Free Republic

An obscure November 2012 Wikileaks email dump points to former White House counterterrorism adviser and now-CIA chief John Brennan as the person behind the “witch hunt” of journalists who reported unflattering Obama administration leaks. A little over a week after President Barack Obama’s reelection, Wikileaks released an email dump of global intelligence files from the private intelligence company Stratfor. One particular email, dated September 21, 2010 discussed President Obama’s “Leak Investigations.”

On April 8, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi headlined a Boston conference on ''media reform.'' She was joined by four other congressmen, a senator, two FCC commissioners, a Nobel laureate and numerous liberal journalists. The 2,500-person event was sponsored by a group called Free Press, one of more than 180 different media-related organizations that receives money from liberal billionaire George Soros. Soros, who first made a name for himself in investing and currency trading, now makes his name in politics and policy. Since the 2004 election, the controversial financier has used his influence and billions to push a laundry list...

The inaccurate report by CNN and other news organizations about an arrest in the Boston bombing case was arguably one of the most flagrant errors on a story of major national consequence in years. When the news organizations later corrected their mistakes, there seemed to be something missing — any big shows of contrition, or even a sense of the magnitude of the error. It fell to Twitter and the merciless mockery of Jon Stewart, who devoted much of “The Daily Show” to skewering CNN’s John King, to call out the media for their failures. In an earlier era, many...

File this in the overflowing cabinet labeled: No Wonder the Mainstream Media Is Dying. On Tuesday, the Associated Press announced that it is banishing the phrase "illegal immigrant" from its famous stylebook. The world's largest newsgathering outlet now advises reporters that "illegal" will "only refer to an action, not a person." AP directs writers not to use the terms "illegal alien, an illegal, illegals or undocumented" anymore, except "in direct quotations." It won't be long before illegal border crossers, illegal visa overstayers, illegal deportation evaders, document fraudsters and illegal alien traffickers are all referred to as "our fellow Americans." Without...

In the book "Public Opinion", Walter Lippmann writes the following: (Page 355) It is a problem of provoking feeling in the reader, of inducing him to feel a sense of personal identification with the stories he is reading. News which does not offer this opportunity to introduce oneself into the struggle which it depicts cannot appeal to a wide audience. The audience must participate in the news, much as it participates in the drama, by personal identification. Just as everyone holds his breath when the heroine is in danger, as he helps Babe Ruth swing his bat, so in subtler...

It's most gratifying that people are beginning to wake up to the bullying tactics of the White House toward those in the press who occasionally stray from the government-owned media model, but this has been going on for a while. Veteran reporter Bob Woodward has said in interviews with Politico and CNN that a White House official warned him he would "regret" publishing a story reporting that the sequestration was President Obama's idea. "(The White House aide) yelled at me for about a half-hour," said Woodward. The aide later apologized to Woodward in an email and claimed he was...

By John Crewdson, Tribune senior correspondent. Reporting and research assistance was provided by Drew Crosby in Madrid MADRID -- The most sweeping criminal indictment to arise thus far from the Sept. 11 attacks reflects a quiet but dramatic change in understanding by investigators here and across Europe of the terrorist organization known as Al Qaeda, and the international Islamic radical-terrorist network of which, they now agree, it is merely a part. As laid out in the indictment, the defendants' alleged activities--from arranging travel and providing introductions to procuring false documents and, especially, moving money--provide the first detailed look at one...

Sports Illustrated has come to my mailbox for nearly 40 years. I hope it comes for 40 more. But I also hope whomever is assigning the stories in the future begins to think more about the readers than their political and social agendas. Super Bowl week featured a cover of a praying Ray Lewis rising from the water, and a cover story by New York Times’ religion columnist Mark Oppenheimer on Christians in the NFL. The story was enough to cause PJMedia writer Andrew Klavan to declare he would not renew his SI subscription, and most serious Christian athletes are...

Whittaker Chambers and Totalitarian Islam Playwright David Mamet recently acknowledged that he had been profoundly influenced by Communist apostate Whittaker Chambers’s 1952 anti-Communist memoir, Witness. Mamet described how reading Chambers’s opus inspired “the wrenching experience” of forcibly reevaluating the way he thought, particularly his confessed leftist-herd co-dependence. Also, echoing the delusive herd mentality of the Left’s ad hominem attacks in the 1950s on Chambers — whose allegations of Communist conspiracies have been entirely vindicated with irrefragable documentation from the captured Soviet Venona cables — Congressman Peter King’s staid initial hearings of March 10, 2011, on American Muslim radicalization engendered similarly...

The federal government is, in practice, a one-party state controlled by an oligarchy, which is a relatively small group, composed of financiers, politicians and journalists. Written by Lawrence Sellin The oligarchy is roughly divided into two types of individuals: ideologues and pragmatists. Ideologues are adherents to uncompromising and dogmatic policies and are determined and unyielding in achieving their goals. Pragmatists have no solid core principles and will adjust their political positions for the purpose of remaining accepted members of the oligarchy. The ideologues always drive the political agenda, which is only moderated or delayed when met by sufficient resistance. Think...

New effort by James O'Keefe

The media agenda against guns is nothing new. But recent mass shootings have encouraged supposedly neutral journalists to push for gun regulation instead of reporting the facts surrounding the tragedies. One thing the media seldom mention is that both the Newtown and Aurora shootings occurred in gun free zones. In the Clackamas Town Center Shooting in Oregon, however, a gunman was stopped when someone with a concealed carry permit intervened. There were only two casualties in this shooting which received little media attention. If this incident was mentioned, the concealed carry part of the story was almost completely ignored. Some...

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...

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman Thursday launched a fierce attack against journalists in general, and Channel 10 and Yediot Aharonot in particular, according to a report in media news website Ice. Speaking at a conference in Tel Aviv, Lieberman said that some journalists in Israel serve an agenda, and are "liars without limits." Channel 10, said Lieberman, is trying to influence the outcome of the investigation against him. "Channel 10 blackmails and places unreasonable pressure on all of the decision makers in my case," he explained. "Anyone who tries to be objective is simply threatened by them." He also singled out...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli airstrikes killed three Palestinian journalists in their cars Tuesday, a Gaza health official and the head of the Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV said. Israel acknowledged targeting the men, claiming they had ties to militants. The strikes came on the seventh day of Israel's offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers. A number of journalists have been killed over the years while covering fighting between the Jewish state and the Palestinian militant group, but not in targeted strikes Israel acknowledged. Two of those killed were cameramen working for Al Aqsa TV, the centerpiece of a growing...

Sick of the elections yet? So is four-year-old Abigael Evans from Colorado. Her mother, Elizabeth Evans, 27, posted a Youtube video of her daughter saying that she is tired of "Bronco Bamma and Mitt Romney." The 22-second YouTube clip, published yesterday, shows the little girl with a frown on her face and tears rolling down her cheeks, telling her mother she is tired of this election. Elizabeth Evans told ABC News that her daughter got emotional listening to NPR.

Newsweek plans to end its print publication after 80 years and will shift to an all-digital format aimed at online users starting in early 2013. Job cuts are expected. Newsweek's last U.S. print edition will be its Dec. 31 issue.

As he tries to engineer a comeback in this week's presidential debate, President Barack Obama needs to recognize two things. First, when it comes to politics, Mitt Romney treats himself as a product, not a person. Second, Republicans cannot defend their proposals in terms that are acceptable to a majority of voters. Romney, Ryan and the entire right know that their most deeply held belief – the one on which they won't compromise – is rejected by the vast majority of Americans. That's their faith that every problem in the economy and in society can be solved by throwing more...

Truth wins out. So much for the freelance Mukhabarat’s efforts at squelching Pamela Geller’s voice. For more on the arrest of a former Guardian journalist-shocking, I know-who’s as conversant with the 1st Amendment as Barack Obama is with comparative religion and American history, check out updated coverage from Jihad Watch which includes the New York Post article and the video detailing my friend’s gutsy tutorial in expressive advocacy and constitutionally protected speech. Is this what progressive Islam looks like? Count me out. Hat Tip: Vigilant Squirrel Brigade.

A recent Gallup survey reports Americans are increasingly frustrated with the quality of television news. Only 21 percent of Americans now express “a great deal” of confidence in television news. That is the lowest score ever, dropping from the 46 percent level when Gallup started asking this question in 1993. Declines in confidence are found across all age groups and political affiliations. Given the recent performance of TV news, further deterioration in confidence is inevitable. ABC’s Brian Ross jumped to conclusions and suggested a link between the Aurora movie shooter and the tea party. NBC’s unprofessional editing of the George...