Free Republic

Like all charming and physically imposing persons, Ben Bradlee had an enormous head. There. I said it: the last original observation not already to be found in the three billion words of tribute that poured forth after the death last week of Bradlee, the great editor of the Washington Post and an essential figure in the late-20th-century American establishment. And itÂ’s true, when you met Bradlee and spoke to him, the thing that really overwhelmed you, more than the face-famous good looks and the booming voice inflected with Beacon Hill lockjaw, was the sheer scale of that melon rising up...

Setting the Record Straight by: Heather Latham, April 07, 2009 There is a lot of truth in the world—“but you have to do a lot of digging to get it… [T]his is the point that” author M. Stanton Evans wanted “to stress most of all to…the younger folk” at the Accuracy in Media (AIM) Reed Irvine Awards during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February. Evans, who won this year’s lifetime achievement award, applied this advice to more than just aspiring journalists. After listing a few careers, he said, “[A] huge amount of work needs to be done on...

Doing the kind of investigative reporting we should expect from the major media, a financial research and consulting firm has released a major analysis of the “credit crisis” that concludes that the claims made by Treasury Department Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke to justify a socialist takeover of the financial industry were demonstrably false. The analysis, Flawed Assumptions about the Credit Crisis: A Critical Examination of US Policymakers,concludes that the result of the unjustified massive federal intervention in the economy could be similar to the economic crisis in the Weimar Republic of 1922, where disastrous hyperinflation...

Defining Bias Downward Holding Political Power to Account Is Not Some Liberal Plot Reed Irvine, the energetic liberal-bias hunter who died November 16 at eighty-two, wasn’t always wrong. Irvine founded Accuracy in Media, the conservative press watchdog group, thirty-five years ago. He was stone blind to his own prejudices, and he could be scurrilous and unfair in his attacks, but he knew something about our major media, most of them based in the urban capitals of what we now call blue states and influenced, naturally, by their context. Irvine must have been amazed in the end by all the company...

The New York Times obituary of our founder, Reed Irvine [pictured], contained so many inaccuracies that Accuracy in Academia’s president, James F. Davis, felt compelled to respond. Because the New York Times does not have a stellar track record of running responses that are critical of the Old Gray Lady, we thought that we would give you, the reader, a chance to read Mr. Davis’ corrections here.—ed. There were several inaccuracies in the New York Times obituary of Reed Irvine, the founder of Accuracy in Media (AIM), i.e., the first media “watchdog group dedicated to exposing, challenging, and at times...

Two things took place recently that were, in a strange way, interconnected. The good thing was that Dan Rather announced his resignation; the bad thing was that Reed Irvine died. The odd thing is that I was saddened by the news of Mr. Irvine’s passing even though, until I’d read his obituary, I had never even heard of the man. It seems that until he was 47 years old, Reed Irvine had been an economist with the Federal Reserve. Then, at an age when so many men are content to work on their slice, perfect their fly-casting skills or start...

My friend Reed Irvine died this week. Although we disagreed on some matters, I always admired Reed as one of the toughest warriors I knew. I gave one of my first speeches at one of his events almost 20 years ago. I was so nervous speaking to a conservative audience that I wrote out my entire speech and read it. Afterward several people came up to me and complimented me on what I had said. But Reed came up to me and said, "You know, people get bored when you read a speech; you should make your speeches extemporaneous." Reed...

Reed Irvine, the founder of Accuracy in Media, a watchdog group dedicated to exposing, challenging and at times bullying those he accused of slanting news coverage from a liberal perspective, died on Tuesday at a hospice in Rockville, Md. He was 82. A longtime resident of Silver Spring, Md., Mr. Irvine had recently moved to Gaithersburg, Md. The cause was complications of a stroke, said his son, Donald, AIM's current chairman. Founded in 1969, Accuracy in Media is a group that, as Mr. Irvine described it, was intended to be "representative of the consumers of the journalistic product and not...

Reed Irvine, the founder and chairman emeritus of Accuracy in Media and a tireless warrior in the battle to keep the press honest, died yesterday. Irvine, considered a giant in the media-watchdog arena, founded AIM in 1969 and has been diligently working to combat distortion and bias in the media ever since. WorldNetDaily founder and Editor Joseph Farah praised Irvine's vision and tenacity. "Without the extraordinary work of Reed Irvine dating back 35 years, even people like me – media insiders – would never have grasped the extent of institutional problems within the industry," Farah said. "He has been a...

The Washington Times www.washingtontimes.com Pioneer media critic Reed Irvine dies at 82By Jennifer HarperTHE WASHINGTON TIMESPublished November 18, 2004 Journalist and media critic Reed Irvine, who relentlessly exposed the foibles of a biased press for more than three decades, died Tuesday from complications of a stroke he suffered late last year. He was 82.     Mr. Irvine was a pioneer in his field, founding the nonprofit watchdog group Accuracy in Media (AIM) in 1969 during an era when the content and ideological underpinnings of TV and newspaper stories went largely unquestioned.     Oxford educated, a Fulbright scholar and a former economist...

Reed Irvine, the indefatigable founder of Accuracy in Media and one of the very first people to question the received wisdom of the news media, passed away last night. He was 82. As a media critic, Reed Irvine was a trailblazer. While much of America was still blinded to the still fairly new notion that journalists could rise above their human nature and deliver the news without even a scintilla of bias, Irvine knew better. Decades before the internet and talk radio, Reed Irvine set out to change that. Little did he know that his shoestring group Accuracy in Media...

A true-life hero passed on yesterday, November 16, 2004. In physical stature, Accuracy in Media founder Reed Irvine was just a little guy. With a slim figure that busted all over Washington D.C. corridors of power, his lifelong mission was one that always kept the little guy in mind. With stamina to spare, even at age 80, Reed Irvine was still going to the office. There was something almost childlike about Reed’s unflagging belief and confidence that a wayward mainline media could be held to account. He critiqued their errors and omissions better than any journalism teacher, and kept at...

<p>Trailblazing media critic Reed Irving has died at the age of 82, according to Drudge.</p>

Trailblazing media critic Reed Irvine dead at 82: During more than three decades as chairman of Accuracy in Media, a citizens' watchdog organization that critiqued the errors and omissions of the mainstream press, Irvine challenged America's most powerful journalists and media companies to account for their errors -- and stick to the facts...

Wednesday, November 17, 2004 The legacy of Reed Irvine Posted: November 17, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern By Cliff Kincaid © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com The passing of Reed Irvine on Nov. 16, 2004, comes at a time when his war against the Big Media has achieved some notable successes. In the 35 years since he founded Accuracy in Media, the Big Media have lost much of their stature and do not seem so big anymore. Their loss of credibility is a testament to Reed's successful efforts to tell the truth about so much of what we see, read and hear. Reed was David against the...

Bob Woodward's new book, "Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate," contains material that has given rise to new charges that revive old memories of how "Mortuary Bob" has relied on lies, fabricated stories and other ethical violations to produce the bestsellers that have made him rich. Mr. Woodward is famous for his ability to come up with what he presents as verbatim accounts of confidential one-on-one conversations. "Shadow" contains many of these.

On Feb. 1, a Baltimore jury gave radio talk-show host G. Gordon Liddy a victory over Maxie Wells -- regarded by some as a surrogate for former White House counsel John Dean -- who was expected to testify but did not show. Seven of the nine jurors agreed that Liddy had not libeled Wells. Judge J. Frederick Motz declared a mistrial even though the jurors had deliberated for only eight hours. After two hours of arguments, he dismissed the case, saying, "Having carefully considered all of the evidence, I do not believe a reasonable jury could find Mr. Liddy was...

The New York Times is not pleased with New York City Mayor Michael ("Mayor Mike") Bloomberg. In a March 11 house editorial, "Mayor Bloomberg's Commitment Issue," the newspaper in so many words demanded that Bloomberg embrace same-sex marriage, and begin personally officiating at same-sex weddings in the mayoral residence of Grace Mansion, forthwith. Or else. "He doesn't officiate at weddings at Gracie Mansion, a previously time-honored tradition for mayors of New York. And it seems that he has a problem committing on the issue of gay marriage. "In the month or so since performing same-sex marriages became a point of...

From the Right: John Kerry vs Oliver North John Kerry Senator and democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has received some media scrutiny for his claim that when he voted for the war in Iraq, he only approved the threat of force. That waffling has made some question whether he can be trusted to protect the national security interests of the United States. But the media have failed to challenge some of his other foreign policy claims. One of the ironies in Senator John Kerry's campaign for president is that he's a Vietnam veteran who has made another Vietnam veteran, Oliver...

SOVIET TERROR LINKS FOUND IN LEBANON Our major media have long ignored or downplayed evidence linking the Soviet Union and its satellites to international terrorism. When Robert Moss, co- author of The Spike, told an international conference on terrorism held in Jerusalem in 1981 that the PLO had become a Soviet surrogate in the Middle East, the reaction of the representatives of the press was one of cynicism mixed with hostility. Wall Street Journal correspondent Susan Weaver explained the negative reaction to Moss's statement, saying that linking the KGB with world terrorism through the PLO "cast a dark shadow on...