Free Republic

New York (AFP) - A record number of journalists were behind bars this year, a US-based watchdog said Tuesday, accusing governments worldwide of suppressing the media and fueling misinformation amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The annual report by the Committee to Protect Journalists found that 274 journalists were imprisoned in 2020 -- the highest number since the non-profit organisation began its survey in the 1990s. The report also found that 26 journalists and media workers had been murdered this year, with Mexico listed as the world's most dangerous country for the press. The worst offender was China for the second consecutive...

The Fox News Channel crashed in ratings on Saturday, coming in a distant third place to leader CNN and second place MSNBC. In the week before TuesdayÂ’s election Fox News averaged more than double the viewership of CNN and MSNBC. The FOX News Channel hit rock bottom when they defended and ignored the massive fraud in this yearÂ’s 2020 election. Two days ago Bret Baier deleted the tweet that exposed the exploding on-going backlash against Fox. Many of their hosts were openly hostile to their conservative audience. And several FOX News hosts absolutely HATE President Trump and his supporters. The...

Kayleigh McEnany vs. the Press Isn’t a Fair Fight Although I write about the political media a lot, I don’t consume as much of it as most people might think. The political press in this country is full of tedious, irresponsible idiots, and who needs to subject themselves to that? White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany is changing my attitude on that a bit though. McEnany so routinely chides the White House press corps that they’ll probably keep wearing masks long after the coronavirus pandemic is over just to hide their embarrassed faces.Sarah Sanders was good at knocking the press...

The Atlantic appeared to have the right ingredients for a successful 21st-century publication: strong journalism, a thriving digital operation and the enthusiastic backing of a multibillionaire, Laurene Powell Jobs. But on Thursday the 163-year-old publication announced that it would lay off 68 employees, or 17% of its staff, evidence that even the most robust media businesses are vulnerable to the crisis that has ravaged news organizations nationwide. The announcement followed a burst of layoffs in the news media business last week: 155 jobs lost at Vice, 100 at Condé Nast, 90 at The Economist, 80 at Quartz. The cuts at...

Wait, this title is misleading in that it could be read that either “reporters” or “liberals” suck, and the fact is that both suck. But reporters don’t have to suck. Liberals always do, because their trash ideology is terrible and yet they adhere to it. Reporters could be no-holds-barred truthtellers who could not care less, whose agenda they skewer or narrative they shatter in pursuit of the truth. That’s at least theoretically possible, even though most of them merely aspire to be skeevy prog transcriptionists typing out ham-handed propaganda to please their pinko masters. But if our reporters were not...

STORY HIGHLIGHTS * The majority of Americans (57%) are worried about getting COVID-19 * Just shy of half, 48%, fear severe financial hardship befalling them * Partisanship strongly colors both concerns WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As the country endures an unprecedented shutdown of public life to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, more Americans are worried about contracting the illness (57%) than about experiencing severe financial problems from the disruption caused by it (48%). While most of those who are worried about each of these possibilities say they are only "somewhat worried," slightly more are "very worried" about encountering financial...

Jonathan Karl (Chief White House Correspondent for ABC News) wrote a book, 'Front Row at the Trump Show - Jonathan Karl, Chief White House Correspondent for ABC News Notice how Mr. Karl is standing over President Trump and looking down. Jonathan Karl - Wikipedia Here are the 1 star reviews: "Absolutely one of the most pitiful narcissistic books I ever read. Never saw an author so in love with himself and making himself into something so important. I am neither left or right but wow I'm surprised this guy hasn't taken a spot for himself on Mt. Pulitzer. Seriously a...

To paraphrase the great Will Rogers, it’s hard to single out the most glaring media embarrassment of the day when you have the whole media competing to see who can be the most stupid.* But the winner is this Associated Press story, as it appeared in a New Orleans paper yesterday: And yet our media overlords wonder why the idea of “fake news” has so much traction with the public. * The original Will Rogers quip is: “It’s no trouble being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.” Of course, it morning out here on the...

With more than 400,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and 14,000 deaths in the United States, a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that Americans are souring on President Trump’s leadership during the pandemic. After a brief period during which some polls found more Americans approving of Trump's coronavirus response than not, half of them (50 percent) now disapprove, according to the Yahoo News/YouGov survey, compared to only 42 percent who approve. Among registered voters, that gap is even wider: 54 percent disapprove vs. 43 percent approve. The public also gives New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo high marks for his performance: 69 percent...

1. Trump's “Lies” and “Narcissism” Being “Paid In Human Lives” 2. “Blood” on Trump's Hands 3. Is Trump “Responsible for Deaths of Americans?” 4. Trump Culpable for “Fatalities... Every Few Minutes” 5. Tallying “Trump's Death Toll” 6. It’s “Crazy” to Keep Airing Trump’s “Dangerous” Corona Briefings 7. Interrupting the President for “Fact Checks” 8. Show the Briefings on Tape Delay? 9. How Far Will Republicans Let Trump Go? 10. Conservatives Are Culpable 11. Trump Using Virus to Become a “Monarch” 12. Cuomo’s “Inspiring” Leadership Is “What We Need” Instead of Selfish Trump

More voters say the Trump administration isn’t doing enough to combat the coronavirus outbreak, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll. The survey, conducted immediately before President Donald Trump announced a 30-day extension of his physical and social distancing guidelines “to slow the spread” of Covid-19, shows 47 percent of voters feel the administration isn’t doing enough in response to the outbreak, greater than the 40 percent who feel the administration is doing the right amount. Two weeks ago, 43 percent said the administration wasn’t doing enough in the days following the initial measures deployed to reduce the impacts of...

The coronavirus COVID-19 has upended everything, including business as usual in Washington. In a matter of days, facing the reality of a nationwide shutdown and a worsening economic crisis, Congress got serious about spending money—a lot of it. A recovery package in the trillions of dollars is expected soon, and more stimulus bills are likely to follow. While the most powerful lobbies in Washington—the airlines, the oil companies, the chambers of commerce—are ready with their wish lists, the media and policymakers aren’t talking enough about how recovery and stimulus bills could help journalism. Free Press, the independent, nonprofit advocacy organization...

Donald Trump’s first instinct when it came to the coronavirus was to dismiss the threat as overblown, over there, and “totally under control.” His second was to use the pandemic as an opportunity to show off his world-historical leadership skills by treating the virus as a threat on par with World War II. Both reactions were driven by politics, not evidence. The first was unquestionably wrong. The second needs to be questioned aggressively before we impose solutions possibly more destructive than the virus itself

The MSM's treason by any other name or shoddy disguise is still treason - the left is now trying to claim that TRUMP caused the Coronavirus on purpose. Eric Boehlert @EricBoehlert I write Press Run, home of fearless media commentary Author. Former staffer at Media Matters. Salon, Rolling Stone and Billboard. Utica Club aficionado. https://twitter.com/EricBoehlert/status/1241351817113501696?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1241351817113501696&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.democraticunderground.com%2F100213143871https://twitter.com/EricBoehlert/status/1241351817113501696?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1241351817113501696&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.democraticunderground.com%2F100213143871 

The Trump press conferences are a problem for the anti-Trump media, because they give Trump direct access to viewers with minimal filtering by the networks. Donald Trump’s daily press conferences, attended by numerous senior health and other officials, are a must-watch. Enormous information is provided by officials, and Trump signals where he thinks the crisis is going. Trump spends an hour or more taking reporter questions, some of which are hostile. The press conferences almost certainly have large audiences, and have contributed to polling that shows strong support among the public for Trump’s handling of the crisis. This is a...

More people will be glued to their television sets as schools and sporting events are being canceled, along with legions of people now being told to work from home. As such, more potential eyeballs could venture into the twisted realms of MSNBC and CNN who are just thirsting for the Wuhan virus death toll to increase and markets to collapse to better the Democrats’ chances of booting Trump from office in 2020. It’s predictable. It’s grotesque. They’ve earned their new title with gusto: enemies of the people.  If Trump does anything, it’s terrible. He can’t win—and he knows that, so...

Jim Acosta calling the president a liar to his face in front of a foreign audience on the basis of nothing is a bad look. He came all the way around the world to make a jerk out of himself. Acosta is a DNC activist. He should no longer consider himself a journalist and should not be called one. What he did today, in a foreign land is tantamount to treason. Today he proved that he is now a journalist again. President Trump fired back at CNN’s Jim Acosta after the reporter accused him of lying. While holding an afternoon...

CNN International anchor Christiane Amanpour spoke with Iranian vice president for women and global affairs Massoumeh Ebtekar on Tuesday but failed to mention Ebtekar played a key role in the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. Amanpour began by asking Ebtekar if Iran would “respond” to American calls for de-escalation, and critics didn't appreciate her lengthy answer. “Ebtekar took that question and offered a long-winded answer that gushed over CNN showing ‘millions who are marching in support and in commemoration of...the Commander of the Hearts’ against the Americans having ‘taken a terrorist action’ in ‘assassinat[ing]’ Soleimani,” NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck wrote....

Demonstrating that it learned nothing from the backlash after it called ISIS top dog Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi an “austere religious scholar,” the Washington Post called Qasem Soleimani, who was killed today in a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad, Iran’s “most revered military leader.” If Soleimani, who as head of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps' Quds Force was responsible for aiding numerous jihad terror activities worldwide, was revered at all, it was more by the Obama foreign policy team that saw him and his government as a valid partner for negotiations than by anyone in Iran. And tonight, the Obama team...

What in the hell is a “bias crime”? – Believe it or not, the New York Times just got a little worse than it already was in terms of the debasement of the English language. In its fake reporting on the latest in a recent string of despicable anti-Semitic attacks on New York City’s Jewish population, the Times manages to publish 500 words without ever even mentioning that the assailant, who stabbed 5 people in the home of a Hasidic rabbi with a machete, was reportedly not a white man. But that’s not the bad part – it’s just standard...