombudsman is 1967, Louisville Courier Journal. Thirty six years later, the New York Times agrees: maybe it’s a good...

NEW YORK, Sep 10, 2003 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- The New York Times has appointed assistant managing editor Allan M. Siegal as its first standards editor, the newspaper reported. Siegal, who will retain his current title, will oversee the creation of new guidelines for the use of anonymous sources, bylines and datelines, according to a story in Wednesday's edition of the Times. In an e-mail to staff announcing the appointment Tuesday, Executive Editor Bill Keller said Siegal would be "the main internal sounding board for staff members who have doubts or complaints about the paper's content, whether already published...