Free Republic

More media tricks… After thinking things over, the Denver Post decided to delete the fact that Arapahoe School shooter Kark Pierson was a committed socialist from their news report. This is from the original article: The gunman’s parents divorced in late 2011, according to court records. The divorce was finalized in August 2012. Thomas Conrad, who had an economics class with the gunman, described him as a very opinionated Socialist. “He was exuberant I guess,” Conrad said. “A lot of people picked on him, but it didn’t seem to bother him.” And, here is the updated article, sans “socialist.” Pierson’s...

Newspapers are losing circulation and advertising revenue. Many old-time publications are going out of business. There’s no question that selling newspapers has gotten more difficult because of the Internet. Fifty years ago people settled down for an hour every day with their newspapers. That pattern is disappearing. Equally, there is no question that newspapers have made their situation worse. They insist on being politically correct, liberal, progressive, or whatever you want to say. What they don’t insist on doing is telling the facts and letting readers think for themselves. Perish that thought The problem across America is that the so-called...

Tribune Co., the parent of the Los Angeles Times, unveiled a restructuring plan that will slash nearly 700 jobs over the next year. [Snip] The cutbacks indicate that the newspaper division is bracing for another drop in advertising in 2014, analysts said. Print ad revenue fell nearly $200 million in the last two years and an additional $62 million in the first nine months of this year.

On Election Day this year, CBS4′s Shaun Boyd had a story detailing the true intentions of the national environmentalist groups pushing fracking bans in four northern Colorado towns. The article contained an admission from local fractivists that national groups seeking a total ban on fracking in Colorado were driving their campaign. But the fractivists were successful in getting their admissions and national connections stricken from the story by lobbying higher ups at CBS. Sources say Shaun Boyd is none too pleased with the edits. The current version of the story lacks a quote from Water Defense, a national environmental group...

When a mom and daughter were kidnapped, forced to withdraw money from an ATM, raped, then shot last week, the Indianapolis Star played it by the book: Do not mention the suspects are black. The “book” in this case is written by the Society of Professional Journalists, headquartered just three miles from the scene of the crime. In last month’s issue of the SPJ magazine, the oldest and largest organization of journalists in America reminded its members how they should report racial violence. Don’t. The SPJ story was just repeating what dozens of chapters around the country tell its members...

Unrepentant domestic terrorist and President Obama’s “friend from the neighborhood” Bill Ayers has received a warm welcome for his new book, Public Enemy, on MSNBC... hosts fawned over him. ... From October 6 through October 20, Ayers sold a grand total of 467 copies of his book. By contrast, Mark Levin’s Ameritopia sold 56,756 copies in its debut week in 2012.

If you were a resident in the state with the nation’s highest poverty rate, wouldn’t you think you’d be aware of that fact? That a higher percentage of your family, friends, neighbors and others in your community struggled to make ends meet than the same folks in any of the other 49 states? Of course. But here in California, where the incompetence of the media can scarcely be exaggerated, almost nobody is aware that the Golden State is no. 1 in economic misery. This malpractice is nothing new. ... on poverty, why isn’t the fact that California is worse off...

Homosexualization of the newsroom ; VFTB at the Prophecy Summit: Joseph Farah When asked how things are different now in the news business, Farah said his last year in the newspaper business was around 1992 but went on to say: “In the late 80’s and early 90’s something happened, I write about it in my book ‘Stop The Presses’, I literally saw the homosexualization of the newsroom. Prior to the mid 1980’s…I mean there were gays in the news room…but I saw them take over the news room and basically use kind of very heavy handed, you know, what...

Dear Job Applicant, It was wholly a pleasure to be asked to look over your writing samples and offer my appraisal of your prospects as a writer of opinion. I am much complimented. And hasten to send you a few notes for future reference: --Offer the reader original, even provocative, thought. Don't settle for the conventional clichés employed by your side of the political spectrum, whatever it may be. Be ideologically unreliable. It's more interesting. For both you and the reader. Think your subject through, don't just react the way you're expected to. Or appeal to the lowest common...

If .. Barack Obama isn’t happy with his press coverage in the United States, he ought to take a look at how he’s being portrayed in the Arab media. As Obama steps up his push for congressional authorization for a strike on Syria, the president is coming under withering criticism by opinion leaders throughout the Middle East, according to a review by POLITICO and experts of Arabic- and English-language media in the region. The increasingly unfavorable coverage Obama’s receiving in the Arab world - even come from the press in countries that support U.S. intervention in Syria - is doing...

CBS’ This Morning omitted the fact that former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D., Ill.) is a Democrat during a story Wednesday about the disgraced politician’s sentencing for misuse of campaign funds. Jackson faces up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to spending nearly $750,000 in campaign funds on items like mink coats and a Rolex. His wife Sandra, a former Chicago alderman, also will be sentenced on a related charge of failing to report about $600,000 in taxable income.

The newspaper business stinks Take a look at the product People don't read, they skim, Readers trust peers, not institutions Does anyone really "read" a newspaper anymore? Did they ever? (snip) According to Gallup, 55 percent of Americans get their news from TV, 21 percent from the Internet, and 6 percent from radio. Print? 9 percent. But no one is really talking about the product. Once you take the movie times (Fandango) and the classified ads (Craigslist) out of the paper, you're pretty much left with news stories. (OK, and the comics.) (snip) And those news stories haven't changed much....

The Tampa Bay Times this week resumed its attacks on Florida state officials for enforcing existing law by removing non-citizens and convicted felons from Florida voting rolls. On August 3, the Times published an article, “Renewed ‘scrub’ of Florida voter list has elections officials on edge.” The article quoted local election officials who object to doing the work required to maintain the integrity of local voter rolls. Revealing a lack of objectivity, the article did not quote any elected officials who support efforts to ensure that illegal votes do not cancel out the votes of legal voters. Adding additional bias...

In an open letter to the public in late July, several retired Border Patrol agents wrote on behalf of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers to warn that Mexican drug cartels are actively operating inside the United States spending millions every year to try to build their networks here. They argued that American politicians are protecting their activities as well. “Transnational criminal enterprises have annually invested millions of dollars to create and staff international drug and human smuggling networks inside the United States; thus it is no surprise that they continue to accelerate their efforts to get trusted...

The Washington Post Co. has agreed to sell its flagship newspaper to Amazon.com founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos, ending the Graham family’s stewardship of one of America’s leading news organizations after four generations. Bezos, whose entrepreneurship has made him one of the world’s richest men, will pay $250 million in cash for The Post and affiliated publications to the Washington Post Co., which owns the newspaper and other businesses. Seattle-based Amazon will have no role in the purchase; Bezos himself will buy the news organization and become its sole owner when the sale is completed, probably within 60...

Fortunately (and unfortunately), Democrat elected officials in Colorado aren’t even trying to hide their incestuous relationship with the –ahem – “unbiased” media anymore. In an un-surprising twist of staffing fate, Governor John Hickenlooper announced this week that yet another “unbiased” member of the Denver journalism cabal is joining his staff – and for a basement bargain annual salary of just $130,000. That’s right. Mr. Maximillian Potter will join Hickenlooper’s staff as a Senior Media Advisor after parting ways with 5280: Denver’s Magazine last month. Presumably, Potter got a chance to know Hickenlooper when researching a glowing profile piece he did...

Drew Johnson, the editorial page editor of the Chattanooga Times Free Press was fired after 14 months on the job for publishing an editorial with a headline that read: "Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President." The editorial ran Tuesday, the same day Obama visited Chattanooga. The powers-that-be posted a notice Thursday explaining the firing: The headline was inappropriate for this newspaper. It was not the original headline approved for publication, and Johnson violated the normal editing process when he changed the headline. The newspaper’s decision to terminate Johnson had nothing to do with the content of the...

The Associated Press (AP) is refusing to comment on why it requested that the Montana Department of Justice (MDOJ) give it a list of the names and personal information of every concealed weapons permit (CWP) holder in the state... Montana’s Republican Attorney General Tim Fox had denied requests by the AP and a Boston media outfit called MuckRock News for all information pertaining to the state’s CWP holders. Fox cited concerns that the width and breadth of the requests violated CWP holders’ “reasonable expectation of privacy” guaranteed by the Montana Constitution... AP reporter Matt Gouras formally requested the information on...

Marley Lion was killed in Charleston, South Carolina, at around 4 am on June 16, 2012. He was 17. His life and death has been ignored by the national media. Marley was white. His killers were black. Unlike Trayvon Martin, Marley Lion was shot in cold blood. There was no fight. He did not approach the thugs who murdered him. Unfortunately, some deaths are more important than others. ... Marley is a victim of black gang violence. Violent crime against white Americans was up 18% last year.

the New York Times Company, that bought the Boston Globe for $1.2 billion in 1993, is now accepting bids in the range of $100 million, or about a tenth of what it paid just twenty years ago. Complicating matters further is $110 million in pension liabilities ...