Free Republic

Journalism Should Own Its Liberalism And then manage it, challenge it, and account for it By Thomas Edsall The floodtide of e-mails and letters to New York Times ombudsman Clark Hoyt after his September 27 column on the paper’s failure to promptly investigate the conservative-initiated stories about Van Jones and ACORN testifies to the failure of the mainstream press to deal with the issue of liberal bias. “Many readers were not buying [the] contention that liberal bias had nothing to do with the slow response to ACORN and, before that, to the resignation of Van Jones, a White House aide,”...

Buried in the administration's multiple inflammatory statements on Fox News may be their strategy in all of this. In fact, Anita Dunn, David Axelrod, and Rahm Emanuel made hints at it in their statements. Here's the pertinent portion from Axelrod. The bigger thing is that other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way, and we’re not going to treat them that way. We’re going to appear on their shows. We’re going to participate, but understanding that they represent a point of view.

Let's try a thought experiment. imagine we are about four years ago. The leak that Bush was using warrantless wiretaps had just occurred recently. Now, imagine that a spy begins to leak information but to only two sources for the most part. One source is Markos Malitsos of the Daily Kos. The other is a relatively unknown left wing blogger. Imagine that initially the unknown blogger leaked their name recklessly. Then, despite this initial breach of trust, both Kos and this unknown begin to not only write about the story but begin to write endlessly about this leaker and present...

The media is suddenly OK with using anti-gay "hate speech" to slur average Americans and the Tea Party movement. They use terms like "tea bagger." When will liberals be offended?

This socialist loser has every news organization in his back pocket and in his front zipper, and the one place that doesn't bow down and Lewinski him, he complains about. The guy just cannot take any criticsm from anyone. The White House goons come out and call Fox not really a news organization because their political commentators like Glenn Beck are on there. HE'S NOT A NEWS GUY!!!! He's the Opinion show!!! He's the equivalent of the OPINION EDITOR not the NEWS editor. What morons these people are. As if what the rest of the news groups are doing is...

Remember the city mouse and the country mouse who exchanged visits? In the end, the gap between the cousins' worlds left both comfortable with their own choices and baffled by the other's. That's not so different from how anyone who lives 15 minutes outside of Washington, D.C., feels about those who govern their lives and deliver their news. "Absolutely," agrees John King, CNN's "State of the Union" host and chief national correspondent. King spends considerable time outside of Washington's beltway, reporting the news. He says he's a better reporter because he's gotten to know the real feelings of people not...

When a liberal rag tells Obama and company they need to get ahold of themselves: The Obama administration really needs to get over itself. First, the president and his aides go to war with Fox News because the network maintains a generally anti-Obama slant. Then, an anonymous administration aide attacks bloggers for failing to maintain a sufficiently pro-Obama slant. These are not disconnected developments. An administration that won the White House with an almost always on-message campaign and generally friendly coverage from old and new media is now frustrated by its inability to control the debate and get the coverage...

CNN’s Carol Costello began a new series on political talk radio on Monday’s American Morning, suggesting it was unfairly dominated by conservatives, and brought on a liberal psychiatrist who theorized that Rush Limbaugh has an audience because he’s “operating like the bully, and if you’re on the playground...you want to be...under the bully’s wing and go along with him and get...some power by proxy.” The correspondent’s report, which aired just before the bottom of the 7 am Eastern hour, was the first installment in a “special series on talk radio,” according to anchor John Roberts. Costello zeroed in on the...

The Obama White House is making no secret of its distaste for Fox News. In a round of Sunday talk show appearances, the administration escalated its war against the network that likes to call itself "fair and balanced" but that happens to feature quite a few conservative voices... But some are wondering if this is smart politics. Given that Fox News boasts a far larger audience than cable competitors CNN and MSNBC, and given that most elections are decided by independents who might occasionally watch FNC, the strategy could backfire. “It's a very risky strategy,” perennial presidential advisor David Gergen...

Newspaper publisher Gannett Co., Inc. (GCI) said Monday that its third quarter profit plunged 53% from last year, hurt by yet another downturn in advertising revenue. The McLean, Virginia-based company reported third quarter net income of $73.8 million, or 31 cents per share, compared with $158.1 million, or 69 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Excluding one-time items, adjusted profit was 44 cents per share. Revenue fell 18% from last year, to $1.33 billion. On average, Wall Street analysts expected a smaller profit of 41 cents per share, on matching revenue of $1.33 billion. Gannett said that ad sales...

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..."

FIRST, “Saturday Night Live” parodies President Obama’s “achievements.” Then Mr. Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize, bringing yet more head-scratching. Clearly, the nation’s attention is focused squarely on a question few presidents want to answer just nine months into their term: What has your administration accomplished? I’ll leave foreign and military affairs to the Oslo Five and concentrate on domestic economics. The president’s critics complain that his only real accomplishment is the $787 billion stimulus bill — which they deride, somewhat contradictorily, as either budget-busting, ineffective or both. But is that all there is? I think not. STOPPING THE SLIDE...

Give Mika Brzezinski credit for candor. She has stated that during her 10 years at CBS, every reporter, producer and anchor she knew, with one exception, was a liberal. The Morning Joe co-host made the revelation today in the course of discussing with Joe Scarborough the White House's attack on Fox News. View video here.

On Wednesday, four congressmen accused the muslim advocacy group CAIR of planting spies on Capitol Hill. Even more questions about CAIR have been raised with their recent actions, including inviting several radicals to their annual banquet. While looking into this story, I popped it into google and found... Nothing. Go ahead, try it yourself. There has been almost no coverage of this story at all by the mainstream media. Neither on television, nor on the internet.

There was something remarkable that occurred after Anita Dunn publicly took on Fox News this past weekend. Even his supporters saw this as foolish. The Nation magazine called the president Whiner in Chief as a result. New York Magazine said that Obama was arming his political enemies. The Daily Telegraph called Obama silly. In my unscientific scan of the media, I found no media that defended Obama in his full frontal assault on Fox News. So, I was surprised and interested when I found this opinion piece in the Huffington Post. Sure the Huffington Post is even farther left than...

Okay fellow FReepers, I need pics. Tomorrow, I will be joining my fellow Americans in NYC to protest the msm....Operation Can You Hear Us Now. I found a couple, but I would like more. One of my pics will be of Rush and how the msm helped to squash his bid for the rams with their lies. Does anyone have any good msm pics I can use for my sign?

Recently, the Obama Administration has made quite a few comments on its relationship with the media. From complaining that the media as a whole is out to get them, to accusing Fox News of being an underling of the Republican Party. The left wing has followed its lead and continued these attacks. Could this be leading somewhere? ...

The Rochester Operation "Can You Hear Me Now" rallies and march, is starting at the WHEC-TV Studios on 191 East Avenue. The rally will start at 11am on Saturday, 10/17/2007. Here's the map for the rally point: We're starting things off with the Presentation of the Colors, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and a few speeches. We'll then proceed on our march that will follow this route through Downtown Rochester, across the Genesee River, ending at the Gannett Building, for a protest at our local newspaper, the Democrat and Chronicle: BTW, we are conducting a peaceful, but spirited event...

A quote in Bryan Burwell's column Oct. 7 attributed to Rush Limbaugh about the merits of slavery in the United States came from the 2006 book "101 People Who Are Really Screwing America" by John Huberman. The book does not provide specific details about the quote.

After months of hunting for a buyer, The New York Times Company said on Wednesday that it had decided not to sell The Boston Globe, the newspaper it threatened last spring to close because of mounting losses. The Globe did not draw high bids, and the company chairman, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., said last month that the paper’s finances had improved enough that the company no longer believed it had to sell if the offers were not attractive enough. Executives said this year that the paper was on track to lose $85 million in 2009, before making painful cost cuts that...

Who’s behind the White House war on Fox News? By Michelle Malkin  •  October 14, 2009 05:06 AM President Obama with Anita Dunn, David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel, and Robert Gibbs (via White House Flickr stream) My syndicated column today follows up on yesterday’s Fox News Derangement Syndrome post. Who has Obama stocked his communications shop with, you ask? Beltway flacks for corruptocrats. Meet some of the key people behind the White House war on Fox News. Birds of a feather…****Who’s behind the White House war on Fox News? by Michelle MakinCreators SyndicateCopyright 2009 White House interim communications director Anita Dunn assumed the...

Many "tea partiers" and 9-12 protesters were angered by the way the mainstream media misreported their big protest In Washington, DC held on September 12... This coming October 17, activists will be rallying outside their local elite newspaper and tv news outlets to protest media bias against conservative ideas....

It's self explanatory. Both the media and Obama are huge media whores. Just nice to encapsulate the thought in a picture you can take along in your wallet. Mail a few to your local liberal affiliate, mail a bunch of these to Chris Matthews or anyone else you want to tweak in the media. Make their day. Make them feel important enough to actually get one. For the whole series of Zero dollar bills, go here: "Flickr Archive of Zero Bills"

March on the Media! Join the nation wide rally on Saturday, October 17, 2009 At Hawthorne Park (between E. Main St/Jackson St/ Biddle Rd.) Medford, Oregon Meet at noon and march to NBC affiliate Channel 5. Bring your signs....tell the media we KNOW they are just a propaganda arm, not reporting the news we need to know!

“Lord, thank you for my enemies.” Thus began El Rushbo’s interview with NBC national correspondent Jamie Gangel. It is remarkable that, even when the media sit down with Limbaugh, they still find a way to be biased. To be fair, Gangel did not conduct the interview like Keith Olbermann might have. But there were a few points of interest which must be noted – and some even pointed out by Rush during the interview.

Latest evidence of the MSM/Obama mind-meld . . . Reporting on the prospects of an ObamaCare bill coming up for a Senate committee vote, NBC's Athena Jones told Tamron Hall during MSNBC's 4 PM hour today: "It looks like it's going to work out fine to pass tomorrow." View video here.

----- , October 11, 2009 8:24:00 PM Subject: Fwd: INTERESTING appointments again... Fwd: INTERESTING appointments again... Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2009 9:01:27 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: Fw: INTERESTING appointments again... This President has been outed for appointing several other assistants, aides, Czars and other flunkies that are supposed to be confirmed by the Senate. They know nothing about any of them. The ones below are just more fodder for the fire. I bet you never saw this in any newspaper in the USA ? Another very Quiet appointment? Obama Appoints 2 Devout Muslims to Homeland Security Posts (NOTE:...

Listening to Rush Limbaugh the other day he recounted the story of reporter Katty Kay on Joe Scarborough’s show reacting to Rush parodying the song sung by New Jersey school children as homage to Obama. The song contained a refrain line “Barack Hussein Obama … mmm … mmm … mmm.” That line was repeated in the song several times and it illustrates the reverence that some on the American community hold Obama. Well, Rush repeated that line numerous times during the show in as a spoof of this sort of “cult of personality” that is so unusual in democratic countries....

American taxpayers are planning to storm more than 100 mainstream media offices and stations across the nation next week in protest of a media blackout of the growing movement against Obama administration policies. Following sparse coverage of a massive 9/12 march on Washington, talk show host Rush Limbaugh urged citizens to bring their protests to the front doors of major media outlets. "The media [are] no longer reporters. They are repeaters," Limbaugh said on his Sept. 14 show. "There have been hundreds and thousands of protests by conservative groups that haven't been covered, and tiny turnouts by the Left that...

We are witnessing a wingnut war break out in American politics, organized on the Internet and fought out in airwaves and in town halls, wingnuts firing their shots from the outer reaches and strafing the common sense center. Look beyond the sober skeptics and the principled opposition to President Obama, and you'll find an ugly fringe festival cultivating the wounds left by the 2008 campaign and pouring gasoline on the embers of the culture wars. As the two parties become more ideologically polarized, the fringe is now blurring with the base while the moderate majority feels increasingly politically homeless. A...

Students from the Ron Clark Academy sing in support of President Obama's health care overhaul legislation - in the CNN studio, with lyrics displayed for viewers at the bottom of the screen. Singing to the tune of Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA," students from the Ron Clark Academy appeared in the CNN studio to perform in support of President Obama's health care initiatives. "Obama says everyone needs health care now," they sang. The performance, carried on CNN and complete with follow-along scrolling lyrics at the bottom of the television screen for viewers, appeared to echo an earlier indoctrination incident...

Drunk with a delusional sense of authority, the American media has become the tool of a powerful and corrupt media conglomerate that calls the shots and picks the players. Public perception of the media has changed and the trust once enjoyed is now destroyed. The former ‘free press’ role of the media was hijacked long ago and what’s left is an echo chamber where dissenting voices are attacked personally instead of debated openly. In place of reporting news as it breaks in an unbiased fashion, the media promotes big government while actively suppressing newsworthy events that contradict the progressive political...

MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer on Wednesday angrily agreed with Democratic claims that the National Republican Congressional Committee made a sexist slam against Nancy Pelosi. Appearing on Morning Meeting, Brewer attacked the critique of the House Speaker as "not good" and a "poor move." [Audio available here.] After recounting how the GOP organization released a statement mocking the Democrat as "General Pelosi" and hoping that the top commander in Afghanistan will "put her in her place," a visibly annoyed Brewer complained, "Really? Put the first female Speaker of the House in her place? Not good." (Pelosi had given an interview in which...

The National Organization for Women has sharply criticized comedian David Letterman, accusing him of promoting a hostile, uncomfortable work environment. "The latest Letterman controversy sheds new light on the widespread objectification of women in the workplace," NOW said in a statement Tuesday. "Most women can attest to the fact that many workplaces are plagued with inappropriate behavior by men in power." The "Late Show With David Letterman" host admitted last week on his CBS program that he had sex with unnamed employees and had testified about those liaisons before a New York grand jury as part of an alleged extortion...

It’s really strange when MSNBC personalities wish for more civility in the political process. Morning Meeting host Dylan Ratigan brought on pseudo-Republican consultant Mark McKinnon on Monday to discuss his attack on talk radio on the liberal Daily Beast website. McKinnon obliged: I think the Chicago incident, I think it was bad political instincts and bad political judgment, but I was disappointed that it didn't come to America. I think it’s patriotic, that we should have supported that move. So I was very disappointed to see talk show hosts like Mark Levin coming out with just jaw-dropping hate language about...

Rarely does such an example appear brilliantly illustrating why Projection is one of the two official defense mechanisms of the Democrat Party (the other is Denial). The other day, NY Times editorialist (and, somehow, Economics Nobel Prize laureate) penned a piece accusing Republicans of automatically opposing any policy, action, or statement made by President Obama simply out of spite and he even claimed they would do so even at the expense of the good of the country. The piece starts: The Politics of SpiteOctober 5, 2009If Republicans think something might be good for the president, they’re against it whether or...

Beck is completely right here. He is a bit upset that the MSM spends their time digging at his past rather then reporting on the issues he has been so right about. Van Jones? Yup, hit the nail on the head. Acorn? Yup, hit the nail on the head. (h/t Hot Air) [VIDEO AT SITE] But what does our MSM do? They fact check.....FACT CHECK....a Saturday Night Live skit. [VIDEO AT SITE] Un-freakin-believable. Did they fact check the Palin skits? Nope. Have they fact checked ANY snl skits? But when they attack their messiah they suddenly decide to fact check...

Recently, the McClatchy-owned The News Tribune of Tacoma, Wash. and the left-leaning Salon.com ran stories questioning whether or not Glenn Beck's mother, Mary Beck committed suicide. It was later propagated by the left-wing storefronts. And, on Fox News Channel's Oct. 5 "Glenn Beck" program, Beck addressed that and some of the gripes he had about the media for not doing their job. "I tell you all the time, I'm not a journalist," Beck said "I'm not. I joked that I'm a rodeo clown, but you know what - I take that back. I no longer am a rodeo clown. I...

"Can you imagine this that some people actually went as far as to cheer [Chicago Olympic bid loss]? Sure. I mean, there are people that are actually trying to derail health care in order to take down Obama, even if it means half the country dies. So, of course, they don't care about Chicago’s Olympics. Are you kidding me?"

Get a hit drama in here, stat! Just a couple weeks into the fall television season, the prognosis is not looking good for NBC. To wit:

Is there a new double standard? Remember the media’s effort to be permitted to photograph returning military caskets during the Bush administration? Remember how they forced themselves upon the families of the deceased, seeking to cover what they, the media, claimed was an important story? A story so important that even then-Senator Biden realized it?

Reviewing September's detailed sales results in the car business carried at the Wall Street Journal, three things stick out immediately: The awful performance at General Motors -- down 45% from September 2008. Chrysler's even worse performance -- down "only" 42% from September 2008, but a mind-boggling 61% from September 2007 (62,197 in 2009, 156,799 in 2007) Ford's tiny decline of only 6% from a year ago, despite the end of the Cash For Clunkers program in August. No other major maker had a year-over-year September decline that was even half of that seen at GM or Chrysler. Yet the...

Some Chicago officials say anti-American resentments likely played a role in Chicago’s Olympic bid dying in the first round today. President Obama could not undo in one year the resentment against America that President Bush and others built up for decades before, they said. “There must be” resentment against America, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said, near the stage where he had hoped to give a victory speech in Daley Plaza. “The way we [refused to sign] the Kyoto Treaty, we mislead the world into Iraq. The world had a very bad taste in its mouth about us. But there was...

An outgrowth of the 9/12 March on DC, Operation Can You Hear Us Now has declared October 17th to be a nationwide day of demonstrations against media dishonesty. A key demonstration will be the protests at CNN headquarters [rally at CNN Center on the III flags starting at 1030 edst for the demonstration from 1200-1400], which Vanderboegh blogged earlier this week: The Rainy Day Patriots.org head to ATLANTA, Ga. MEDIA PROTEST at CNN The 9-12 March on Washington was only the beginning…. Here’s what’s next – - We are PEACEFULLY protesting the COMPLICIT and BIASED media on the sidewalks outside...

Here we go again. We've seen this scenario many times before: 1. Politicians propose legislation sure to cost the productive classes billions more of their money; 2. Seeing little benefit from the proposal, citizens show their anger in opposition to it; 3. With help from the legacy media, controversy and confusion ensue among the public; 4. Politicians create focus groups and polls to identify opportunities for "clarification" of the plan; 5. Highlighting obscure details as solutions to real problems and vilifying those who oppose them, supporters spin their message through every available media outlet; 6. The public grows weary of...

Elizabeth Edwards is threatening to divorce her husband, John, after learning of allegations he had committed adultery with more than one woman, the National Enquirer is reporting. According to the Enquirer, the allegations are in a book proposal by former Edwards aide Andrew Young in which he says he falsely claimed to have fathered Rielle Hunter's 19-month-old daughter, Frances. Edwards had an affair with Hunter during the 2008 presidential campaign. According to The New York Times and other reports quoting sources, Edwards is considering declaring he's the little girl's father, which he has previously denied. "Elizabeth was read portions of...

Dinosaurs are a popular topic of study, whether in the public imagination or in scientific research. The scientific community, however, has a dirty little secret regarding the manner in which that research is handled. If dinosaur DNA doesn't "look like chicken" (or a crocodile), it will most likely be discarded as "unreliable data" prior to publication--and thus be effectively censored from public access. Why? Because evolutionary scientists are committed to only publish dinosaur DNA data that match their naturalistic tale of origins. Despite the amazing discoveries of soft tissue from dinosaur bones,[1] dinosaur DNA research results (and other dinosaur "connective...

Normally, a column that begins with the author's expression of his feelings about writing the piece shouldn't be read. And if the feeling expressed is the author's purported distaste for discussing the subject, the column normally shouldn't be written. Thomas Friedman's column of today is no exception. He begins by claiming that "he hates to write" about his subject -- the notion that criticism of President Obama may cause him to be assassinated. By the end of the column, Friedman looks like a fool and a hypocrite for having ignored his alleged instinct.

I am tired of people responding to a news report, picking a side, without any understanding of underlying facts. Hollywood and folks in Europe have expressed how unfair it is to go after Polanski, since he has suffered so much (missing the Oscars, etc). So, I ran across the apparent testimony of Polanski's victim. Having now read the testimony, assuming its true, I really have zero sympathy for the man. He needs to return to the United States and face justice. Folks that defend him have either not read the testimony or have no soul......