Free Republic

When President Obama was reelected in 2012, MSNBC was “leaning forward” and smiling wide as Obama 2.0 propelled it to record ratings and a firm grasp on the No. 2 spot in cable news. Over two years later, the network has fallen backwards. January ratings revealed double-digit declines compared with January, 2014 in all ratings measurements. During the day, MSNBC was down 20 percent in viewers and 37 percent in the advertising-coveted 25-54 demo. In primetime, it fell 23 percent in viewers and 39 percent in demo.

Update, 11 p.m.: Brian Williams apologized on-air tonight for claiming that he was in a helicopter hit by an RPG in Iraq, but the version of events he gives in his apology is vague in a way that avoids addressing the main accusation of the soldiers quoted in Stars and Stripes questioning his accounts of events. Those soldiers, in Stars and Stripes' telling, say that not only was Williams not in a helicopter that was hit by an RPG, but that he was nowhere near the helicopters that were actually fired upon. Said Williams tonight: "I made a mistake in...

Fox News took the controversial step yesterday of posting the 22-minute video from the Islamic State terror group that shows Jordanian pilot Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh being burned to death. To alert Internet users to what’s in the video, the presentation features these words: “WARNING, EXTREMELY GRAPHIC VIDEO” Fox’s decision drew condemnation from terrorism experts consulted by The Guardian: “[Fox News] are literally – literally – working for al-Qaida and Isis’s media arm,” said Malcolm Nance of the Terror Asymmetrics Project on Strategy, Tactics and Radical Ideology. “They might as well start sending them royalty checks.” Twitter also fielded some negativity,...

MSNBC registered its lowest full-day rating in nearly a decade on Tuesday, a devastatingly low benchmark that shows just how severe the network's decline has become. The liberal cable news network drew an average of 55,000 viewers in the all-important 25-to-54 year-old demo on Tuesday, its lowest full-day rating since July 2005, according to Nielsen ratings provided by an industry source. CNN had nearly three times as many viewers in the demo; Fox News nearly five times as many. That low reflects a more general decline in recent years.

The following is a letter to the editor submitted by the (Egyptian) Embassy to the Washington Post regarding their editorial board’s recent commentary.To the Editor, The Post’s January 30 editorial entitled “A bleak anniversary in Egypt” is biased and insensitive, to say the least. Published barely hours after the terrorist attack that needlessly took the lives of over 30 of my countrymen, the editorial board fails to show even the slightest compassion for the plight of the victims’ families. The only mention of the attack was by way of laying the blame for the terrorists’ acts squarely on the Egyptian...

Oh the humanity! Good heavens. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has a bad day and suddenly out comes this stream of ill-disguised venom going after the woman. She’s a this and a that and “we told you so.” Yada yada yada.Get the smelling salts! Methinks all this commotion over Sarah Palin is really representative of something else.[SNIP]Historian John C. Miller, writing in his 1943 classic Origins of the American Revolution, describes the relationship between the Brits and the Bostonians this way — in a fashion recalled by the momentary travails of Sarah Palin in Iowa.[SNIP]The mistake being made about Sarah...

The Manhattan mistress of married “60 Minutes’’ newsman Steve Kroft sent him sexy lingerie photos during their affair, but he insisted she dress low-key — like “Laura Bush” — with him in public to keep things hush-hush, according to newly revealed texts. A source close to Kroft’s lover told The Post that the TV hotshot was “really paranoid about right-wing zealots” finding out about their affair and using the tawdry details to try to destroy his career and CBS. [Snip] Kroft was proud to boast to Goines about his closeness to the leader of the free world — and let...

Bill Maher is throwing some shade on President Obama's credentials as a supposed champion of freedom of the press. The host of HBO's "Real Time" sat down Friday to discuss media coverage of secret government work with documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, one of the journalists centrally involved in bringing revelations from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden to light. "I don't understand why he is perhaps the worst president we've had on clamping down on the press," Maher said. "He's used the Espionage Act more than any other president, right?" Maher added. Other members of the media have blasted...

Pope Francis has not been re-inventing the Church as much as the media would like people to believe. To say this isn’t to detract from Francis’ pontificate. He has certainly been a unique pope in many respects. As the first bishop of Rome to hail from South America, he has his own personality, style, and priorities – as does every pope. And it’s not his job to re-invent the faith anyway. As the bishop of Rome, it’s his job to simply defend and preach the faith that was passed on to him. Yet time and time again, we’ve seen headlines...

I know there has been much discussion here and elsewhere regarding Big Guy demeaning the office of the Presidency by agreeing to an interview with green-lipped GloZell Green. Butt just because she eats Fruit Loops out of a bathtub, don’t be so hasty in your judgment. Did I not tell you that GloZell is a national treasure? I suspect several of you did not believe me. Allow me to present my case, which will require you to review an actual clip from her interview with Big Guy, butt do it with this in mind: GloZell, the crazy YouTube vlogger who...

LEIPZIG, Germany – Wednesday night saw a flare of violence and an accompanying police operation on a scale without precedent in recent German history. A group opposing militant Islam in Europe has called a demonstration, the city is deafened by political slogans played over loudspeakers, property is vandalised, and explosives are thrown at police in colossal running battles that involve thousands of people. If you got your news from the mainstream media, what is increasingly known in Germany as the ‘liar press’ (Luegenpresse), the story might very well end there. Then again, the report might also throw in salacious details...

Barbara Walters: We Thought Obama Was Going To Be The Next Messiah By Brian Carey December 18, 2013. Last night, in a particularly refreshing moment of candor, Barbara Walters shared her disillusion over the ObamaCare failure. During an interview with Piers Morgan, she was asked why President Obama didn’t live up to his hype. This is a question that would not need to be directed at any conservative, because every conservative knew from the beginning that he wouldn’t live up to his hype. “He made so many promises,” Walters said. “We thought that he was going to be I shouldn’t...

Obama’s pouting again. The jerk’s in a snit because the media is finally being critical of Obama in a way nobody on the Left side of the aisle has ever been. It would be funny, if it weren’t so serious. “There was a general tone of suspended disbelief when he started talking about foreign policy,” said NBC’s Richard Engel in regard to Obama’s State of the Union Speech. “There are not a lot of success stories to be talking about in foreign policy right now. And the general tone, which was, moving on, starting again, starting a new chapter, moving...

....On Friday’s episode of his HBO series Real Time with Bill Maher, the outspoken satirist pondered whether Kyle was a “hero or not,” and revealed he’s decidedly anti-American Sniper. “Hurt Locker made $17 million because it was a little ambiguous, and thoughtful,” Maher said. “And this one was just, ‘American hero! He’s a psychopath patriot, and we love him.’”

After a long legal effort, transparency group and blog win document. In a nearly forgotten controversy David Gregory, then host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” appeared on TV waving a 30-round ammunition magazine from the network’s District of Columbia studio. Gregory was aggressively interviewing the National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre in December 2012, asking if it might be a good idea to ban the high-capacity magazines. His prop, ironically, violated a District of Columbia law making it illegal to possess an ammunition magazine - even an empty one - that holds more than 10 bullets.

Your show  is at the bottom of a cable network with lousy ratings. So what to do? Take the show that few watch out of the studio, put it on the road, and cross your fingers hoping that the format change will miraculously improve the ratings. That is what is happening with the failed Ronan Farrow Daily (Dully) show on MSNBC. A show with such horrible ratings that TVNewser announced it was watched one Monday last December by only 13,000 people in the 25 to 54 demo during its time slot or less than a sixth of a typical football...

With its ratings at an all-time low and its journalistic ethics almost constantly under fire, left-wing CNN is once again conceding it can no longer compete as a serious news organization with the revelation Wednesday that the production of a game show is under way. Rumors surfaced in December that CNN chief Jeff Zucker might go this way. TV Newser confirmed the humiliating news today. ... 2014 might have been the worst year for CNN of any news outlet in recent memory. We’re only 21 days into the new year, but 2015 is already shaping up to be worse.

Colorado Springs, Colo. — From the liberal media’s coverage of my beautiful adopted hometown, you’d think we live in a KKK-infested hotbed where every person of color fears for his or her life. Take a look at these ominous headlines: “Bombing of NAACP headquarters harkens to bad old days” — MSNBC “Colorado Springs explosion recalls violence against NAACP” — the Washington Post “NAACP Bombing Evokes Memories of Civil Rights Strife” — Time magazine “Explosion outside NAACP office could be a hate crime, officials say” — the Los Angeles Times Let me and my brown skin assure you, America: Bull Connor...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Police wanted to arrest former NBC “Meet the Press” host David Gregory for showing an illegal high-capacity gun magazine in a TV showdown with NRA chief Wayne LaPierre, according to newly uncovered documents. A Washington Metropolitan Police Department detective said in the documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Judicial Watch and Legalinsurrection.com said there was ample evidence to charge the host, since fired and replaced by Chuck Todd. In an affidavit, the investigator wrote that “there is probable cause that the offense of possessing a ‘high-capacity’ magazine was committed in the District of Columbia. Therefore your...

I have completed a study paper on the roots of progressive journalism. I did not do this for any of my classes, I did this on my own because I wanted to and because I truely think it needed to be studied in a more formal fashion. I have been looking around at a handful of peer-reviewed journals that deal with history, but I do not trust them. Plus, there is the issue of copyright and I do not want what I wrote to fall into the trap of being locked away on some journal's pages on the month of...