Free Republic

In fact, before she returned to Fargo, she was in contact with Washington attorney and literary agent Robert Barnett. On May 27, 2009, when Saberi met with Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, Barnett was seated in the office of that meeting. Barnet represented both of the Clintons in their respective book deals. He is also a friend of Hilary Clinton, being one of the first to tell her that the reports of Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky could be true and helping her prepare for her 2000 New York Senate race. On June 22, 2009 it was reported that...

Credibility is power. When you have it, it's like a rock in your fist. But despite its power, it can be as fragile as an eggshell -- handle it with care or it'll shatter into a gooey mess. That's what I believe the California Air Resources Board members have on their hands as they bull forward with the diesel emissions rules they passed last December based on a health report written by CARB researcher Hien Tran. Tran lied about having a Ph.D in statistics from Davis. He was outted to both CARB staffers and at least one board member prior...

The news media's credibility is sagging along with its revenue. Nearly two-thirds of Americans think the news stories they read, hear and watch are frequently inaccurate, according to a poll released Sunday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. That marks the highest level of skepticism recorded since 1985, when this study of public perceptions of the media was first done. The poll didn't distinguish between Internet bloggers and reporters employed by newspapers and broadcasters, leaving the definition of "news media" up to each individual who was questioned. The survey polled 1,506 adults on the phone...

With three days of hearings under our belts, we can strongly suspect that several Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee will not vote to confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. We can also strongly suspect that all 60 Senate Democrats will vote to confirm; the opaqueness of her answers on abortion and gun control probably provided sufficient cover for the relatively conservative Democratic senators Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. So if there are any “swing votes” remaining in the Senate, they are among the 33 Republicans who aren’t on the judiciary panel. There are...

Walter Cronkite’s remarks at the end of his February 27, 1968 evening news broadcast, four decades ago today, were a watershed in the history of the MSM’s credibility.   Unless you’re at least 55 years old, you probably don’t remember that CBS broadcast 40 years ago.  The most trusted man in America had recently returned from Vietnam where he hosted a documentary on the VC/NVA TET (New Year) offensive that began January 31, 1968.  Back in NYC, he closed his program that night by introducing “an analysis that must be speculative, personal, [and] subjective.”  Among his comments were these: Who won...

In a speech after receiving the 2009 Fred Friendly First Amendment Award from Quinnipiac University, Morley Safer discussed the impact on journalism of the troubled newspaper industry. "The blogosphere is no alternative, crammed as it is with ravings and manipulations of every nut with a keyboard," he is quoted in a Qunnipiac press release as saying yesterday. "Good journalism is structured and structure means responsibility...I would trust citizen journalism as much as I would trust citizen surgery." Safer, 77, is also profiled by the New York Daily News' Richard Huff, who writes that despite Safer going to part-time status at...

"Shane Fitzgerald, 22, a final-year student studying sociology and economics at University College Dublin, told the newspaper he placed the quote on the website as an experiment when doing research on globalisation. He quoted Oscar-winning composer Jarre as saying, "One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. "When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear." The quote was posted on Wikipedia shortly after Jarre's...

A group of pranksters handed out more than 1.2 million fake New York Times newspapers mainly in New York City and Los Angeles on Wednesday with a front page story declaring "Iraq War Ends." The elaborate 14-page edition, dated July 4, 2009, is said to be the work of a group called the Yes Men, whose previous hoaxes include masquerading as World Trade Organization officials announcing they were disbanding the body. "It is fake and we are looking into it," said New York Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis. A statement sent from a Web site set up for the fake edition,...

....Giving Obama a pass on his tissue-thin record, his long association with dangerous people and questionable activity, such as his dealings with fundraiser Antoin Rezko and the huge foreign money he took, shows the media cannot be trusted. Their earnings will plunge. And if Americans discover that they've been sucker-punched, because Obama's inexperience causes economic and political chaos, they'll be on Obama like a virus and will be astonishingly vicious. Live by the sword ...

The fatal banker’s fall By John Gapper Published: October 1 2008 18:45 | Last updated: October 1 2008 18:45 Bankers have never been popular, but Washington’s rejection of the $700bn bail-out for banks on Monday recalled the odium that attached to them in the Great Depression. Americans rightly wonder why their taxes should be used to rescue bankers from their folly. In the 1930s, bankers were called “banksters” – to rhyme with “gangsters” – as a result of 1920s swindles such as the sale to small investors of Peruvian bonds that became worthless. It is odd, as well as infuriating,...

A veteran Democratic political strategist has some advice for what appears to many to be a Barack Obama campaign rattled by the explosive entrance into the campaign of John McCain's vice presFormer Hillary Clinton presidential campaign strategist Mark Pennident pick, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Mark Penn, the high-priced strategist who did such a good early job of launching Hillary Clinton's Democratic presidential campaign to doom at the hands of Obama, tells CBS.com he's worried that the Windy City gang will repeat the mistakes of the last two losing Democratic presidential campaigns by returning to the base after their convention instead...

From the always objective Wikipedia: (Click images to enlarge) Mind you, this is just page one of the revisions. The rewrites just since September 12th go on for pages.So there is an advantage to being computer savvy after all.

A Word Here, A Word There BY FRANK BARBERA, CMT What a ridiculous sham. Every few weeks the financial community ‘heart beat’ stops for a few seconds to find out what pronouncements will be handed down from the mount at the latest Federal Reserve meeting. Every few weeks, the parsing begins dissecting each word to see if anything has been omitted, or added, or changed from the prior meeting's text. Immediately, all kinds of wild trading ensues, in some cases, even before any sane person has had a chance to read and digest the intended meaning of the words. It...

He says he will have credibility in the Muslim World because he lived there. Isn't it legitimate to question his predispositions, sympathies, and biases toward particular groups based on his "experience?" Are we just supposed to accept the positive experiences he says he gained without some of the corollaries that go with them? More . . .

Do note: The question wasn’t whether the end product is biased (say, unconsciously), it was whether the media’s even trying to be objective. Answering no: 68% overall, including 56% of Democrats and 50% of liberals. Our nutroots betters assure us that the press is thoroughly right-wing, so it must be McCain whom people believe is getting a free ride, yes? Not so much: Voters have little doubt as to who is benefitting from the media coverage this year—Barack Obama. Fifty-four percent (54%) say Obama has gotten the best coverage so far. Twenty-two percent (22%) say McCain has received the most...

If you thought there was something odd about CNN's YouTube Republican presidential debate you are correct. As it turns out, at least nine of the “undecided Republican voters” have subsequently been identified as Democrats who have taken stands in support of one or another of the current Democratic presidential candidates. CNN President Jonathan Klein was quick to defend loading the questions in this fashion. “Who better to show the unsuitability of these Republican candidates than knowledgeable Democrats?” Klein asked. “The American people deserve to see these poseurs exposed to critical scrutiny. Our only disappointment is that the revelation of the...

U.S. to Strike N.Korea Off Terror List Under 'Secret Deal' The U.S. in a closed-doors deal on Oct. 3 agreed to strike North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism and suspend the Trading with the Enemy Act by year's end provided North Korea disables its nuclear facilities by then, a senior South Korean official says. The official told Korean reporters in Washington last week the Oct. 3 deal “includes a list of facilities North Korea agreed to disable. It also includes what the other five nations agreed to do, including the issues of striking North Korea from...

Media people have watched closely for indications why viewership for the evening news is dropping and readers are turning away from newspapers toward the web. Perhaps they should be looking at attitudes toward the newsgatherers themselves. Americans are increasingly distrustful of the national mass media, and that’s often divided along political party lines, according to a new Gallup poll. Only 9 percent of Americans say they have a great deal of trust in mass media, and just 38 percent say they have a fair amount of trust. While that’s roughly the same as polls in 2005 and 2004, it is...

 PARIS (AP) — The French Defence Ministry on Friday debunked the credentials of a former ABC News consultant who claimed to have worked as an adviser to the ministry, saying the man was just an intern for five months. Alexis Debat, who was fired by the TV network last year, quit a Washington think tank on Wednesday after being accused of faking an interview with Barack Obama. Previously, he had been identified in stories by a range of media, including The Associated Press, as a former French Defence Ministry official or analyst. The National Interest, an online publication he wrote...

(US News) Watching Iowa straw poll winner and would-be Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney squirm on Fox News Sunday was a bit discomfiting as the former Massachusetts governor tried to explain away his now infamous 180-degree flip-flop on abortion rights to host Chris Wallace. He essentially said (to paraphrase former Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry), "I was never really for it, but I pretended to be for it before I was against it" (meaning a woman's right to choose). Check out the transcript of the show, and decide for yourself. But dig a bit deeper, and there's an even more...

Because they don't want to defend anything or anyone. Watch the video. Jihadists vs Democratic politicians. It is worth every article you have read so far. Just compare.

A new study out of California shows that Wikipedia isn’t a trusted source of information for college students. Instead most turned first to college resources such as the school library and databases, followed by trusted news websites and search engines. Only 3% of students surveyed, actually turned to Wikipedia for information. This is good news considering Wikipedia is notorious for being a bastion of liberalism, and shows little neutrality on political or cultural topics. Many of the editors on Wikipedia are actually recruited from the leftist website Democratic Underground. A quick perusal of the Wikipedia entry on Democratic Underground shows...

A computer researcher has devised a way of tracking changes made to Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia that anyone can edit, to expose organisations and individuals who tweak and airbrush their own entries. The sleuthing tool allows Wikipedia users to trace the source of millions of changes to entries on the popular website, even those done anonymously. So far the Wikipedia Scanner has unearthed a host of entry fiddling by organisations ranging from the CIA and the Labour Party to WalMart and the Mormon church. For example, employees of the intelligence agency have been found altering the biographical information on former...

Radio change The site also indicates that a computer owned by the US Democratic Party was used to make changes to the site of right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The changes brand Mr Limbaugh as "idiotic," a "racist", and a "bigot". An entry about his audience now reads: "Most of them are legally retarded." We really value transparency and the scanner really takes this to another level Wikipedia spokesperson The IP address is registered in the name of the Democratic National Headquarters. A spokesperson for the Democratic Party said that the changes had not been made on its computers....

BBC Forcing Employees To Take Honesty Training By Noel Sheppard | July 28, 2007 - 14:27 ET This is certainly an initiative right-thinking people around the world should welcome: in response to identifying several instances of fraudulent audience phone calls made by staffers during some of its programs, the BBC has decided to send its employees to - wait for it! - honesty training. You really can't make this stuff up! As reported by England's Telegraph Thursday (extremely grateful h/t to NBer SMGalbraith, emphasis added throughout): John Humphrys and Jeremy Paxman will be required to join Mark Thompson, the director...

LONDON, July 28 (UPI) -- British viewers' trust in the BBC has plummeted in the wake of scandals, a new survey found. Nearly 60 percent of viewers polled said they trust the corporation less than they did before two widely-publicized recent scandals, The Guardian reported Saturday. First, it was revealed that phone calls to a call-in competition were faked. Then an on-air promotion for a television special about Queen Elizabeth II was edited to give viewers the erroneous impression that the queen stormed out of a photo shoot.

BOSTON -- When former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney began airing television ads in a handful of states last winter, his opponents paid little notice. Early advertising in presidential campaigns -- particularly commercials broadcast almost 11 months before the first contests -- seemed a classic waste of resources. Four months and more than $4 million later, Romney's ads are still running, and the GOP presidential candidate is reaping the dividends. Although he remains well behind former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sen. John McCain of Arizona in most national polls, his standing in the states that will kick off...

As you know America is at war. But I’m not talking about the Iraq war no I’m talking about the war which many Americans think less important yet this war is much more insidiously devastating to America. This war has ripped the concept of truth right out of the soul of this nation and will be the death of this country if allowed to continue. This war is the war on credibility.

Regarding the Iraq withdrawal measures in Congress, there is no way to avoid stating the obvious, but let me allow Mark Steyn's favorite Anglosphere head of government do it for me:The US Congress' vote to push for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq was wrong and will bring comfort to Al-Qaeda insurgents, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Friday. ..."I think it is wrong, and I don't think it is doing anything other than giving great comfort and encouragement to Al-Qaeda and the insurgency in Iraq," Howard said....If there is a perception of an America defeat in Iraq, that will...

Russia is responding to allegations Putin engineered the poisoning of former FSB Colonel Litvienko. I'm not a fan of Putin - or his regime - but the denials make more sense than the media's rush to judgment !

/begin my translation N. Korean Nuke Test: China, the Biggest Loser (German newspaper) (Berlin = Yonhap News) Song Byung-seung = China is the biggest loser from N. Korea's reckless nuclear test, according to Oct. 10 issue of German Daily, Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung. In its editorial, the paper pointed out, if China cannot control a bankrupt 'brother nation' in its backyard, it would damage the image of China as an aspiring major power of the world. It argued that N. Korean nuclear test would make China worry about the prospect of nuclear-armed Japan. This will turn into a long-term challenge which...

Fox News journalist Steve Centanni's credibility is SHOT. He will forever be viewed as "the journalist that converted to Islam" to save his skin and then "unconverted" when he thought he was "safe", and as the "journalist" who praised the terrorists and their cause and told the west that they and Israel are the bad guys and admonished more reporters to “come to Gaza and report on the plight of the poor Palistinians”. The reality is his conversion was presented and viewed by MILLIONS of Muslims (along with the rest of us) world-wide. According to Islam, he has now become...

Amid the controversy over certain pictures from Lebanon, a longtime student of war photography asks, "I'm not sure if the craft I love is being murdered, committing suicide, or both." By David D. Perlmutter (August 18, 2006) -- The Israeli-Hezbollah war has left many dead bodies, ruined towns, and wobbling politicians in its wake, but the media historian of the future may also count as one more victim the profession of photojournalism. In twenty years of researching and teaching about the art and trade and doing photo-documentary work, I have never witnessed or heard of such a wave of attacks...

Reuters has withdrawn all photographs taken by Beirut-based freelance Adnan Hajj from its database after establishing that he had altered another image. By Julia Day. Reuters has withdrawn all photographs taken by Beirut-based freelance Adnan Hajj from its database after establishing that he had altered not one, but two, images since the start of the conflict between Israel and the Lebanon. The news agency has also instituted "a tighter editing procedure" for images of the war in the Middle East conflict after what it calls "the gravest breach" of Reuters standards. Reuters' new procedure will "ensure that no photograph from...

For once, "Wonkette" backs into the truth... I'm so proud of the professional journalism at TIME. Can't wait for Larry Flynt to become Style Guide Editor. "Ana Marie Cox, the Washington editor of Time.com, said Americans have come to distrust the mainstream media. "They're more likely to believe something that comes straight from the horse's mouth," Cox said."

While American news audiences remain polarized by ideology, a new study finds that regardless of their individual political leanings, Americans are unilateral in their increasing skepticism about the credibility of all major TV news outlets. According to the latest study from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, fewer than a quarter of the 3,204 adults surveyed believe all or most of what they see on NBC News (23 percent), ABC News (22 percent) or CBS News (22 percent), continuing a downward trend in credibility that stretches back to the mid-1980s. For the sake of comparison, the...

BEIJI, Iraq - Five U.S. Army soldiers are being investigated for allegedly raping a young woman, then killing her and three members of her family in Iraq, a U.S. military official said Friday. The soldiers also allegedly burned the body of the woman they are accused of assaulting in the March incident, the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case. The U.S. command issued a sparse statement, saying Maj. Gen. James D. Thurman, commander of coalition troops in Baghdad, had ordered a criminal investigation into the alleged killing of a family...

CAMP PENDLETON -- Attorneys for the so-called "Pendleton Eight" are getting their first look at the government's evidence against their clients. A 250-page Pentagon report shows maps, diagrams, photos, and statements about an alleged incident in Hamdania, Iraq, in which military investigators say seven Marines and a sailor took an Iraqi civilian from his home, shot him and then tried to cover it up. Tuesday, the attorneys questioned the credibility of the Iraqi accusers, asking why it took the victim's family four days to report the death. Attorneys also said confessions were coerced, and that military members were not given...

Wikipedia is the online encyclopedia that "anyone can edit." Unless you want to edit the entries on Albert Einstein, human rights in China or Christina Aguilera. Wikipedia's come-one, come-all invitation to write and edit articles, and the surprisingly successful results, have captured the public imagination. But it is not the experiment in freewheeling collective creativity it might seem to be, because maintaining so much openness inevitably involves some tradeoffs. At its core, Wikipedia is not just a reference work but also an online community that has built itself a bureaucracy of sorts...

RICHMOND, Va. -- The Richmond Times-Dispatch said Saturday it fired a reporter for fabricating part of a story and has begun investigating his other work. Paul Bradley, 51, who worked in the newspaper's northern Virginia bureau, was dismissed Friday, the newspaper reported. The article, published May 17, was intended to gather reaction in Herndon to President Bush's speech on immigration. Bradley's fabrications, the Times-Dispatch said, included an interview that did not occur with the director of a center for day laborers and the misrepresentation that he had visited the center by using a Herndon dateline. Managing editor Louise C. Seals...

Some guys exaggerate when talking about their youthful sports exploits, but the boasts of one candidate for state office have led to official backtracking. In various speeches, campaign ads and written biographies in past years, Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo has said he made it out of his Eastside neighborhood by winning a football scholarship to Harvard University, where he was an Academic All-American before going on to become a professional football player. But now, as he runs for attorney general, the time as a pro football player is listed in bio material and speeches as "a brief stint,"...

United Press International May 10, 2006 WASHINGTON -- Seventy percent of daily U.S. newspaper editors and reporters say factors beyond their control caused public confidence in news media to drop, a survey says. At the same time, half of the 527 randomly selected journalists surveyed by Northwestern University say they have seen unethical or unprofessional behavior in their newsroom during the past five years. "Many journalists believe that the recent sins of other newspapers and media taint their own newspapers and contribute to the public's diminished confidence in newspapers generally," said Mary Ellen Shearer, co-author and assistant dean of the...

One-quarter of consumers abandoned a news source over the past year because they lost trust in its reporting, according to a new survey that also found the BBC, Fox News and Al Jazeera the most trusted brands in their respective home regions. Results of a poll of more than 10,000 adults in 10 countries by the British Broadcasting Corporation, Reuters Group Plc and The Media Center were released on Wednesday, with an additional finding that media worldwide were trusted by an average of 61 percent of respondents compared with 52 percent who said they trusted their governments. "National TV is...

LONDON (Reuters) - One-quarter of consumers abandoned a news source over the past year because they lost trust in its reporting, according to a new survey that also found the BBC, Fox News and Al Jazeera the most trusted brands in their respective home regions. Results of a poll of more than 10,000 adults in 10 countries by the British Broadcasting Corporation, Reuters Group Plc and The Media Center were released on Wednesday, with an additional finding that media worldwide were trusted by an average of 61 percent of respondents compared with 52 percent who said they trusted their governments.

A PROPOSED UN resolution requiring Iran to halt uranium enrichment would be a further test of Security Council credibility, Australia's new ambassador to the United Nations Robert Hill said today. The former defence minister said today that past differences within the Security Council had weakened its credibility in recent years. "It is a further test of the Security Council," he said on ABC radio. "This is another instance where the international community has a right to expect that it meet its responsibility. "I am not even confident that there will be an appropriate resolution of the Security Council. That is...

April Morning Reverie - or- An Imaginary Conversation with Seymour Hersh It's a beautiful April morning , and I'd like to sit out back and enjoy it: (at my age, you never know if you'll see another Spring) ; but I've got other things on my mind. I find myself engaging in an imaginary conversation with "investigative reporter", Seymour Hersh. Me: Good morning, Mr. Hersh . SH: (Expansively) Call me Sy. Everyone else does - and this IS an imaginary conversation. Me: That Iran article of yours in The New Yorker created quite a stir. SH: Which one ? The...

For anyone that has used Wikipedia, you are vastly aware of the bias and the vandalism that occurs on that online encyclopedia. Conservatives are constantly bashed, and censored on the site. This is why we have decided to launch www.wikiright.com, the first Conservative Encyclopedia and Online Opinion Library. This is not meant to compete with any other site, since I love FR, but it's rather meant to offer a research tool for Conservatives. If you'd like to get involved, visit the site, it's help section, and begin posting articles. It's still a small site, but since Conservatives rule the web,...

I am a combat veteran. I joined the VFW my first day back in the States, and am a life member. I flew forty missions in the Gulf War, and have received many citations for my combat service, and my non-combat service. There is a flare up underway about John Murtha's combat/decoration history here, here, and on this page is a Brit Hume video on the subject. Based on what I have read in the opening paragraphs of Forgotten Soldier and the entirety of Stolen Valor some people have a habit of exaggerating their combat records...if they have one at...

GREEN RIVER, Wyo. - A quote in a fake news release that was intended as an April Fool's joke ended up in a front-page story in the Los Angeles Times. The story in Tuesday's editions of the Times noted how successful the reintroduction of wolves had been 10 years ago, but said the predators remained controversial. "In Wyoming, for example, Gov. Dave Freudenthal last April decreed that the Endangered Species Act is no longer in force and that the state 'now considers the wolf as a federal dog,' unworthy of protection," the story read. The Times printed a correction Wednesday,...

Accuse mental-health associations of allowing gay activists to distort researchSenior members of the psychological community delivered a scathing condemnation of the American Psychological Association (APA), at the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) conference last month. Dr. Nicolas Cummings, Ph.D, a former president of the APA, said pro-homosexual social activist influence has undermined the scientific legitimacy of psychological research within the organization. Dr. Cummings charged that research by the APA is now limited to projects where “they know what the outcome is going to be…only research with predictably favorable outcomes is permissible.” (reported by Linda Ames Nicolosi...