Free Republic

The onetime Nixon operative has created the most profitable propaganda machine in history. Inside America's Unfair and Imbalanced Network.... (HIT PIECE) Chairman: Roger Ailes at Fox News. The network says his "dear friend" Rush Limbaugh, "is a reflection of him." At the Fox News holiday party the year the network overtook archrival CNN in the cable ratings, tipsy employees were herded down to the basement of a Midtown bar in New York. As they gathered around a television mounted high on the wall, an image flashed to life, glowing bright in the darkened tavern: the MSNBC logo. A chorus of...

CNN says it is just thrilled by the transformation of Lou Dobbs—formerly a mild-mannered news anchor noted for his palsy-walsy interviews with corporate CEOs—into a raving populist xenophobe. Ratings are up. It's like watching one of those "makeover" shows that turn nerds into fops or bathrooms into ballrooms. According to the New York Times, this demonstrates "that what works in cable television news is not an objective analysis of the day's events," but "a specific point of view on a sizzling-hot topic." Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia Journalism School, made the same point in a recent New Yorker profile of...

Newsweek -- lessons of 'Qurangate' Commentary: Editor Mark Whitaker reflects on the crisis By Jon Friedman, MarketWatch (In May, Newsweek Magazine reported, and subsequently retracted, a story saying that the American military had desecrated the Quran at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The brief item touched off an international furor and became the most electrifying media story of 2005. In the first of a two-part Media Web series, Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker reflects on the crisis. On Monday, Newsweek Worldwide Publisher Greg Osberg discusses the business angle -- and the state of magazine publishing) When I interviewed Whitaker, 48, for more...

EU leaders are deeply suspicious of the gusto with which Mr Blair has aligned himself with George Bush The contrast could not be greater. Today's 40th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty between France and Germany has provided a remarkable springboard for the reassertion of Franco-German leadership in the European Union. Tony Blair, on the other hand, appears to have been shuffled sideways, at risk of becoming a spectator as others set the pace in EU affairs.This is a striking reversal of fortunes. Only a few months ago British diplomats could barely conceal their delight that Paris and Berlin seemed to...