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. With even the Associated Press -- no bastion of conservatism -- considering, at least superficially, the media's favoritism for Barack Obama, it's time to re-visit media bias. Typically, journalists are defending their bias by saying that one candidate, Obama, is more "newsworthy" than the other. In other words, there is no media...

NEW YORK (December 12, 2001 6:15 a.m. EST) - From his position near Tora Bora, Afghanistan, Fox News Channel correspondent Geraldo Rivera seemed more agitated by a question about carrying a gun than by the mortar rounds that just exploded nearby. "I refuse to address that issue," said Rivera, speaking into a satellite phone. "It's been blown way out of proportion. It makes me sound like a tabloid talk show host goes to war. It's so unfair." Yet Rivera's decision to bring a gun into a war zone where eight journalists have been killed has raised questions about whether ...

IT is certainly no secret that Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is a darling of the news media... ...While other candidates have tried to schmooze reporters this way without success, what has made Mr. McCain’s fraternization so effective is that it comes with candor — or at least the illusion of it. Over the years, reporter after reporter has remarked upon his seemingly unguarded frankness. In 1999, William Greider wrote in Rolling Stone that, “Will somebody tell this guy to shut up before he self-destructs?” Imagine, reporters protecting a candidate from himself! ...What makes 2008 different —...

The Foreign Correspondents Club of China said it had details of two dozen foreign reporters who were expelled from Lhasa and other Tibetan areas. Some reporters were told they were barred due to police action,

Jordanian court handed down jail terms of three months each on five newspaper journalists, including two prominent editors, for contempt of court and defamation, the head of the press association said on Tuesday. Tareq al-Momani, head of the group that represents press interests, conveyed a court convicted two editors and three journalists from the leading newspapers, Ad-Dustour, Al-Arab AlYawm and al-Al Rai, on March 13 for publishing offences. They remain free pending appeal, Reuters reported. "We look with concern at the passing of these sentences in opinion cases which reflects negatively on freedom of the press," Momani told Reuters. Four...

LONDON — Four British Broadcasting Corp. journalists were among seven men arrested in Ireland in connection with an investigation into paramilitary activity, the BBC said Sunday. The news organization said the journalists were working on a current affairs program when they were arrested by Irish police Saturday. Ireland's police confirmed that seven men between the ages of 30 and 48 were in custody but declined to offer further details. The BBC said the arrests took place in County Donegal, which neighbors Northern Ireland. Its Web site said the men had "full editorial authority under the BBC's guidelines" for their work....

As Harry Truman famously said: “If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen?” Obama has started running from the kitchen when the news media turns up the heat. Ask Tough Questions? Yes, They Can!By Dana MilbankWashington Post March 4, 2008SAN ANTONIO It took many months and the mockery of “Saturday Night Live” to make it happen, but the lumbering beast that is the press corps finally roused itself from its slumber Monday and greeted Barack Obama with a menacing growl.The day before primaries in Ohio and Texas that could effectively seal the Democratic presidential nomination for him,...

As athletes train for the summer Olympics in China, a new book claims that the country's vast spy network is gearing up for a different challenge - keeping an eye on journalists and potential troublemakers. French writer Roger Faligot, author of some 40 intelligence-related books, has penned 'The Chinese Secret Services from Mao to the Olympic Games', due out February 29. His findings claim that special teams are being formed at the country's embassies abroad "to identify sports journalists ... and to define if they have an 'antagonistic' or 'friendly' attitude in regards to China." Potential foreign spies who may...

South Africa: No White Journalists At Zuma Address Business Day (Johannesburg) 22 February 2008 Posted to the web 22 February 2008 Hajra Omarjee Johannesburg AN INVITATION to African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma to address a function exclusively for black journalists today has become a public relations nightmare for the organisers. The ANC defended the move yesterday, saying that while the party was multiracial it respected the Forum for Black Journalists' "constitutional right" to organise along racial lines, and would not dictate to them. The forum, formed in 1996, relaunches in Johannesburg today. Zuma was invited as a guest...

Even before Mitt Romney bowed out — with class, by the way — supporters of John McCain, and Republican party pooh-bahs in general, were chastising those conservatives in the media who had criticized Senator McCain. Those who leveled their attacks at Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other conservatives who had criticized McCain's record completely misconceived the role of the media. Journalists do not exist to get one party's candidates elected or otherwise serve one party's political interests. The public are the journalists' clientele. It is the public that reads newspapers and magazines, that listens to radio or watches television. They...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A five-year, $15 billion effort to combat AIDS in Africa and other areas - arguably the most important and popular international program of the Bush presidency - may become a political battleground as it comes up for renewal. President Bush wants to double and House Democrats want to triple spending on a program that is now treating 1.4 million people, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa, where he will visit in two weeks. Democrats also want to slash spending on a multimillion-dollar component that emphasizes sexual abstinence. And that has conservative groups furious.

Journalists are taught never to "bury the lead." Yet it looks as if that's precisely what CBS's "60 Minutes" did in reporter Scott Pelley's fascinating interview Sunday with George Piro, the FBI agent who debriefed Saddam Hussein following his capture in December 2003.

An Iowahawk Special Investigative ReportWith Statistical Guidance from the New York TimesA Denver newspaper columnist is arrested for stalking a story subject. In Cincinnati, a television reporter is arrested on charges of child molestation. A North Carolina newspaper reporter is arrested for harassing a local woman. A drunken Chicago Sun-Times columnist and editorial board member is arrested for wife beating. A Baltimore newspaper editor is arrested for threatening neighbors with a shotgun. In Florida, one TV reporter is arrested for DUI, while another is charged with carrying a gun into a high school. A Philadelphia news anchorwoman goes on a...

Watch the video at CBS of an AP journalist getting angry about something Mitt Romney said, and Romney getting angry in response. That Press Secretary was quite right: journalist (and I use this word loosely) Glen Johnson behaved incredibly unprofessionally, he even carried on his little fight after the press conference. Obviously Romney should’ve expressed himself a bit more clearly, but this journalist… what a dupe. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. 6 Comments » 1 supernovia January 18, 2008 @ 1:04 am CET Seriously. Once the...

Manchester – When a piece of chicken got stuck in journalist Al Hunt's windpipe Friday night, Sen. John Sununu came to the rescue. "John was terrific," said Hunt, 65, executive editor for Washington at Bloomberg News. "He quickly jumped up, put his arms around me, did the (Heimlich) maneuver. Within about two seconds, it came out." Hunt and Sununu were sitting next to each other Friday night at the Hanover Street Chop House in downtown Manchester. The table was packed with powerbrokers, politicians and prominent journalists, including columnist Bob Novak, New York Times managing editor Jill Abramson and Hunt's wife,...

Newsies in CBS affiliate in Cincinnati-Ohio find their callingClick on the Local12 link above to watch video.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Gunmen shot a crime reporter 45 times in a Mexican town plagued by drug violence on Saturday after a high-speed chase as he tried to escape on his motorcycle. Cut off by a vehicle in Uruapan, in the state of Michoacan, Gerardo Garcia fled on his motorcycle as far as his home, where his pursuers killed him, police and a source at the newspaper where he worked told Reuters. Mexico's drug cartels are battling for control of regions key to trafficking South American cocaine and other drugs into the United States. Mexican journalists are targets of...

Did you hear the one about the two journalists that walked into a Romanian airport wearing Al Qaeda Airline uniforms and put fake bombs on planes? …No, it’s not the setup for a joke, it really did happen. An investigation has been launched after the pair entered Baneasa Airport in Bucharest wearing hats and overalls marked “Al Qaeda Airlines”. Alexandru Cautis and Catalin Prisacaru, from the Academia Catavencu newspaper, drove into a supposedly secure parking area, reserved for airport staff, unchallenged. Once inside, they were able to place fake bombs on passenger planes without being questioned. They were also able...

Hey, do you remember Bobby Caina Calvan, the arrogant newspaper reporter who blogged about his snit fit in Iraq when a soldier asked him for identification–earning himself a Jerk of the Year nomination? Well, Calvan’s MSM friends and editors have again come to his defense. They’re as clueless and snotty as he is. Armando Acuna, public editor of the Sacramento Bee, chose Veterans’ Day to mount his blog-bashing campaign and apologia for Calvan: A day after his Oct. 23 blog posting, Calvan woke up at 5 a.m. in his Baghdad hotel room and signed onto his computer. “My e-mail started...

Why do they buy the nonsense about alleged greenhouse gases causing dangerous global warming? The claim about the power of greenhouse gases sounds like magic and the evidence for “global warming” is of little value. Those who talk about global warming claim a 0.5 C (1 F) increase in what they call the global average temperature indicates the earth is getting warmer. You don’t have to be a mathematician or physicist to recognize that one temperature cannot represent every place on earth from frigid polar regions to blazing deserts. Nor can a single temperature represent year round conditions in temperate...

Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto described Pakistan on Saturday as a pressure cooker about to explode, as President Pervez Musharraf's government tightened screws on media by ordering out three British journalists. Having invoked emergency powers a week ago, General Musharraf has sacked most of the country's judges, put senior ones under house arrest, and ordered police to round up most of the opposition leadership and anyone else deemed troublesome. He has also placed curbs on media. Private news channels are off the air and transmissions of BBC and CNN have been blocked, though newspapers are publishing freely. "Pakistan under dictatorship is...

Terry Leonard has been named the new top editor at Stars and Stripes. Acting publisher Max Lederer announced Wednesday that Leonard had been selected as editorial director. Leonard, who is currently the Southern Africa bureau chief for The Associated Press, replaces Dave Mazzarella, who retired as Stripes editor earlier this year and began his second stint as the newspaper’s ombudsman. During his more than 30 years as a journalist, Leonard has covered the Gulf War and Somalia, Lederer said in a Wednesday e-mail to the Stripes staff. "Terry brings to [Stars and Stripes] a seasoned journalist who has walked in...

WHAT THE MEDIA SOMEHOW MISSED .... CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHY Retired Army General Ricardo Sanchez made a speech to the military reporters and editors in Washington DC last Friday. The media was quick to quote General Sanchez .. but only selectively. You can read the text of General Sanchez' speech right here. http://www.militaryreporters.org/sanchez_101207.html I urge you to do so. After Sanchez finished the speech the reporters couldn't wait to share with the American people his assessment of the war in Iraq. To put it gently, his assessment wasn't mild. Try this quote: "There has been a glaring, unfortunate, display of...

Istanbul, 11 Oct. (AKI) - Turkish newspaper editor Arat Dink and newspaper owner Serkis Seropyan have been found guilty of "insulting Turkishness" under the country's controversial penal code. Dink, the son of the murdered journalist Hrant Dink, is executive editor of the Armenian weekly, Agos, in Istanbul. His father, Hrant Dink, former editor in chief of the same newspaper was murdered, allegedly by ultranationalist Ogun Samst in January this year. The murder trial is continuing. Dink and Seropyan were charged for republishing an interview Hrant Dink gave to British press agency Reuters in July 2006. In the interview Dink referred...

When the history of Vladimir Putin’s first decade in national politics is written, it will read like pulp fiction. One moment in the spring of 1997 he’s an unknown KGB spy plagiarizing his thesis at an obscure institute; the next he’s deputy chief of staff to Boris Yeltsin, and soon after that boss of the entire KGB. Within months of reaching that pinnacle, Russia’s leading human rights activist, legislator Galina Starovoitova, is shot dead, and a prosecutorial investigation into Kremlin corruption has been squashed by the revelation of the prosecutor, Yuri Skuratov, on secret sex tapes. No sooner has this...

Journalists' Protection Bill Passes Senate Judiciary: Are Bloggers Covered?By Scott M. Fulton, III, BetaNews October 5, 2007, 3:57 PM A bill attempting to reconcile a journalist's right to protect its sources with the federal government's need to know timely and critical information, passed the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, but not without more exceptions having been added to the original House version. Still, the bill continues to define journalists rather loosely, leading some to believe federal protection could yet extend to independent, often solo bloggers. Specifically, S. 2035, the Free Flow of Information Act, doesn't even use the word "journalist." Instead...

So much for that Code of Ethics promoted by the Society of Professional Journalists. The group undermined its own code by holding an entirely eco-friendly session on climate change. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told a group at the 2007 Washington, D.C., conference on October 4 one of the things that made the SPJ great is its Code of Ethics. But the code didn't come into play during the hour-long October 5 program at the convention entitled "Climate Change Affects Every Beat." The event had three panelists: Larry Evans, managing editor of Daily Environmental Report; Judi Greenwald, director of innovative solutions...

Guest of President Ahmadinejad Michael Rubin We live in a time when journalists want to be news, rather than report it. It wasn't too much of a surprise, then, when head table journalists at the National Press Club wanted to stand up and be recognized by name prior to the Ahmadinejad speech. What was a bit surprising was that one head table member, Kaveh Afrasiabi, was introduced as Ahmadinejad's guest. Hmm. Afrasiabi has contributed several op-eds to and published several letter in the New York Times. Each has forwarded the canard that if only Washington were more generous with the...

Remember the good old days of the 2004 election season, when the Bush campaign would hold “public” events that were stocked with rabid Bush supporters, and anyone who didn’t unflinchingly back the president was escorted out of the event, or denied entry? Well, something akin to those good old days went down last week when the White House extended its first ever invitation to a group of bloggers to sit down with the president for a little Q&A. Like those old campaign events, or like other similar sit-downs the president has had with conservative reporters, the reason for the meeting...

During a heated interview over the Iraq war on ThursdayÂ’s "The Situation Room" with substitute host Suzanne Malveaux, White House press secretary Tony Snow went on the offensive against the mainstream media. In response to a question from Malveaux about how President Bush could "regain credibility" with the American people about the success of the troop surge in Iraq, Snow replied, "Well, you know what Suzanne, your credibility rating -- journalistsÂ’ credibility ratings are lower than the PresidentÂ’s." The most heated exchange came in the last three minutes of the 5pm EDT hour interview. Malveaux brought up the results of...

The problem is that too many politicians have access to classified data, and too many of them cannot resist the temptation to use that stuff for political gain. Too many are leaking too much and getting lots of people killed.

KANDAHAR -- Journalists travelling with the Canadian Forces will be required to wear military dog tags to identify them if they are injured or killed, Canada's top commander here said Monday. The new policy is part of a series of measures designed to remind the media of the risks of operating in this war-ravaged country. "We're not trying to restrain the freedom of movement of the media or their access to convoys, but we want to be assured that they understand the nature of the beast," said Brig.-Gen. Guy Laroche, Canada's top-ranking officer in Afghanistan. Over a dozen journalists from...

Fooled by Winds of Reform Camelia Entekhabifard On many early mornings in Tehran, my uncle Ali would bang on our door to deliver large heaps of mammoth mushrooms from the mountain of Shemiran. Every summer and early autumn when I saw thunderstorms gathering in the sky, I knew we would have giant bunches of wild, tasty mushrooms the following day. My uncle believed that the storms pushed the mushrooms up from beneath the mountain’s numerous stones. Mushroom hunters like Ali would wake up early the next morning to go after those fresh, juicy mushrooms and cut off their heads. As...

World Community Condemns Iran's Intolerance of Free Press August 21, 2007 U.S. Department of State Eric Green Washington -- The July 16 sentencing to death of two Iranian journalists is another example of what is viewed as the Iranian regime’s “intolerance” for the expression of independent views. A number of global human rights groups have joined the U.S. State Department’s condemnation of the Iranian government for handing out the death sentences to journalists Adnan Hassanpour and Abdolvahed Butimar. The State Department says the death sentences mark an intensification of the Iranian regime’s campaign against a free press in the country....

The notion that journalists shouldn't vote is... Noble Stupid

Ban Ki-Moon Asked To Intercede On Behalf Of Two Journalists Under Sentence Of Death August 14, 2007 Reporters Without Borders RSF Reporters Without Borders wrote yesterday to United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon urging him to intercede in the case of Adnan Hassanpour and Abdolvahed Botimar, two journalists who were sentenced to death on 16 July, and to ask the Islamic Republic of Iran to adhere to the international treaties it has signed concerning civil and political rights. “Their most basic rights were violated as they were barred from court when the sentence was handed down,” the letter said. “Even more...

It is a hard thing to defend the American media. Even when they are right and even when they badly need defending. In large part, that’s because press hypocrisy is so striking. Journalists demand two sets of rules: one for themselves, one for everyone else. They claim monopoly over the dark corners where their sources and sometimes deceptive intelligence-gathering practices must be shielded from public scrutiny. Everyone else -- even those upholding not the public’s dubious “right to know” but its constitutional right to life -- are expected by the selfsame media to operate in the sunshine.

Budgets are trimmed, coverage is more perilous—and ratings are falling In late June, a suicide bomber breached security at the Baghdad hotel where the CBS News bureau is housed. The bomber’s target: Sunni sheiks meeting in the lobby. The bomb decimated the lobby and tore through the first floor. The bomber and 12 others were killed; many more were injured, including a CBS employee. Lara Logan, CBS News’ chief foreign correspondent, was on the second floor of the hotel at the time. The bomb, she recalls, "blew up underneath me." It also blew a hole in the psyche of the...

Bernard Shaw, the veteran journalist who retired as CNN anchor in 2000, struck out at unnamed media owners who are "sabotaging the public good" with their "profit fixations," and, as he accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award Saturday night from the National Association of Black Journalists, warned white males that they ignore diversity at their peril. "Journalists, hear me tonight," Shaw told an awards banquet audience at the NABJ convention in Bally's hotel in Las Vegas. "There are some owners in the business — bosses, parent companies — whose profit fixation and staffing directives and decisions sabotage the public good they...

Las Vegas - The two leading Democratic candidates for president came to the sweltering desert last week to address nagging questions of race.Essentially, both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama had to answer whether each was "black enough" to win the support of a majority of African-American voters in November 2008. It may seem a peculiar question for any political candidate to face, particularly for Obama, the child of a white mother and black African father. But it's also a tricky line of inquiry for Clinton, whose husband gained such a mythical stature in the some segments of the black...

A 100-square metre flag is unfuried on a Paris bridge Reporters Without Borders staged events around the world to denounce the appalling human rights situation in China as the organisers of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the International Olympic Committee today gathered in Tiananmen Square in a ceremony exactly one year ahead of the opening of the games. In Paris, a 100-square-metre flag showing the Olympic rings transformed into handcuffs was unfurled today by Reporters Without Borders activists along one of the bridges over the Seine. This graphic, together with the words “Beijing 2008,” was also displayed on an...

Paris, 5 Aug. (IPS) The wave of executions in the Islamic Republic of Iranian has now reached the Iranian media, as on 16 July 2007, two Kurdish journalists, Mr. Adnan Hassanpour and Mr. Abdolvahed (Hiva) Boutimar were sentenced to death by an Islamic tribunal in Marivan, a Kurdish city in the north-west Iran. They are to be brought to the scaffold in the coming days. Judiciary spokesman, Mr. Ali Reza Jamshidi, confirmed that these two journalists have been sentenced to death, state media reported on Tuesday, 31 of July. At a trial behind closed doors, the journalists were found guilty...

Washington -- Legislation that would protect journalists from being forced to reveal confidential sources advanced in the House of Representatives Wednesday, despite continued opposition from Justice Department officials who warn it would hamper some criminal investigations. The bill, which the House Judiciary Committee approved by a voice vote, would shield reporters from court orders compelling them to disclose their sources, except in limited cases, such as when there is "significant" harm to national security. Supporters of the measure, including more than 40 media organizations, cheered the Judiciary panel's vote, which moves the measure one step closer to House passage. Similar...

Death verdicts for Iran reporters July 31, 2007 Iran has sentenced two dissident journalists from its ethnic Kurdish minority for being "enemies of God". Rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF), says Adnan Hassanpour and Hiva Boutimar were sentenced by a court in the eastern city of Marivan. The two journalists have 20 days to appeal against their sentences, but if their cases are rejected by the Supreme Court the sentence will be carried out. Iran has executed over 100 people so far in 2007, most of them by hanging. A spokesman for the Iranian judiciary said that the two journalists...

Two years ago CBS News anchor Dan Rather used falsified documents in his ill-fated Texas National Guard story. For that miscue they ran him out of Dodge and took away his six-shooter. A mere 10 months after she took over, Katie Couric now faces a similar fate. When Katie made her debut on September 5, over 13 million people tuned in. Now, she's lucky if she can pull in 6 million on a given night, leaving CBS News a distant third behind ABC's Charles Gibson and NBC's Brian Williams. "I've gone through a bit of a feeding frenzy and there's...

MEXICO CITY, July 13 -- The San Antonio Express-News, a 230,000-circulation daily, this week withdrew its U.S.-Mexico border reporter after learning of what appears to be an unprecedented plan to assassinate American journalists who frequently write about drug cartels in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Sources have told several Texas newspapers that hit men from Los Zetas, a group of former Mexican military officers who operate as the Gulf cartel's assassins, may have been hired to cross into the United States and execute American reporters. Word of the threat shattered the widely held perception here that foreign journalists are somehow shielded from...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A drug gang has threatened to kill foreign journalists who report on the violence between rival cartels and security forces along the U.S.-Mexico border, media and U.S. officials said on Friday. Mexico's cocaine smuggling Gulf Cartel has allegedly planned to hire gunmen to kill foreign journalists working in the crime-torn Mexican city of Nuevo Laredo, on the border with Texas. In response, two Texas-based newspapers have pulled their reporters from the city.

Thursday’s edition of "Good Morning America" featured a Diane Sawyer anecdote that unintentionally revealed the low opinion Americans have of journalists. After wrapping up a July 12 segment on a Massachusetts man who is in trouble for attempting to avoid jury duty, the ABC co-host recounted the "hurtful" experience she had in a courtroom:Video (0:55): Real (1.51) or Windows (1.71 MB), plus MP3 Audio (607kB)  7:34am[Wrap up of segment on getting out of jury duty.]Diane Sawyer: "You know, I wanted to sit on a jury once and I was taken off the jury. And the judge said to me, 'Can,...

Nearly nine out of 10 journalists who made political donations gave to Democrats or left-wing groups, according to a bombshell new investigation into media bias - and perhaps the most shocking name on the list was the writer of "The Ethicist" column for The New York Times. The probe by MSNBC investigative reporter Bill Dedman revealed the names of 144 employees - reporters, editors, producers - from media organizations nationwide who have lined the candidates' pockets since '04. Underscoring the leftward tilt of the press, 125 of the workers, or 87 percent, ponied up only to Democrats and liberal causes,...