Free Republic

In a series of six alleged “news” stories on the Mumbai massacre, from November 27 to December 1, The New York Times (America’s newspaper which sounds like a broken record) refused to call the terrorists Muslims or Islamic extremists. The killers were variously described as “terrorists,” “gunmen,” “militants’ and “assailants,” but never Muslims. The only time readers could catch a glimpse of the terrorists’ motivation was when the paper quoted them directly - as when they complained about the treatment of Muslims in India and the Kashmir or called for the release of “mujahedeen prisoners.” The Times adamantly refuses to...

This campaign season The Kansas City Star passed on a parcel of the nation's most eye-popping stories. Incredibly, at least five of those stories flared up in the Star's home state, Missouri. As the reader might guess, all five stories reflected unfavorably on Democratic candidates. This is nothing new. What is new is that by censoring such stories the Star has continued to show its indifference to the majority of its potential customers even as it struggles to stay afloat. This kind of commercial death wish may be a first not just in the annals of journalism, but in the...

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin spent part of the weekend going through her clothing to determine what belongs to the Republican Party after it spent $150,000-plus on a wardrobe for the vice presidential nominee, according to Palin's father. Palin and John McCain's campaign faced a storm of criticism over the tens of thousands of dollars spent at such high-end stores as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus to dress the nominee. Republican National Committee lawyers are still trying to determine exactly what clothing was bought for Palin, what was returned and what has become of the rest. Palin's father, Chuck Heath,...

Matthews: My Job Is To Make Obama Presidency a Success "I want to do everything I can to make this thing work, this new presidency work."

At least one broadcast network and one Web site said Monday that they could foresee signaling to viewers early Tuesday evening which candidate appeared to have won the presidency, despite the unreliability of some early exit polls in the last presidential election. A senior vice president of CBS News, Paul Friedman, said the prospects for Barack Obama or John McCain meeting the minimum threshold of electoral votes could be clear as soon as 8 p.m. — before polls in even New York and Rhode Island close, let alone those in Texas and California. At such a moment, determined from a...

Politico political editor Charles Mahtesian was e-mailing the other day with a Republican lobbyist who signed off with a plea that sounded more like a taunt: “Keep it balanced.” A reader e-mailed us with the same sentiment in different language. “Are you f***ing joking! Your bias has stooped to an all-time low. Wait, it will probably get worse as election day nears.” Those asterisks, by the way, are hers, not ours. And get a load of this one, from someone in Rochester, N.Y., who did not like our analysis of the final presidential debate. “You guys are awfully tough on...

Any young journalist covering a presidential campaign is likely to have read Timothy Crouse's classic book on the 1972 election, "The Boys on the Bus." In the first chapter, the author describes the pecking order of print journalists. At the top of the food chain are the wire-service reporters, particularly the reporters from the Associated Press, the oldest of news organizations -- those hard-bitten, vigilant correspondents who set the agenda for everybody else. "Wire stories are usually bland, dry and overly cautious," Crouse wrote. "There is always an inverse proportion between the number of persons a reporter reaches and the...

The media coverage of the race for president has not so much cast Barack Obama in a favorable light as it has portrayed John McCain in a substantially negative one, according to a new study of the media since the two national political conventions ended. Press treatment of Obama has been somewhat more positive than negative, but not markedly so. But coverage of McCain has been heavily unfavorable—and has become more so over time. In the six weeks following the conventions through the final debate, unfavorable stories about McCain outweighed favorable ones by a factor of more than three to...

(REUTERS/Jim Bourg)(REUTERS/Jim Bourg)< (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) (REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton)

I have a BA in journalism, and over time have kept in touch with a number of people who are still working in that profession. So when one of them emailed me the following about the atmosphere in today's newsrooms, I wasn't surprised at all. This person does offer some hints at the end on how to push for more fairness in your local coverage: .... It's unbelievable here. I've been through a few election cycles and have gotten pretty used to the open sneering every time a Republican candidate appears on the television, but this year is unlike anything...

MOSCOW (AP) — The financial crisis has irreparably damaged the image of the U.S. as the leader of the free world and the global economy, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Thursday. Putin's remarks during a Communist Party meeting were the latest Russian attack singling out the U.S. as the chief culprit in the global financial turmoil. "Trust in the United States as the leader of the free world and the free economy, and confidence in Wall Street as the center of that trust, has been damaged, I believe, forever," Putin said. "There will be no return to the previous...

JESSICA YELLIN: Here's something you might not know about Sarah Palin. She held her baby shower for her fourth child at a shooting range. Even some of her friends laugh about that. They say that she's been able to juggle motherhood and politics because she needs very little sleep.

All politicians have a basic stump speech that they stick to when campaigning on the road. However, when Sarah Palin gives her stump speech the Associated Press claims, in a story written by Sara Kugler, she is sticking to a "basic script" like some programmed robot (emphasis mine): John McCain took a risk in picking little-known Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a running mate, but now the campaign's playing it safer. She's sticking to a greatest hits version of her convention speech on the campaign trail and steering clear of questions until she's comfortable enough for a hand-picked interviewer later...

BEIJING (AP) -- Alicia Sacramone's foot slipped off the 4-inch-wide tightrope that is the balance beam, her body wobbling and shaking as she fought to stay upright. Another slip, this time in the floor exercise, sent her tumbling onto her back. Mistakes of millimeters by the Americans made for just enough of an opening for the Chinese to slip through for the team gold medal in women's gymnastics Wednesday at the Beijing Olympics. "I was surprised by the mistakes made by the U.S. team," conceded Cheng Fei, who has seen enough of the Americans the past four years to know...

The year was 1984, and the state was Iowa. A white man who had just voted walked out of his precinct caucus and saw the Rev. Jesse Jackson standing outside. ''I did all I could,'' the man told Jackson ruefully, ''but I just couldn't bring myself to pull the lever and vote for you.'' L. Douglas Wilder laughs as he relates the story Jackson once told him, the sting eased by time and Wilder's vantage point as the nation's first elected black governor. Now it's a quarter of a century later, and the man everyone's talking about is Barack Obama,...

AP's approach: 'Better to get it right even if we couldn't get it first' WASHINGTON - Reporters don't like being beaten on a major political story, especially by a supermarket tabloid. And being beaten up over not reporting one is even less appealing. But a sexual affair can have just two people who know the truth. Without witnesses, documents, photographs or some form of irrefutable evidence pointing to the truth, news organizations will not endanger their own integrity. That made it difficult to prove — and to print — the rumors that John Edwards had cheated on his seriously ill...

Joe Scarface just asked Mitchell if McCain's rebukes of the fawning press are valid and she said with a straight face that they "..have tried to balance their coverage".

Media: Four years ago this week, we noted how negative coverage of the Iraq War had become. But that was when things weren't going well. This is now, when things are going much better. So coverage must be much more positive, right? (with asterisks indicating page-toppers): • June 11: "Going to War Not Worth It, More Voters Say"* "NATO Not Expected to Send Force to Iraq" • June 13: "Retired Officials Say Bush Must Go"* "Insurgents and Islam Now Rulers of Fallujah" • June 14: "At Least 20 Killed in Baghdad (Car) Bombings" • June 15: "Iraq's Foreign Contractors in...

Members of the media, by a 4-to-1 ratio, self-identify as political liberals. This does not fully explain why Sen. Barack Obama received prefer ential treatment in his campaign against Hillary Clinton. However, it could explain why they are ignoring his flaws and untruths. The term “mainstream media” is really a misnomer. It is unfair to call the news media “mainstream” when you com pare them to America. Only 6 percent of journalists identify themselves as conservative compared to over one-third (36 percent) of the public classify ing themselves as such. Only 19 percent of the public consider themselves liberal according...

No money changed hands but Rogers Cadenhead, who owns the Retort, evidently agreed to tweak the offending posts to bring them into compliance with the AP’s guidelines. And what might those guidelines be? He’s not saying. Yet. I spent around two hours yesterday talking to AP attorneys about their specific objections to the user blog entries in dispute, going line by line through the text to pinpoint exactly where they have intellectual property concerns in the short excerpts that were posted. I won’t reveal the details of this discussion until AP releases the guidelines for bloggers that it promised on...