Free Republic

The New York Times' refusal to publish John McCain's rebuttal to Barack Obama's Iraq op-ed may be the most glaring example of liberal media bias this journalist has ever seen. But true proof of widespread media bias requires one to follow an old journalism maxim: Follow the money. Even the Associated Press — no bastion of conservatism — has considered, at least superficially, the media's favoritism for Barack Obama. It's time to revisit media bias. True to form, journalists are defending their bias by saying that one candidate, Obama, is more newsworthy than the other. In other words, there is...

Half of Americans think the press is trying to help Sen. Barack Obama win the presidential election, according to a new poll by Rasmussen Reports. In an automated survey of 1000 likely voters, Rasmussen found that 49 percent of respondents believed reporters would favor Obama in their coverage this fall, compared with just 14 percent who expected them to boost Sen. John McCain. The number of Americans who see pro-Obama bias in the press has increased by five percent in the last month. According to Rasmussen’s numbers, less than a quarter of voters – 24 percent – now trust the...

Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is racing to transform the embattled New York Times for the digital age. Is he up to the job? Corporate annual meetings are generally drowsy affairs—a pep talk by management, some PowerPoint graphics, a little predetermined voting, all topped off by a parade of cranks to the microphones to excoriate management about their pet causes. April’s annual gathering of shareholders in The New York Times Company certainly featured all of those ingredients, down to the codger who shuffled in late, grabbed the seat next to mine, and promptly dozed off. But beneath the surface routine there was...

Ron Fournier says he regards Sandy Johnson, his predecessor as head of The Associated Press’s Washington bureau, as “a mentor.” Johnson, though, regards Fournier, who replaced her in a hard-feelings shake-up in May, as a threat to one of the most influential institutions in American journalism. “I loved the Washington bureau,” said Johnson, who left the AP after losing the prestigious position. “I just hope he doesn’t destroy it.” There’s more to her vinegary remark than just the aftertaste of a sour parting. Fournier is a main engine in a high-stakes experiment at the 162-year old wire to move from...

WHY, INDEED? "French media loses big court case proving Palestinian propaganda false, New York Times ignores shocking story... Why?" Because it opens the door to suggestions that this wasn't an aberration, but the norm in Mideast coverage? # # # Also see related videos at YouTube: "Green Helmet Guy" in Qana (Aug 2006) Dead Children Used as Props in Lebanon (Aug 2006) Pallywood (Mar 2006)

The profession of journalism has lost another great. Tony Snow, the affable anchor of Fox News Sunday, host of his own radio talk show and Press Secretary under President Bush, lost his valiant battle with colon cancer on Saturday at the age of 53. Snow left a legacy of true professionalism and fair play in a business that can often be brutal and harsh when covering the political landscape. To a person, he had the respect and admiration of those he encountered; from the high and powerful in Washington, to the press corps he had to deal with as the...

As tributes to this fine man pour in from all over the world, Catholic Online offers our prayers to his family and our deepest condolences on their loss. Tony Snow’s heroism in fighting cancer was another sign of the character which informed his stellar career as well as his commitment to family. In his address to the graduates of Catholic University he spoke these words:... But see, there’s more. Once you’ve gotten past the mirror phase, then things begin to get really interesting. You begin to confront the truly overwhelming question: Why am I here? And that begins to open...

RFFM.org's Executive Director, Dan Zanoza, writes a monthly column for the Illinois Family Institute, titled, Media Watch. Recently, Illinois Family Institute's Executive Director Dave Smith pointed out how Chicago Tribune "columnist" Eric Zorn apparently claimed the state of California was divinely rewarded for its high court ruling that the ban on same-sex "marriage" was unconstitutional. Smith had referred to a recent piece by Zorn where the Tribune writer asserted California was experiencing nice weather because of the court's ruling on homosexual "marriage"...

WE take for granted in this country - not unreasonably - the right to walk into a shop and buy whatever newspaper we choose. I have the privilege of writing this column. You have the privilege of taking it or leaving it. Straightforward? Well, as in so many things, that depends on how you define "this country". If the territory includes Northern Ireland, the same rules do not apply for reasons which lead to wider scepticism about the basis on which "peace" and "normality" are now established. If the routine of recent Sundays is maintained, hooded men will walk into...

Most purists would agree the standards applied to the field of journalism have declined during recent years. From tawdry periodicals to the proliferation of the Internet, the art of the written word has been spread thin. At one time, there were hard and fast rules adhered to by reporters, columnists and authors which gave the practice of journalism continuity. Today, as in other professional and artistic forms, rules no longer seem to matter and with this new paradigm has come a devolution of journalistic standards. A case in point regarding how the lines between journalism and gossip have become blurred...

It's almost a point of pride with climatologists. Whenever someplace is hit with a heat wave, drought, killer storm or other extreme weather, scientists trip over themselves to absolve global warming. No particular weather event, goes the mantra, can be blamed on something so general. Extreme weather occurred before humans began loading up the atmosphere with heat-trapping greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. So this storm or that heat wave could be the result of the same natural forces that prevailed 100 years ago—random movements of air masses, unlucky confluences of high- and low-pressure systems—rather than global warming.

"All the news that's fit to print." Remember that slogan? It used to...most likely still does...grace the masthead of the New York Times. Little did fools like me suspect that the word "all" wasn't to be the universe, modified only by "fitness" [as in decency, respect for victims, etc.] ...no...no....NO! It turns out the word "Fit" is the universe...as in propaganda...political correctness...yes, even cultural suicide, the word "all" simply describes what's "fit"...not "news". Take one of the more recent examples. In "Paper Cuts", the Times' book blog, Alan Dershowitz'new "novel" [you'll pardon me if I've already forgotten its title] is...

Jefferson’s vision for news called for a multitude of voices, competing in a freewheeling marketplace of ideas. By the end of his life in 1826, he had watched news make steady progress toward this vision. French historian Alexis de Tocqueville, in his book Democracy in America of that time, marveled at the ability of individual newspapers to attract and organize like-minded citizens into “Associations,” each representing a different voice. But, soon after his death, Jefferson’s vision for news not only stalled, it reversed itself, and continued in the opposite direction through most of the 20th century. Ironically, each of the...

Guns are a sad fact of life in American culture and are a major topic in modern journalism. A good Journalist has a duty to get involved and make a difference in this important societal debate. By following certain guidelines, the concerned Journalist can be assured of having the maximum impact on this shameful problem. The first principle to remember is that subtle use of terminology can covertly influence the reader. Adjectives should be chosen for maximum anti-gun effect. When describing a gun, attach terms like "automatic," "semi-automatic," "large caliber," "deadly," "high powered," or "powerful." Almost any gun can be...

I want . . Freedom of the press to be the right not to be lied to. You are confused. So very seriously confused about the First Amendment, that you are not thinking any more clearly about it than I was before the mid-1990s, when I began to see through the system by which the "journalistic objectivity" con is perpetrated. And since I was already in my fifties by then, I have every reason to understand how you might see things the way you do. Freedom of the press is much more like "the right to lie to you"...

Two frightening killers were on the loose, and the Sacramento Bee’s readers wanted to protect themselves. They wanted more than descriptions of the attackers’ clothing at the time of the murders. They wanted to know the criminals’ race. The Bee, they accused editors, had allowed outdated policies to endanger public safety. Challenged by readers and by bloggers who don’t adhere to journalistic conventions, many editors have been thinking about loosening their rules for identifying race in crime stories. In general, news outlets have avoided racial and ethnic identifiers unless they were important to the case, or, perhaps, if victims’ descriptions...

There has been some sound and fury over The New York Times investigation of former generals used as analysts for the major cable networks. Sadly, as is so often the case, it misses the mark. Much of it supposes that the generals were easy dupes of the Pentagon, given manipulated information that was simply issued forth during newscasts as propaganda. Well, what was anyone to expect? These are former generals, men trained to command large groups of men in battle, not journalists. There is good reason to point fingers at this small group of people. They were, at one time,...

APEX, N.C. -- A reporter arrested last Friday morning and charged with secret peeping into an occupied home in Apex is no longer an employee of NBC17.

Time magazine continued to defend its manipulation of the classic Iwo Jima flag-raising photo – calling it a “point of view.” Managing Editor Richard Stengel said the cover art was part of the publication’s global warming advocacy and a way of forcing readers to “pay attention.” Stengel defied the traditional notion that journalists should be unbiased. “I didn’t go to journalism school,” Stengel said. “But this notion that journalism is objective, or must be objective is something that has always bothered me – because the notion about objectivity is in some ways a fantasy. I don’t know that there is...

Investor's Business Daily cartoonist and Senior Editor Michael Ramirez won a Pulitzer Prize on Monday, his second win of the nation's most prestigious journalism award and the newspaper's first in its 24-year history. Ramirez won the 2008 award for a "distinguished cartoon or portfolio of cartoons published during the year, characterized by originality, editorial effectiveness, quality of drawing and pictorial effect." In awarding Ramirez, the Pulitzer panel lauded his "provocative cartoons that rely on originality, humor and detailed artistry." We couldn't agree more. "Michael is in a league of his own and at the top of his game," said Wesley...

BREAKING NEWS: Washington Post wins 2008 Pulitzer Prize for public service for its coverage of the mistreatment of veterans at Walter Reed hospital. Full story to follow shortly.

Have you seen this site...it is a hoot! http://angryjournalist.com/

Don’t let the facts get in the way of scaring the public – in fact, let’s just leave them on the cutting room floor. I love PBS, and have always felt that it’s a great source for independent and in-depth reporting. That is, until I was recently interviewed for its show NOW on the subject of phthalates, a chemical substance used in plastics, and babies’ toys. STATS has done a lot of work on the question of whether phthalates are safe or not, and we closely followed the research of several individual researchers as well as national and international scientific...

The framers of our Constitution gave carte blance protection to “speech” and “the press”. They did not grant that anyone was then in possession of complete and unalloyed truth, and it was impossible that they should be able to a priori institutionalize the truth of a future such human paragon even if she/he/it were to arrive. At the time of the framing, the 1830s advent of mass marketing was in the distant future. Since that era, journalism has positioned itself as the embodiment of nonpartisan truth-telling, and used its enormous propaganda power to make the burden of proof of any ...

If you’ve wondered why so many mainstream media stories about Islamic issues omit important details and draw spurious morally equivalent conclusions, wonder no more. They’re doing it on purpose. This was apparently released by the Society of Professional Journalists shortly after the 9/11 attacks: Guidelines for Countering Racial, Ethnic and Religious Profiling. On Oct. 6 at its National Convention in Seattle, the Society of Professional Journalists passed a resolution urging members and fellow journalists to take steps against racial profiling in their coverage of the war on terrorism and to reaffirm their commitment to: — Use language that is informative...

The lead on the Associated Press dispatch spoke volumes – about the Associated Press: President Bush declined Saturday to repeat promises made by others in his administration that more U.S. troops will return home from Iraq than scheduled before he leaves office. So the news, as determined by the AP, is not whether we’re winning or losing in Iraq, but when we will leave. In fairness to the AP, it is certainly not alone in having bought in to this storyline. It is simply the best and most predictable example of conventional media wisdom. The AP likes to tout its...

Former CBS anchorman, Dan Rather, heaped praise on the New York Times for its “creative handling of charges of sexual impropriety” against Republican presidential contender Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.). “Right wingers would have Americans believe that the media should be confined to a narrow version of truth bounded by evidence,” Rather complained. “I was glad to see that the Times was unconstrained by such fetters. When a newsman knows the truth he must go all out to get the message out. This inner compass helps keep us on course when all the landmarks of so-called facts would lead us astray.”...

Ten years ago, he was a reclusive 31-year-old who, bashing away on a laptop in his grungy Hollywood apartment, shot to prominence after he broke the Monica Lewinsky scandal that threatened to bring down Bill Clinton's presidency. Now, Matt Drudge owns a luxurious home on Rivo Alto Island in Florida's Biscayne Bay, a condominium at the Four Seasons in Miami, and is said to drive a black Mustang. He remains an elusive, mysterious figure, but the Internet pioneer is arguably the world's most powerful journalist. Mr. Drudge is still an outsider, contemptuous of the cosy relationships and closed-door deals that...

Ten years ago, he was a reclusive, pasty-faced 31-year-old who, bashing away on his laptop in his grungy Hollywood apartment, shot to prominence when he threatened to bring down Bill Clinton's presidency by breaking news of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The Drudge Report breaks the Prince Harry story Now, Matt Drudge owns a luxurious Mediterranean-style stucco house on Rivo Alto Island in Florida's Biscayne Bay, a condominium at the Four Seasons in Miami and is said to drive a black Mustang. He remains an elusive, mysterious figure but the internet pioneer is arguably the single most powerful journalist – though...

All three broadcast network evening newscasts led Thursday night with the New York Times story alleging an improper relationship by John McCain with a female lobbyist, but questions about the journalistic standards of the newspaper were given as much consideration as the allegations against McCain. All three ran a soundbite from Rush Limbaugh denouncing the paper while ABC and CBS featured establishment media observers who castigated the Times for basing a story on the feelings of unnamed sources: Ken Auletta on ABC and Tom Rosenstiel on CBS. “John McCain began his day answering questions about a story in the New...

Commentary: Insufficient sourcing weakens paper's argument NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - The New York Times' front-page story on John McCain on Thursday was an example of shoddy journalism. The piece raised the possibility that McCain had had a fling with a lobbyist 31 years his junior. It offered no legitimate basis, other than the whispers of unnamed sources - the most questionable form of reporting in a democratic society. McCain said in a televised press conference Thursday morning from Ohio that the story was "not true" and added that he was "very disappointed" in the Times. McCain was no doubt worried...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge says he will hold a former USA Today reporter in contempt if she continues refusing to identify sources for stories about a former Army scientist under scrutiny in the 2001 anthrax attacks. At a hearing Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said that reporter Toni Locy (LOW-see) must cooperate with Steven J. Hatfill in his lawsuit against the government. Hatfill is suing the Justice Department, saying the agency violated the federal Privacy Act by giving the media information about the FBI's investigation of him. In addition to Locy, the judge is considering whether...

The Proper Role of Journalism is reporting, from the trivial to the critical such as fraud and corruption-- whereever that may be found -- whether in Politics, or Industry, or elsewhere -- no matter. Needless to say Tyrants do not like fraud and corruption exposed. That is why Tyrants will always suppress and control the news in their venue -- and this is also then reason for our First Amendment. Advertisers are noted for doing the same sort of thing: revoking advertising contracts from publications that make undesirable reports. James Joyce said once "Oppression's ultimate resource is the cooperation of...

“Barack Obama,” Howie Kurtz declared, “will never get this kind of cuddly coverage again.” With that, the uber-critic gave voice to one of the cyclical predictions of the primary season’s punditry, the prediction that appears and reappears, never fulfilled, yet never dying: that, at some point, the press will stop fawning over Obama. Kurtz made this particular prediction back in December. Of 2006. Has it materialized? Well, flash forward to February of 2008, to Tuesday’s Potomac Primary. During MSNBC’s live coverage of the returns, as Mssrs. Matthews and Olbermann analyzed the victory speeches of the winners (Obama, by considerably more...

Jon Meacham is frustrated. After taking over Newsweek in 2006 as editor, he hasn't managed to get it out of its long-term rut as the second-best in the newsmagazine business. He also seems to have developed a severe case of Economist envy: After about an hour, there seemed to be no more questions for him, so Newsweek editor Jon Meacham turned to his audience—about 100 graduate students at Columbia journalism school—and said he had a question for them: Did anyone in the room read Newsweek or Time? There was a small, awkward rumbling before finally, a man shouted, "No!" Kudos...

Is there an elegy to be written for that generation of newspapermen and women who came of age after Vietnam, after the Pentagon Papers and Watergate? For us starry-eyed acolytes of a glorious new church, all of us secular and cynical and dedicated to the notion that though we would still be stained with ink, we were no longer quite wretches? ...we had seen a future of substance in bylines...Immortality lay in a five-part series with sidebars in the Tribune, the Sun, the Register, the Post, the Express. What the hell happened? I understand the economic pressures on newspapers....I've grasped...

News item: Burke named executive director of ACLU in TexasTerri Burke, former editor of the Abilene Reporter-News, has been named executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. Burke, 56, will begin work at the ACLU of Texas on Tuesday. Her duties will include lobbying, fundraising, administering the organization and communicating with the public. Burke said her new job seems like a continuation of her work in the newspaper business. "I wanted to be a journalist because I thought journalism was a way to further the democratic process," Burke said. "At its heart, journalism is about the First...

WASHINGTON — There is a reason American military officers express grim concern over the tactics used by Iranian sailors last weekend: a classified, $250 million war game in which small, agile speedboats swarmed a naval convoy to inflict devastating damage on more powerful warships.

THE Second Amendment provides a good test of the American politician. If a candidate is not going to trust the people with guns, why should we trust said candidate with the government? The equivalent test for journalists will be taken next month as the press marks the 10th anniversary of the breaking of the Monica Lewinsky story. How a newspaper or columnist describes this event tells a lot about how that newspaper or columnist views the audience. I am not talking about whether it is described as presidential perjury or a sex scandal. That is a right-left spin thing that...

Unfettered arrogance and hypocrisy are the two words that come to mind when I think of professional journalists, particularly when they are commenting on the rising wave of citizen journalism that is assaulting their ivory tower, a citadel of self-congratulation and elitism, of manipulation and deceit. It is a façade really, one that the web empowered citizen more frequently sees through. The legacy press is becoming irrelevant, which is the best thing that could happen to American Democracy in two hundred years. This scares the hell out of the left as they have been working very hard for a very...

Journalism in the United States has a serious identity crisis. It's not the first time this has occurred, but it might just be the last. Over the past few decades, the news organizations that many of us read or watch have lost enormous credibility among the U.S. public. This is due to high-profile mistakes such as taking a pass on the Bush administration's claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq — a journalistic debacle for which The New York Times and The Washington Post publicly apologized — and for everyday errors of emphasizing entertainment that masquerades as news. Enough...

In another arrogant piece from a "professional" journalist claiming that Internet journalism is "dangerous," one where the writer imagines that he is somehow the personification of truth in "reporting," we get yet another screed on the theme that they are the only ones that should be allowed to be called "journalists." And this one is a hoot, too. In an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, former journo and current professor David Hazinski seems to imagine that it's the job of the "news industry" to "monitor and regulate" the content of blogs and Internet journalism. No, I'm serious, he really said...

You're beginning to get a lot more news ... from you. It ranges from the CNN YouTube debates to political blogs to cellphone video of that sniper who opened fire at an Omaha Mall. These are all examples of so called "citizen journalism," the hot new extension of the news business where the audience becomes the reporter. Supporters of "citizen journalism" argue it provides independent, accurate, reliable information that the traditional media don't provide. While it has its place, the reality is it really isn't journalism at all, and it opens up information flow to the strong probability of fraud...

When Philip Smith took to his blog to describe his (negative) experience of working with an eBay listing company, he did not expect that he would end up representing himself in a federal defamation and trademark dilution lawsuit or that he would have difficulty selling his condo after a lawyer for the plaintiffs clouded his title to the property. Now, after winning the case in spectacular fashion, Smith has emerged as an unlikely hero for bloggers everywhere who hope to be regarded as journalists. No US court has yet weighed in with authority on the debate about whether bloggers count...

Aboard the crowded D train, rumbling into Brooklyn on the Manhattan Bridge, the inevitable rant explodes. A rant courtesy of Faye Anderson, whom we'll call Ms. CJ, a.k.a. Citizen Journalist. A rant directed at us, Mr. MSM, a.k.a. Mainstream Media, for all our perceived faults. "It's not you, the journalist, it's the institution," Ms. CJ tells Mr. MSM. "You're not telling the whole story. . . . You've lost your credibility." We listen, take notes, check if the tape recorder's working. No telling what Anderson might do if she's misquoted. She's saying anyone can be a journalist, at least anyone...

At long last, prize-winning Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein may get his day in court. The trouble is, justice won't be blind in this case -- his lawyer will be. Bilal has been imprisoned by the U.S. military in Iraq since he was picked up April 12, 2006, in Ramadi, a violent town in a turbulent province where few Western journalists dared go. The military claimed then that he had suspicious links to insurgents. This week, Editor & Publisher magazine reported the military has amended that to say he is, in fact, a "terrorist" who had "infiltrated the AP." We...

BOSTON – Carole Simpson, a former ABC news anchor who is now a journalism professor at Emerson College, is on the hot seat after endorsing Hillary Clinton for president at a New Hampshire political rally. Simpson said she immediately regretted her actions and offered her resignation the day after the rally last month in Salem, N.H., but Emerson officials refused to accept it. “I know I made a mistake. It was definitely the wrong venue for my first foray into free speech,” Simpson told The Boston Globe in Monday’s editions. “But I’d really like to see her win. After being...

Is there any such animal as "conservative-based news?" IMHO there is not. At least, not that goes under the banner of "news." In the Founding Era, newspapers were different from what we are used to today. Technologically, their inputs were more expensive and their output was very slow and meager. And they were all addressing small, local markets. They were mostly weeklies, and some had no deadline at all - the printer just went to press when he was good and ready. And they did not have telegraphed news. IOW, the newspapers of the founding era were pretty much...

On June 1, The New York Times published a front-page article titled, ONE PLACE WHERE OBAMA GOES ELBOW TO ELBOW. The feature detailed Barack Obama's love for pickup basketball, his jersey-tugging style, even the time he hit a long game-winning shot after getting fouled. The Obama camp clearly welcomed the humanizing glimpse at Obama's life; his rivals, probably not so much. In an ordinary campaign, that might have been it. But this is no ordinary campaign--not when Hillary Clinton is a candidate. And so, the Clinton team let Times reporter Patrick Healy, who covers the Hillary beat, know about their...

Columbia, Mo. (AP) -- A distinguished University of Missouri-Columbia journalism professor will no longer write a weekly newspaper column after admitting to plagiarizing material from a student reporter. John Merrill, a professor emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, also wrote a Sunday column for the Columbia Missourian, a community newspaper affiliated with the school. But a Nov. 4 column by Merrill about the university's women's and gender studies program used three quotes and other phrases taken directly from an Oct. 5 story in The Maneater, an independent student newspaper. Missourian Executive Editor Tom Warhover disclosed the plagiarism...