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(VIDEO-AT-LINK)What if we all just went home? What if we turned off the cameras? Would the protestors disappear—especially all the out-of-town agitators who have descended on the Missouri town just to make trouble? The answer is, probably, yes—and yet that can’t and won’t happen. I’m not suggesting for a second that the killing of Michael Brown and the eruption of anger and violence in Ferguson isn’t a hugely important story. But we all know how the massive media machine, once it clanks into action, changes the very thing on which it is reporting. The journalistic invasion of Ferguson is absolutely...

After witnessing the spectacle of MSNBC host Chris Hayes getting pelted with rocks by an angry mob in Ferguson, Mo., Monday night, I was struck by a feeling of anger and frustration. Not at the rioters. Rioters throw rocks. That’s what they do. My anger was at the despicable display of “tolerance” and “understanding” displayed by Hayes, as he lowered his expectations for civil behavior to accommodate his liberal need to be accepted by the mob. Chris Hayes and his MSNBC colleagues Rachel Maddow, Laurence O’Donnell, Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, and Al Sharpton, have spent hundreds of hours of air...

Hundreds of photographs, papers and historical objects documenting the history of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are being added to the Smithsonian Institution’s collection Tuesday, including items from the popular TV show “Will and Grace.”Show creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick along with NBC are donating objects to the National Museum of American History....

In a tense, middle-of-the night press conference early Tuesday morning, Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson lectured members of the media about safety and implored them to assist law enforcement in calming tensions in the city. After reporting that two individuals had been shot and several police officers injured during another night of protests in response to last week’s shooting of Michael Brown, Johnson showed members of the media items that law enforcement officials had confiscated during the previous night’s protests including a Molotov cocktail, fireworks that had been thrown into a crowd, and two guns. Johnson said the guns...

The low cost of communication over the Internet has led to “a dangerous proliferation of voices” according to President Obama. “It used to be that everyone got their view of the news from major media outlets,” Obama recounted. “There was more unanimity of message. This helped bring the country together.” “Now, though, any nobody with a little free time can get a website and pontificate for all the world to see,” the President complained. “We have no way to control what is said and we lack the time and energy to refute every erroneous idea or contention that is made.”...

After speaking to an eyewitness of the Michael Brown shooting on CNN last night, Don Lemon used his regular appearance on the Tom Joyner Morning Show to issue a statement he said he wanted everyone to hear, but “especially white folks.” “It has been almost a week since unarmed teenager Michael Brown was shot dead by a police officer in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, and still there no answers,” Lemon began. He tried to make that point that racial attitudes in Ferguson, Missouri and elsewhere in this country helped provide the environment that led to Brown’s death. “We...

He plays a father in World’s Greatest Dad, a 2009 indie written and directed by fellow comedian Bobcat Goldthwait that may be the Williams role that I love best of all. It’s also one that is, for many reasons, almost unbearably sad to revisit now, not the least because it deals with themes of suicide, but also because its emotional epiphany is so hard-fought and so uncompromised, directly dealing with how people mourn and how we sanctify the dead. Williams could go big (take Mrs. Doubtfire) and he could do weird (see his turn in Robert Altman’s live-action Popeye), but...

Bittersweet reminiscences at age 82 by one of my all-time favorite comedians. Some funny skits; some recounting of unpleasant memories of his family and early years before joining the marines at age 17, and his struggles with bipolar-ism. Obviously this is not for everyone. But if you enjoyed his comedy and every wondered what made him tick, I think you will find watching worthwhile (about 30 mins)

The hashtag demonstrates that the narrative the media continues to portray regarding black people isn’t always truthful. The vicious slaying of Mike Brown by Ferguson, Mo., police has once again shown that the narrative the media paints surrounding black people in America more often than not includes depicting us as violent thugs with gang and drug affiliations. It’s safe to say that Brown has become a victim of what I like to refer to as the “Trayvon Martin effect” in the media. Trayvon, who was killed by George Zimmerman, was depicted as a gold-grill-wearing, weed-smoking teenager in the photos used...

According to speculation by the Daily Mail on Friday, Nicolle Wallace, a liberal Republican who worked on John McCain's 2008 campaign and famously feuded with Sarah Palin, has been selected to fill the "conservative" seat on ABC's The View. The rumor comes a day after the producer of the left-wing Rachel Maddow Show was hired to run the ABC chat show. Daily Mail writer Topper Toussaint claimed, "Commentator S.E. Cupp was also considered, but clashed with Rosie [O'Donnell]." He added, "'Rosie told her that her approach was just like Elisabeth Hasselbeck, which did not sit well,' according to the show...

It is one of the hottest gigs in daytime television. And MailOnline can reveal that producers of The View will surprise audiences next season, when they replace departing hosts Jenny McCarthy and Sherri Shepherd with two relative unknowns. Political commentator Nicolle Wallace and October Gonzalez (wife of NFL star Tony) are expected to join Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O'Donnell in September. Wallace, 42, is a novelist and political commentator for MSNBC who has appeared as a guest on The View. The former communications chief to George W. Bush, she will fill its 'conservative' hot seat vacated by Jenny McCarthy. She...

If people are willing to pay up for niche channels, Palin might be online video’s next guinea pig.In the introduction to her new online video channel, Sarah Palin announces how she’s going to turn traditional media on its head. She’ll, naturally, “cut through the sound bytes” and “through the media’s politically correct filter.” But she may also do something else for media in the process, which is test the hypothesis that there may be a business in getting people to pay $100 a year to watch a niche streaming tv channel. After seeing a solo act like Glenn Beck succeed...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Wednesday on MSNBC's "Hardball," host Chris Matthews discussing the presidential press conference that had just wrapped up, said he understood President Barack Obama's answer to whether he will grant work permits essentially creating amnesty for up to 5 million illegal immigrants living in the United States was "yes." Matthews said, "His answer to me was yes -- I'm going to issue some kind of system whereby people get relief from deportation or whatever it is. The government of the United States is going to in effect give work permits to people in this country illegally."(continued)

Black Jesus Slink Johnson (center) with, from left, Corey Holcomb, Andrew Bachelor, Kali Hawk and Andra Fuller, Thursdays on Adult Swim. Aaron McGruder moves his satire of contemporary African-American life from comic strips and animation to live actors with “Black Jesus,” his new series for Adult Swim, beginning Thursday night. It’s a looser, baggier, less pointed show than “The Boondocks,” his sometimes-brilliant cartoon that has occasionally popped up on Adult Swim over the last nine years. And it has a comfortable, which is to say familiar, feel, recalling comedies from “Chappelle’s Show” all the way back to “Sanford and Son.”But...

Sarah Palin’s new eponymous channel already has some competition from an online video platform that’s taking a swipe at the Republican firecracker, and devoting its entire lineup to all things Palin. The one-time GOP vice presidential candidate announced last month the creation of her subscriber-based news site, SarahPalinChannel.com. Now, Pluto.TV is launching its own “#SarahFailin” channel, which it says features a “tongue-in-cheek mashup” of Palin’s “most (in)famous broadcast T.V. interviews and parodies of the ‘Going Rogue’ author.” The online video channel, which curates content from across the internet as well as traditional television shows, launched this week.

The emails reveal Lai's links to right-wing US politicians.Media mogul Jimmy Lai Chee-ying has maintained close ties with right-wing politicians in the United States, according to documents leaked to the media. The documents, mostly email exchanges between Lai's top aide Mark Simon and others, were sent to major news outlets yesterday by the same person who last month leaked information about Lai's donations to Hong Kong politicians. The documents suggest Lai had regular contacts with US politicians. In one case, Simon acted as a go-between to set up a meeting between former Alaska governor Sarah Palin and a group of...

There are plenty of concerning things about the Browns’ lives on Sister Wives that the average audience member wouldn’t be accustomed to — for example, just how do they afford four McMansions in Nevada? Perhaps the most unfamiliar thing about the Browns’ unusual lifestyle choice, however, is just how many children they have. Like the Duggars before them, the Browns are working in the high teens of offspring (17, to be exact), but unlike the Duggars, the Brown children have… mother-aunts? And if you’re at all curious about their parents’ polygamist lifestyle, then certainly you’ve wondered: Will their 17...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Ed Schultz isn’t exactly known for being an independent thinker. But the MSNBC host bucked all other voices on his ultra-liberal cable network this week by opposing President Obama’s planned amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants, declaring on Tuesday that “I don’t think any country just hands out work permits to solve an immigration problem” and calling it “a real tough sell.” The union-friendly cable host already declared his opposition to the impending move on Monday. And during a debate with progressive radio host Mike Papantonio, Schultz doubled down. “I get a little bit nervous when I even hear...

Critics 'should neither be allowed nor enabled' to speak ill of Hillary. Political journalists are going to love the Hillary Clinton presidency. Judging by the way Team Clinton has responded to a series of books that are critical of the elderly homeowner and her philandering husband, it will be a real treat to cover them in the White House (again). According to Politico, for example, public relations representatives for the Clinton family have issued a joint statement condemning the recent publication of “trashy” books by Ed Klein, Daniel Halper, and Ronald Kessler, all of which reflect less than favorably...