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Full Headline: Juicy Bits Surfacing in Rather Case: In 2004, CBS Considered Matt Drudge, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter Independent Panel This week, Dan Rather's legal team submitted a memorandum to the judge overseeing Mr. Rather's $70 million civil lawsuit against his former employers, which for the first time made public some of the thousands of documents that CBS has already turned over in the ongoing discovery process. The Media Mob is still making its way through the thick stack of emails, internal memos, and transcripts included in this stash. But we were kind of amazed by one document. First the...

At the top of Thursday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Julie Chen praised Barack Obama’s election as the first African-American president but lamented the passage of California’s Proposition 8, preventing gay marriage: "One barrier falls, another returns. Married gays in legal limbo protest through the night as California voters ban same-sex unions." At the top of the 8AM hour, correspondent John Blackstone reported: "In disappointment, supporters of same-sex marriage gathered in Los Angeles last night, after the hard-fought campaign over California's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage, they were on the losing side, but not ready to give up." Blackstone went...

Via Drudge. According to a study performed by a Fordham University scholar, the least accurate of the 20 presidential polls were those performed by CBS/New York Times and, in dead last, Newsweek. In its final poll, CBS/Times forecast an 11-point Obama margin, 52-41. Newsweek was even more "optimistic", foreseeing a 12-point Obama win, 53-41.

On Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Julie Chen introduced a new campaign segment: "...throughout this morning, we're bringing you the voices of Americans and what they're thinking as they prepare to vote." In the brief video clip that followed, Colorado Springs City Council member Jan Martin Described herself as a "lifelong Republican" explained: "I think we are at a place and a point in time where hope and unity are two things that this country needs more than anything." The only problem is that Jan Martin was similarly touted by the New York Times in early October, at which point,...

Big Media Coming Apart At The Seams by Diane Mermigas, Thursday, Oct 30, 2008 7:30 AM ET Despite the grim warnings, lower earnings and massive layoffs, it appears the worst is yet to come for big, lumbering media companies. It all rides on what we don't know. We don't know how deep or how long the advertiser and consumer spending pullback will be. There is no historical precedent, given the powerful unraveling of the global economy. We don't know how much revenues and earnings will drop over the next year. Even online advertising growth is dwindling to single digits. We...

FReep this Digg! CONFUSED? What do I mean by "Digg to the top"? Click on the article link that leads to Digg. Once there, hit the Digg icon on the left side (need to sign up first). The Digg button votes the article to the top, thus insuring that thousands, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of potential voters see our conservative articles and videos warning them about the ObamaNation! I wouldn't waste too much time debating the Diggers. Just Digg it to the top and move on to the next one. THIS IS ONE MORE WAY TO...

(CBS) With less than one week until Election Day, Barack Obama maintains a clear lead over John McCain in the presidential race, a new CBS News/New York Times poll suggests. The Democratic nominee now leads his Republican rival by 11 percentage points, 52 percent to 41 percent, among likely voters nationwide.

CBS says it swung to a third-quarter loss, weighed down by a hefty $14.12 billion impairment charge. The New York-based media company reported a loss of $12.46 billion, or $18.58 per share, compared with a profit of $343.3 million, or 48 cents per share, a year ago. CBS says it performed an interim impairment test earlier this month on existing goodwill and intangible assets, which resulted in the impairment charge. CBS says adjusted earnings were 43 cents per share. Revenue rose to $3.38 billion from $3.28 billion, helped by strong growth in its interactive division. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial...

Sumner Redstone is having trouble, and Hollywood is having a party. Just a couple of Fridays ago, Sumner Redstone dined out with Sherry Lansing, the relentless charmer who was his chief at Paramount Pictures for years. The next night, his dinner companion was another of his former executives, Jon Dolgen, ex-chairman of the Viacom Entertainment Group. On both occasions, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Redstone’s wife, Paula, was by his side, and there was chat about the election, among other topics. Never a hint that the troubled marriage had ruptured. No discussion about roiling problems at National Amusements, the...

In a Tuesday night look at the battle for Pennsylvania, the CBS Evening News chose to check how, anchor Katie Couric reported, voters in the Keystone state “are doing some last-minute soul-searching.” The story showcased husband and wife “registered Republicans” who are upset by what reporter Jeff Glor characterized as McCain's “overwhelmingly negative” TV ads. The husband, who conceded he'll be voting for Obama, declared: “I just don't think it's necessary to be that ugly and that nasty against the opponent.” His wife concurred: “I think it actually hurts their cause rather than helps it when they're negative like that....

Philadelphia’s CBS 3 has joined WFTV on the Obama interview ban list. The station interviewers gave Biden tough questions that he apparently did not like, resulting in the same punishment as was dolled out to an Orlando station for another tough interview. Perhaps the Obama campaign should send out a list of acceptable questions before interviews happen. Then again, Biden could just give straight answers and the questions would stop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZT1y1io4vA&eurl=http://www.hillaryclintonforum.net/discussion/showthread.php?t=38688

CBS showed the movie "Cinderella Man" at 8:00 p.m. on Oct. 25, 2008, and around 9:15 p.m., the movie showed taking the Lord's name in vein, and the Holy family, several times. This is inappropriate and should be illegal on the public's free airways. CBS could have easily cut that from what we thought was a family movie.

After his own personal mini-meltdown caused him to sell some of his shareholdings in CBS and Viacom, Sumner Redstone said this week that the situation is under control and that he won't be selling any more. Meanwhile, media wags are still handicapping whether one or both of the companies he controls might end up in play. But whatever happens next, Redstone's travails are a clear reminder of how a media mogul's controlling stake in his companies can become bad for business, and for stockholders, particularly when there are two classes of shares involved. [Snip] Just in the past five months,...

The CBS News - New York Times poll released on September 23 is yet another MSM product which juggles the numbers to give Barack Obama an inflated lead. The poll results show Obama with a 13-point lead, but the numbers have been rigged by the use of unrealistic partisan weighting.

In an interview with Barack Obama aired on Thursday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith lobbed softballs at the Democratic candidate, spending half the interview on Obama visiting his ailing grandmother: "Lincoln said, 'all I ever hope to be, I owe to her,' in speaking about his mother. Your grandmother was very much like a mother to you. How important is this trip?" Smith later observed: "Some people say there's risk involved in this, with so little time left." Obama replied: "Yeah, well, the -- I think most people understand that if you're not caring for your family, then you're...

ELECTION REJECTION: NETWORK NEWS SLUMPS; VIEWERSHIP FADES Wed Oct 22 2008 07:25:40 ET The Obama-McCain match-up is proving to be a lackluster election ticket for the Big 3 network news programs, according to NIELSEN MEDIA RESEARCH. As the shouting from the trail and the frantic spinning from the anchor desks intensify, the audience is voting with their remotes. All 3 evening news shows experienced audience drops year-to-year for the week of Oct. 13-19, 2008. CBSNEWS w/ Couric shed a half a million viewers, falling from 6.4 million to 5.9 million; ABCNEWS dropped from 8.1 million to 7.6 million; NBCNEWS...

Sumner Redstone has filed for divorce from his wife of five years, Paula Fortunato, citing irreconcilable differences. The court papers were submitted Friday, Oct. 17, in Los Angeles Superior Court. The two were married in April 2003. The couple's prenuptial agreement stipulates that the 46-year-old Fortunato will receive at least $5 million, or $1 million for each year that she has been wed to the media mogul, according to people who are familiar with terms of the couple's agreement. Redstone, 85, has been telling friends for weeks that his marriage to Fortunato, 46, was ending. But despite the divorce filing...

NEW YORK -- October 20, 2008: Sumner Redstone, who serves as Exec. Chairman for both Viacom and CBS and is a controlling shareholder in both companies, may be forced to sell one or the other to handle a cash crunch at his own National Amusements Inc., the New York Post reported over the weekend. The paper cited "sources close to Redstone and Viacom" who said the situation is "so dire that selling CBS or Viacom ... is now a real possibility." Last week National Amusements said it was in talks to renegotiate $1.6 billion in debt. CBS and Viacom shares...

An appearance by Senator John McCain on Thursday night boosted David Letterman to his best ratings in almost three years. Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, returned to Mr. Letterman’s CBS show after several weeks of battering from the host for his abrupt decision to cancel an earlier appearance. According to initial overnight ratings, the Letterman show attracted 6.53 million viewers, well above Mr. Letterman’s usual total of about 3.5 million viewers and the best he has scored since Dec. 1, 2005. (That night’s guest was another noteworthy figure with whom the host had had an on-and-off comic feud: Oprah...