Posts filed under ‘The "Liberal Media"’
John McCain — King of the Sunday Morning Talk Shows
So, the New York Times finally noticed that John McCain is a more-than-regular guest on one or more of the Sunday morning talk shows; something pajama-clad hippie bloggers have been harping about for years:
(Image via NYTimes.com)
Senators’ Appearances on Sunday News Shows Since 2010
Senators often make the rounds of the Sunday news shows, and Republicans are the most frequent guests. Of 641 total appearances by senators since 2010, 369 were by Republicans, 247 were by Democrats and 25 were by independents (22 of those by Joseph I. Lieberman.) The programs included are “Face the Nation,” “Meet the Press,” “This Week,” “State of the Union,” “Fox News Sunday” and “Al Punto.” Data is through June 3.
As an aside, six or seven years ago I remember someone asking — I think it was David Gregory — why he had so many Republicans on his show. He said, “Because they’re the ones in power.” Hah. Cute little white lie there. Republicans still overwhelmingly dominate (go to the link above for more detail), going on five years into Obama’s presidency.
Liberal media? My yas.
About That Fertilizer Plant Explosion in West, Texas
Ah, no. Not a single one. The liberal corporate media doesn’t care to hear from them (i.e., us).
Raging Liberal (Per the Righties) Huffington Post Taking Chris Christie to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
Who’s using who here? And, just asking, am I to believe the HuffPo couldn’t find anyone — anyone! — else just a tad more progressive to bestow this honor on?
Moral of the story. Them 1%ers stick together.
Or maybe this is what they want us to think is the new-new “bipartisanship.”
Ah yes. The “liberal media.”
Oh, and BTW, I don’t think we’ll see this on Fox. If we do, it’ll be interesting to see how they present it. Fox has long bashed the Huffington Post so if they say Christie is happily going along with this, that won’t be a good thing for him. It will signal that Fox is pushing him aside. On the other hand, they could present this as Christie being the ultimate diplomat for getting the invite and, you know, it’s all his doing and he manipulated them so ain’t he great. The man!
Headline of the Day
Here’s my headline of the day. Sadly it’s par for the course for our crappy corporate media: Sunday Shows Respond to the Popularity of Same Sex Marriage By Hosting Anti-Gay Bigots.
According to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, 58% of Americans support same sex marriage. Only 36% of those surveyed oppose it. Among those age 18-29, 81% support same sex marriage. However, on the Sunday shows [this morning] the anti-marriage position [was] treated as being equal.
The Sunday shows really did it up, hosting two rabidly anti-gay, right-wing religious zealots: Ralph Reed and Tony Perkins.
[F]aith shouldn’t trump facts. Opposition based on faith should not be treated by the media as being equal to facts. When that faith based position is out of touch with nearly 2/3 of America, the mainstream media should not be treating it as holding equal footing in a public policy debate.
Instead of challenging these bigots, the mainstream media has chosen to give them an equal platform. Instead of acknowledging that country is changing, Meet The Press and State of the Union catered to right wing fantasy of deep divisions. None of these shows questioned the validity of the opposition, and they all gave untrue statements about the impact of same sex marriage on families a free pass.
Until the media stops catering to the white conservative minority and starts talking to a majority of this country, they will continue to fail to fulfill their duties as the fourth estate.
And they will continue to lose viewers.
Read the whole article at the link above.
2,590 U.S. Gun Deaths Since Sandy Hook
26 children and adults were killed in the Sandy Hook shooting. We were all outraged.
Here’s what’s happened in the 87 days since:
(Image via TheWarRoomCTV on Twitter)
America would be outraged about this too, if only the “liberal media” would devote as much time and attention (as in 24/7 coverage) to it as it did Sandy Hook.
Obama Calls Out Lazy Media, Fox and Limbaugh
(Image via CBSNews.com)
I like the plain truth President Obama told Steve Kroft in his 60 Minutes interview tonight:
You know, Steve, I gotta tell you, the — you guys in the press are incorrigible. I was literally inaugurated four days ago. And you’re talking about elections four years from now.”
And I like the plain truth he told The New Republic too:
One of the biggest factors is going to be how the media shapes debates. If a Republican member of Congress is not punished on Fox News or by Rush Limbaugh for working with a Democrat on a bill of common interest, then you’ll see more of them doing it.
Memo to Obama and all Democrats: Keep it up, hammer away at it, drive it home and for God’s sake, don’t let up!
The “Liberal” U.S. Media Can’t Stop Bullshitting Itself About Israel and Gaza
Check out this photo the New York Times ran yesterday under the headline: On This, 2 Sides Agree: Fighting Hardened Positions:
(Image via Tyler Hicks / The New York Times)
The caption under the photo reads: “Girls at a Gaza school were stunned to find it closed.”
Read the article here or at the link above.
That said, I love the reaction from TheAngryArabNewsService which is spot on:
“Girls at a Gaza school were stunned to find it closed[?]“ No, you smart people of the Times. They are stunned obviously to see all that destruction.
Geezus. The NYTimes can’t get past its own spin. Look at the blown-out windows in the background and the rubble. Who does the NYT think it’s kidding?
Hey, I think I know. Itself.
Ted Koppel: “We Have to Make the News Interesting”
That would be Ted Koppel on CSPAN tonight (link as soon as it’s available): “We have to make the news interesting.”
(Image via Wikipedia)
The news is the news. What if the news — as in just-the-facts — is boring? Sex it up?
Why do that? For the sake of the news reader (as in ratings) because doing that doesn’t help the news consumer.
Really disturbing POV IMHO.
I think Ted’s brain has been hijacked by the corporatocracy.
George Soros Sends Letter to 45,000 Employees Urging Them to Vote for Obama
Let’s stop for a second and think about what the wingnutosphere (and that would include the supposed “liberal media”) would do if George Soros did this:
(Image via Wikipedia)
In a voter information packet obtained by In These Times, the Koch Industries corporate leadership informed tens of thousands of employees at its subsidiary, Georgia Pacific, that their livelihood could depend on the 2012 election and that the company supports Mitt Romney for president. The guide was similar to one the company distributed before the 2010 midterm elections, which Mark Ames and I reported on in TheNation last year.
The packet arrived in the mailboxes of all 45,000 Georgia Pacific employees earlier this month.
[...]
Enclosed with the letter was a flyer [PDF] listing Koch-endorsed candidates, beginning with Romney. Robertson’s letter explained: “At the request of many employees, we have also provided a list of candidates in your state that have been supported by Koch companies or by KOCHPAC, our employee political action committee.”
The packet also included an anti-Obama editorial by Charles Koch [PDF] and a pro-Romney editorial by David Koch [PDF]. The letter went on to say, “We believe any decision about which candidates to support is—as always—yours and yours alone, based on the factors that are most important to you. Second, we do not support candidates based on their political affiliation.”
In the flyer sent to Oregon employees, all 14 Koch-backed state candidates were Republicans.
Again, can you imagine the uproar if George Soros had done this? It would be deafening!
The Koch brothers sent their letter in “early October” and I guarantee, if Soros had done such a thing we’d still be talking about it today (10/20). But hey, have you even heard about this Koch letter? Probably not. That’s what a farce the whole “liberal media” crap is.
Heck, the media can’t even manage to report the news, much less tip over to the liberal side.
Oy, The Second Presidential Debate
Heading into this new week I’m already exhausted because all the attention in the US media is on Wednesday night’s second presidential debate. Nobody knows what will happen of course. It’s all about speculation. Predictions. What ifs. Could be. This or that.
We’re watching talking heads justify their own existence and their own paychecks.
A friend of mine had some simple advice for me last week: Don’t watch any of the debates so you can…sleep.
I’m thinking she’s right.
And another thing: So much is going on in the world but in order to save/make money, the MSM has laid off their foreign correspondents and the campaign is all they’ve got.
So, here we are. The Debates. That’s it.
If only we could train them to to think we care about real news.
The “Liberal Media” Says Joe Was “Condescending”
The first thing I heard this morning when I turned on the tube (MSNBC), was Tom Brokaw saying Joe Biden was “condescending” last night during the VP debate. Ah yes, it was a given and it’s a given for the next two presidential debates: No matter what the Democratic candidate does or says, there will be something wrong with it.
But wait, there’s this from CBS News:
Fifty percent of uncommitted voters who tuned into Thursday night’s vice presidential debate in Danville, Ky., said they see Vice President Joe Biden as the winner over Mitt Romney’s GOP running mate Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., according to an instant poll taken by CBS News.
Of the 431 polled immediately following the debate, 31 percent deemed Ryan the winner, and 19 percent said they felt it was a tie.
And this from Greg Sargent over at the Washington Post, who eats and breathes inside-the-beltway politics:
Gotta love the “liberal media.”
Time to Think Twice About Watching the Discovery Channel
I guess the Discovery Channel is turning into the Discover Racism, Hate and Bigotry Channel. Check this out: VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED: Discovery Channel To Air Special Starring Ted Nugent.
Fareed Zakaria Lauds Bush’s “Freedom Agenda”
Paul Wolfowitz was a guest on Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN yesterday. Yes, CNN. You know, that raving liberal station.
So undoubtedly Zakaria and Wolfowitz, international war criminal, had a frank and honest discussion, right?
Not exactly:
Since when do we look back and think of Bush’s wars of choice that have killed untold hundreds of thousands as his — or our – “freedom agenda” and one of the major players who lied us into those wars as “the brain?”
Huh?
Huh?
Yo. Fareed. I’m looking at you.
Romney Adviser Blames the “Liberal Media” for His Bad Poll Numbers
Wahhhh:
(Image via thirdWayMattB on Twitter)
A Romney adviser is striking back against the latest polling that shows Mitt losing Ohio, taking aim at “all these media analysts out there are Democrats WHO WANT US TO LOSE.”
Ohio is thought to be a must-win if Romney hopes to wrap up the minimum 270 electoral votes needed in November, but a Public Policy Polling survey has President Obama ahead by five, at 50 percent to Romney’s 45.
In a “state-of-the-race” memo today, Romney pollster Neil Newhouse cautioned supporters not to get “too worked up” about the latest polls. “The reality of the Obama economy will reassert itself as the ultimate downfall of the Obama Presidency, and Mitt Romney will win this race,” he wrote.
Undoubtedly Newhouse would complain about the media getting “too worked up” if Romney was leading too. (Wink, wink.)
If Only David Gregory Would Ask Mitt This Question
Mitt (and Ann, to humanize him I guess) Romney are going to be on Meet the Press tomorrow. In my wildest dreams, this would be David Gregory’s first question:
Watch Cable News Outlets Cover for Paul Ryan’s Lies
Watch his painful mashup of cable newsers covering for the lies Paul Ryan told last night in his speech at the Republican National Convention.
(Via.)
Ryan wouldn’t tell lies like this if he wasn’t pretty darn sure he would never be called out on them so thanks “liberal media!”
Geezus. The cables are so terrified of being called “biased,” pointing out a lie and proving that it’s a lie is off limits. In my opinion, that’s the definition of news. Pointing to the fuc*ing facts and ah, hello, informing people for God’s sake.
Can you hear me screaming now?
UGH!
The “Liberal Media” Has Been Very Good to Mitt Romney
In October, only 7 percent of respondents picked “honest” as the one word they would use to describe Mitt Romney. This month that number has risen to 32 percent. That’s an astonishing increase given political junkies like me know Mitt Romney has changed his position on almost every issue at least once and that he’s a pathological liar.
(Image via People-Press.org)
(Via.)
Ah yes, the power of the “liberal media.”
The “Liberal Media” Strikes Again
BusinessInsider.com is out with an article titled, “Here are the Top 15 Richest Members of Congress.”
Here’s what the header looks like on their site. Note the pic of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who, one would assume, given that she’s pictured, is the richest of the rich:
But gosh darn, that isn’t the case at all, though BusinessInsider seems to want us to think that. In fact, Pelosi ranks #13 with a net worth of $24.4 million. The richest member of congress is a Republican, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), who’s worth roughly 11 times as much at $290.5 million.
Cute huh?
Todd Akin Blames it All on the “Liberal Media”
There’s no end to the lengths Republicans will go to blame the mythical “liberal media” for the fixes they get themselves into:
See posts below for info as to how this is Total. Bullshit.
News in the USA
Lyrics:
Dirty Laundry by Don Henley:
I make my living off the Evening News
Just give me something-something I can use
People love it when you lose,
They love dirty laundryWell, I coulda been an actor, but I wound up here
I just have to look good, I don’t have to be clear
Come and whisper in my ear
Give us dirty laundryKick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em when they’re down
Kick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em when they’re down
Kick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em when they’re down
Kick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em all aroundWe got the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who
Comes on at five
She can tell you ’bout the plane crash with a gleam
In her eye
It’s interesting when people die-
Give us dirty laundry
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/d/don+henley/dirty+laundry_20042033.html ]
Can we film the operation?
Is the head dead yet?
You know, the boys in the newsroom got a
Running bet
Get the widow on the set!
We need dirty laundryYou don’t really need to find out what’s going on
You don’t really want to know just how far it’s gone
Just leave well enough love
Eat your dirty laundryKick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em when they’re down
Kick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em when they’re downKick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em when they’re down
Kick ‘em when they’re stiff
Kick ‘em all aroundDirty little secrets
Dirty little lies
We got our dirty little fingers in everybody’s pie
We love to cut you down to size
We love dirty laundryWe can do “The Innuendo”
We can dance and sing
When it’s said and done we haven’t told you a thing
We all know that Crap is King
Give us dirty laundry!
Video via.
Lyrics via.
Will the Media Call Romney “Presumptuous” For his Overseas Trip?
As Mitt Romney heads to London, Israel and Poland, will the “liberal media” call him “presumptuous” like it did when candidate Obama went to Europe? (Hint: No.)
(Image via MSNBC)
Obama’s Berlin Campaign Rally too Presumptuous
Media Corruption in Mexico
Oy.
Mexico’s biggest television network sold prominent politicians favourable coverage in its flagship news and entertainment shows and used the same programmes to smear a popular leftwing leader, documents seen by the Guardian appear to show.
The documents – which consist of dozens of computer files – emerge just weeks ahead of presidential elections on 1 July, and coincide with the appearance of an energetic protest movement accusing the Televisa network of manipulating its coverage to favour the leading candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto.
The documents, which appear to have been created several years ago, include:
• An outline of fees apparently charged for raising Peña Nieto’s national profile when he was governor of the state of Mexico.
• A detailed media strategy explicitly designed to torpedo a previous presidential bid by leftwing candidate Andres Manuel López Obrador, who is currently Peña Nieto’s closest rival.
• Payment arrangements suggesting that the office of former president Vicente Fox concealed exorbitant public spending on media promotion.
Thing is, the big “news” organizations in the U.S. don’t sell favorable coverage to favored candidates and smear popular leftwingers, they do it for free!
The New York Times Covers for Nuclear Power Industry
The New York Times, that bastion of the so-called liberal media doesn’t want Americans to know that the Japanese overwhelmingly reject restarting some of their nuclear power plants in lieu of what happened last year at the Fukushima power plant after the huge earth quake there in March:
Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant (Image via Wikipedia)
Japan Public Still Divided as 2 Reactors to Be Opened
Brushing aside widespread public opposition to avoid feared electric power shortages, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda ordered the reactivation of two nuclear reactors at a plant in western Japan on Saturday, making it the nation’s first plant to go back online since the crisis last year in Fukushima.
[...]
According to polls, two-thirds of Japanese express deep concern about the safety of nuclear plants after last year’s accident, which contaminated food with radiation and shattered the myth of Japan’s infallible nuclear technology. The day before Mr. Noda gave the order, his government was visited by an antinuclear group led by the Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe, which presented what it said were the signatures of 7.5 million people calling for the abolition of nuclear power.
So, the title of the article says the Japanese are “still divided” but in the body we learn there is “widespread public opposition” and “two-thirds of Japanese express deep concern about the safety of nuclear plants.”
That doesn’t sound “divided” to me.
Romney: Forever the “Moderate”
I lifted roughly 30 cases of gallons of milk at the food bank today (4 gallons per case) and I moved untold shrink-wrapped 12-packs of soy milk and cans of applesauce and USDA “stew” so pardon me for not providing links here — I’m tired! — but this is my Tweet of the Day:
Bravo to the always-vigilant “liberal media.”
The “Liberal Media” Promotes Male Domination of Coverage of Women’s Issues
Look at how men overwhelmingly dominate the media’s discussion of issues that pertain to women, such as abortion and birth control:
Massive, shameful, media fail.
See a larger, more easily read version of the chart here.
Chicago Police Turn Against The People Who Pay Them
Demonstrations surrounding the NATO meeting in Chicago have begun. This pic was posted about an hour ago:
(Image via: twitter.com/#!/paschutz)
What’s happening here is the Chicago Police Department, whose salaries we pay for with Our Tax Dollars, are standing against We the People. They work for us, not the corporatocracy. Ah, do they know that?
A cause for concern.
More NATO/ Occupy things happening tomorrow and Monday in Chitown. If there’s a riot*, the “liberal media” will cover it. Otherwise, crickets.
* Per Martin Luther King, Jr.; “A riot is the language of the unheard.”
Just sayin’.
ABC News Stacks the Deck Against Trayvon Martin
ABC News just sent this tweet out:
Go to the article — here — and you learn Trayvon Martin had a drug, not drugs plural, in his system: “The autopsy report shows traces of the drug THC, which is found in marijuana, in Martin’s blood and urine.” So there was one drug and there was only a “trace” of that one drug.
That’s a far cry from what is stated as fact in ABC’s tweet: “…had drugs in system…”
They don’t call it the lame stream media for nothing. Maybe we should throw something about shameless in there too.
The Sunday Talk Shows Are Only Interested in “Fair and Balanced” Blame, Even if Untrue
Norm Ornstein is a Republican who’s as inside-the-Beltway as you can get so this is really something:
Last month, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein published an Op ed and a book making the extremely controversial argument that both parties aren’t equally to blame for what ails Washington. They argued that the GOP — by allowing extremists to roam free and by wielding the filibuster to achieve government dysfunction as a political end in itself — were demonstrably more culpable for creating what is approaching a crisis of governance.
It turns out neither man has been invited on to the Sunday shows even once to discuss this thesis. As Bob Somerby and Kevin Drum note, these are among the most quoted people in Washington — yet suddenly this latest topic is too hot for the talkers, or not deemed relevant at all.
I ran this thesis by Ornstein himself, and he confirmed that the book’s publicity people had tried to get the authors booked on the Sunday shows, with no success.
“Not a single one of the Sunday shows has indicated an interest, and I do find it curious,” Ornstein told me.
Ornstein also noted another interesting point. Their thesis takes on the media for falling into a false equivalence mindset [also known as "fair and balanced"] and maintaining the pretense that both sides are equally to blame. … What’s more, some reporters have privately indicated their frustration with their editorial overlords’ apparent deafness to this idea.
“The piece focused on press culpability — it would be hard to find a more sensitive issue for the media than the question of whether they’re doing their job,” Ornstein said. “We got tons of emails from some of the biggest reporters in the business, saying, `We’ve raised this in the newsroom, and editors just brush it aside.’”
This is curious. Is “experts confirm that, yes, one side is more to blame than the other, and journalists should say so” really too hot a topic for the Sunday shows?
This is so illustrative of the media’s obsession with presenting e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g in a “fair and balanced” way. Sometimes one side or another is more responsible than the other for a thing that happens but that can’t be acknowledged because the media is terrified of being called biased. No, they’re terrified of being called “liberal,” thanks to Republicans jumping down their throat at any hint of that for the last 30 years. We live in an era of “he said, she said” or “Democrats said, Republicans said” journalism.
Facts are facts and Ornstein and his co-author Thomas Mann have made a case that Republicans are largely responsible for the deadlock in Washington but in the “liberal media,” that’s untouchable because it isn’t “fair and balanced.”
