Free Republic

<p>The Obama campaign's press strategy leading up to his election last November focused on "making" the media cover what the campaign wanted and on exercising absolute "control" over coverage, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn told an overseas crowd early this year.</p>

Demonstrating the media never tire in coming up with new rationales to tout President Barack Obama's popularity, ABC led Monday night with a poll timed to the night before Tuesday's nine-month mark of the Obama presidency -- as if that's some kind of important anniversary, and spent as much time on how it found record low affinity for Republicans. Anchor Charles Gibson announced “the President has a 57 percent approval rating, his rating rising for the first time since April. And only 20 percent of the country now consider themselves Republican. That is the lowest level of support in 26...

<p>TEL AVIV – President Obama's presidential campaign focused on "making" the news media cover certain issues while rarely communicating anything to the press unless it was "controlled," White House Communications Director Anita Dunn disclosed to the Dominican government at a videotaped conference.</p>

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Bush administration says it's treating CBS New as a political opponent, and executives at the top-rated news network are responding that the White House can't tell straight reporting from opinion. White House communications director Karen Hughes recently told Time magazine that she thinks CBS offers "opinion journalism masquerading as news," and kept up the criticism on CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday and in The New York Times Monday. CBS News president Sean McManus issued a statement Monday, saying: "It's astounding the White House can't distinguish between news and opinion programming. It seems self-serving on their part." And...

Can one even imagine CNN fact checking any of the skits SNL on President Bush or Sarah Palin?? Heaven forbid SNL finally make fun of President Obama. CNN couldn't help themselves. They actually fact checked the jokes. Let’s bring in CNN's Kareen Wynter. She’s checking the facts for us. All right, Kareen, what are you finding out? KAREEN WYNTER: Hi there, Wolf. Well, some observers say- sure, we are just talking comedy here, but that, on many points- well, SNL couldn’t have been more off the mark. WYNTER (voice-over): A cold open for the country’s commander-in-chief. FRED ARMISEN (as Barack...

CNN is receiving criticism, of many different kinds from many different places, for a segment Monday on "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer." The segment "fact-checked" a Saturday Night Live sketch. The sketch, which has been deemed the show's first viral hit of the season, cataloged Pres. Obama's supposed lack of accomplishments. The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto called the idea "a bizarre exercise." The Baltimore Sun's David Zurawik wrote, "Fact checking a comedy sketch -- I will say no more." FNC's Greg Gutfeld showed the clip on Red Eye and joked, "Seriously, reviewing an 'SNL' skit for accuracy is...

<p>Those who read the New York Times's coverage of the unsuccessful results of Barack and Michelle Obama's attempt to seal the 2016 Summer Olympics bid for Chicago on Friday afternoon ('For Obama, an Unsuccessful Campaign") might want to read it again.</p>

When Hell freezes over five times in succession and rhinoceri write sonnets on Pluto, the Washington Post's Robin Givhan will stop writing love letters to Michelle Obama. Here the Obamas broke precedent and put the prestige of the presidency on the line, as well as ignoring much more pressing problems at home, all for a spectacularly unsuccessful and remarkably narcissistic effort to secure the Olympics for the Chicago Way, and all Givhan can do is gush about how wonderfully Michelle Obama had performed anyway. Givhan wrote that the First Lady "was her team's most valuable player." And, quoting others, ""She...

Reviewing September's detailed sales results in the car business carried at the Wall Street Journal, three things stick out immediately: The awful performance at General Motors -- down 45% from September 2008. Chrysler's even worse performance -- down "only" 42% from September 2008, but a mind-boggling 61% from September 2007 (62,197 in 2009, 156,799 in 2007) Ford's tiny decline of only 6% from a year ago, despite the end of the Cash For Clunkers program in August. No other major maker had a year-over-year September decline that was even half of that seen at GM or Chrysler. Yet the...

A few weeks ago Washington Post Managing Editor Raju Narisetti rued in this tweet via his Twitter account: “We can incur all sorts of federal deficits for wars and what not. But we have to promise not to increase it by $1 for healthcare reform? Sad.” Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander cited the tweet in a Friday night blog post about how the newspaper has issued new guidelines, on the use of social network sites, which state “nothing we do must call into question the impartiality of our news judgment.” That forced Narisetti to close his Twitter account. Alexander recounted:...

To Bob Woodward, it was the modern-day equivalent of the Pentagon Papers. But to Obama administration officials, the classified assessment of the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan represented, if published by The Washington Post, a potential threat to the safety of U.S. troops. The result was that The Post agreed to a one-day delay in publishing the report by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, and that the paper's top editor engaged in a lengthy discussion Sunday with three top Defense Department officials in a meeting at the Pentagon... Woodward said in an interview Tuesday...

Kudos to Jon Stewart, who doesn’t sugar-coat the embarrassment at all — to the apparent delight of his audience, who get kudos of their own. How can the national news media ignore the many allegations of corruption at ACORN, which gets millions of dollars in federal funding, and allow a couple of independents with $3,000 and a bad wardrobe scoop them on the undercover story of the year? It’s easy when newsrooms are more concerned with political direction than truth. Stick around to the end, when Stewart zings Michelle Malkin haters:

Is the ACORN scandal worthy of national broadcast news coverage? ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson suggested Tuesday that the answer is no.But Gibson told a radio show Tuesday morning that he wasn't even familiar with the story — and it might be "just one you leave to the cables." ABC reporter Jake Tapper has filed some reports on the scandal, and Gibson was asked on WLS Radio's "Don & Roma Show" what he thought of the story. "I don't even know about it," Gibson said, laughing. "So you've got me at a loss. ... But my goodness, if it's got...

I knew the media were out of touch with the American people. I've known it for 25 years. It's why I do what I do. It's why I created WND. It's why I wrote the book, "Stop the Presses: The Inside Story of the New Media Revolution." It's why I have devoted my life to reminding my colleagues and others about the critical role of the free press in a free society. Nevertheless, even I was shocked at the abysmal, inexcusable non-coverage of the massive rally and march in Washington this weekend to protest government's abusive and unconstitutional excesses and...

Gee! Guess where a reporter is coming from if he uses the vulgar and childish term "tea-bagger" when referring to tea party protestors?Anderson Cooper was among the first "journalists" who used the "tea bagging" term back in April. Despite his initial glee over injecting "tea bagging" as often as possible into his comments on the tea party protests, Cooper was eventually forced to apologize for his highly unprofessional use of that term. Although the use of "tea bagger" has now become generally recognized as the mark of liberal unprofessionalism it does keep creeping back into stories such as a few...

A top editor at the New York Times this week owned up to the paper’s lack of coverage of the controversy surrounding former Green Jobs Czar Van Jones. Rather than leaving it there, however, the editor noted the paper’s minimal online coverage, insisted that the Washington bureau was short-staffed, and suggested that Jones and his contentious positions really were not important enough to cover at length.

The Washington Post on Wednesday expanded its attack on Virginia gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell, branching out beyond the Republican’s 1989 master’s thesis to a hit piece on the removal of a 2003 judge and whether or not it was because of homophobia on the part of the then-state delegate. The story centered around Verbena M. Askew, a Virginia judge who had been accused of sexually harassing a female colleague. Post reporter Amy Gardner, who has written or co-written four of the Post’s 12 anti-McDonnell articles that have run over the last 11 days, stated that the 2003 removal of Askew...

Most of the major news outlets, like The New York Times and The Washington Post, ignored the swelling heat surrounding former White House environmental adviser Van Jones and the videos surfacing of his controversial statements. CBS News became the first of the three broadcast networks on Friday to note the controversy, but ABC's "World News" and "NBC Nightly News" again failed to report the story. After Jones' midnight resignation over the weekend, all three networks aired the story on their Sunday evening newscasts. The Washington Post offered its first story on Saturday yet The New York Times' print edition didn't...

Wikipedia claims, "A cult of personality arises when a country's leader uses mass media to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise." As this typically occurs in a totalitarian nation, that country's ruler, with complete control of the media, is able to mandate what images of him or herself are being disseminated thereby furthering his cult-like status. As Barack Obama did not become president until January 20 of this year, it seems irrefutable that his cult of personality was bestowed upon him by so-called journalists who in order to help him get elected abdicated...

We now have definitive proof that the Washington Post is intentionally generating in-kind contributions to the Creigh Deeds campaign in Virginia. Having taken out George Allen over his macaca comment, the Washington Post intends to politically assassinate Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell for his college thesis written over 20 years ago. How do we know? Because of their coverage of Green Jobs Czar Van Jones. The Washington Post has written exactly zero stories on Van Jones despite the very real and serious story — Barack Obama has hired, without congressional oversight, a man designated to spend $80 billion in tax...

Has the Washington Post found its new “macaca,” the journalistic storyline to steer Virginia voters away from a GOP candidate? In 2006, the District’s major paper printed a rash of stories recounting something then-Sen. George Allen said during a public event about an opponent‘s staffer. The paper used Allen’s use of the word “macaca” as a cudgel to bludgeon his re-election chances. And it worked. The stories blanketed the paper, from the historical derivations of the word “macaca” to Allen’s attempts to explain precisely what he meant. Here’s the Aug. 15, 2006 Washington Post article’s initial attempt to whip up...

AP story, go to link.

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- ABC is coming under fire for prohibiting a commercial that urges opposition to the pro-abortion government-run health care plan in Congress. The League of American Voters had planned to air the commercial that is already airing on other networks in 12 states. Bob Adams, the director of the group, told LifeNews.com he was "stunned" when he heard the news from his media buyer. "ABC television has banned our TV ad from airing on its network," he said. "With our success, we were planning to go national, so we sent the ad to the major networks." Adams...

Only one recently-wronged political wife—Elizabeth Edwards—has written a book discussing her ordeal. But in its segment today on "forgiveness," Good Morning America ignored John Edwards and his wandering ways. When it came to polyamorous politicans, ABC focused exclusively—surprise!—on two Republicans: Mark Sanford and David Vitter. The release of the Libyan Lockerbie murderer, the Manson murders anniversary and the re-entry into the NFL of Michael Vick were the jumping-off points for the segment. But when politics popped up, the only examples bore the GOP label . . . View video here.

The New York Times had another in a string of embarrassing moments this weekend, part of a steep descent for the "paper of record," much like that of President Obama's approval numbers. And neither seems to have bottomed yet. In reality, the Times' latest disaster is quite closely related to the Obama approval ratings free fall. A significant majority of Americans (54%-35%) ) now favor doing nothing as far as health care reform, if the alternative is one of the bills working its way through Congress,( each of which is a thousand page or more monstrosity, with untold consequences for...

A special spot in hell is reserved for the media whose shameless hypocrisy has sunk to new lows with their feigned indignation over health care town hall protests. Even as they currently bluster about 'astroturf' and shout down guests about shouting people down, these same Obama sycophants refused to condemn orchestrated disruptions aimed at the Bush administration, and, in some cases, may actually have conspired to execute them. According to Dante, the eighth circle of hell holds those who have committed conscious fraud or treachery -- such as the Media wing of the Democratic Party has been perpetrating. Perhaps most...

The New York Times is generally loathe to dignify conservative-leaning books with an official review. That stance is getting dicier these days, especially since the newspaper’s own nonfiction bestseller chart is chockablock with conservatives luminaries like Michelle Malkin, Dick Morris and Mark Levin. President Barack Obama has only been in office for roughly eight months, but he’s already inspired multiple conservative bestsellers. Malkin’s Culture of Corruption sits atop the list, followed by Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny in the two slot and Catastrophe by Morris and Eileen McGann at number four. Marji Ross, president and publisher of Regnery Publishing, isn’t surprised...

Let's make one thing perfectly clear: Barack Obama without his teleprompter is like a trapeze artist without a net. That was likely never more apparent than at the President's healthcare town hall meeting Tuesday when he actually said: I think private insurers should be able to compete. They do it all the time. I mean, if you think about, if you think about it, um, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. Right? The, uh, no they are. I mean, it's the post office that's always having problems. Yep. The supposedly most intelligent person ever to be in the White...

Dig this: Media actually probed other candidates Divulged personal documents on arrests, surgeries, colleges August 10, 2009 By Chelsea Schilling © 2009 WorldNetDaily In the last 18 years, highly personal information has been published about presidential candidates, including divorce and alimony details, drunk driving arrest records, college grades, urinalysis results, prostate cancer surgery – even details about George W. Bush's hemorrhoid troubles. The media have dredged up medical, military, college and detailed records for Republican and Democratic Party candidates in at least the last five elections. Candidates were subject to intense scrutiny of their health conditions, academic performance and military...

Obama too hands-off on health care?

Birth/Death Model Revisions After the typical in January in which the Birth/Death Model revisions bore some semblance of reality, the Birth/Death numbers remain in deep outer space. This month was closer to orbit however, as January and July are revision months. The BLS had a chance to catch up this month but did not. As usual their model added jobs. At this point in the cycle birth death numbers should have been massively contracting for months. The BLS is going to keep adding jobs through the entire recession in a complete display of incompetence. The Birth/Death numbers have been a...

Just haven't heard this being mentioned anywhere. But if the press was doing it's job and asking the tough questions of our officals and tough followup questions.

Mark Twain once said, "If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed." The latter might be true for those who rely on the national media for the facts. After six months in office, the national media are still telling us how popular President Obama is. That's the national media's spin. The facts tell a different story. A USA Today-Gallup poll found that nine of the last 11 presidents were more popular than President Obama after six months in office. A Rasmussen poll found the president's approval rating below 50%, with...

Derek Thompson over at the Atlantic seems to be a perfect example of blaming everyone and everything but Obama for the fact that the president’s ratings on his prime time TV pressers have steadily fallen since the first one. It can’t be Obama’s fault! It has to be other reasons. Why, Obama is da schnizzle,The One, the Obammessiah, dontcha know? Here is what Thompson says of the low ratings that Obama got for his last TV appearance to push his healthcare plan: Read the rest at Publiusforum.com...

RNC Chairman Michael Steele addresses the party in San Diego.

Thursday's edition of The New York Times goes out of its way to bury poll results that reflect a growing public backlash against President Obama's healthcare proposals

<p>Investigator: Palin May Have Violated Ethics Laws An independent investigator has found evidence that Gov. Sarah Palin may have violated ethics laws by accepting private donations to pay her legal debts.</p> <p>"All options are open in terms of legal remedies. It is a clear violation of Alaska law that Mr. Daniel explicitly reviewed with Ms. Chatman prior to her illegal actions. We will be contacting the appropriate authorities for review and action."</p>

The only time in my life as a broadcaster that I departed from impartial analysis was after 9/11, when I waxed lyrical about Donald Rumsfeld. He had united a fractured nation with his oft-hilarious press conferences. His wit and raw patriotism were an inspiration to many at home and to those of us suffering abroad in a fiercely anti-American world. However adoring the press was towards Rumsfeld, nothing equals in unctuousness a recent issue of Newsweek, “Obama on Obama.” Journalists are supposed to be impartial in reporting on the peregrinations of leaders. Little wonder I nearly dropped my pizza slice...

Whether you like her or hate her you have to admit that the treatment Sarah Palin received in the press has been unfair and unprofessional. So its no surprise that one of the reasons that Sarah Palin gave for her resignation last week was the horrible attacks she and her children have received from in the press. These attacks were not based on policy, from the very beginning they were personal. Here teenage daughter's pregnancy became press fodder, she was accused of not being the mother of her own child and Fox News token liberal Alan Colmes claimed that Sarah...

The world's most powerful media moguls are "very bearish" on the economy, but they don't seem to be blaming President Obama for the tough times, Rupert Murdoch says. Apart from Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, both owned by News Corp., the media "remains very supportive of him, perhaps not of all of his policies," Murdoch told Stuart Varney of Fox Business Network. Speaking during an interview with Varney on Thursday at the Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, the News Corp. chairman and CEO also criticized the stimulus bill that was supposed to have juiced the...

On AOL Politics Daily, long-time White House reporter Carl Cannon bluntly declared that the political press gave Sarah Palin a raw deal in the 2008 campaign, and seriously failed to scrutinize Joe Biden, especially his fact-mangling and odd statements in the vice presidential debate. Cannon summed up: In the 2008 election, we took sides, straight and simple, particularly with regard to the vice presidential race. I don't know that we played a decisive role in that campaign, and I'm not saying the better side lost. What I am saying is that we simply didn't hold Joe Biden to the same...

TV and Obama: mutual love affair By David Bauder July 6, 2009 Reporting from New York -- Even President Obama, a gleam in his eye as he talked at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Assn. dinner two weeks ago, seemed to recognize the special relationship he's forged with TV networks in the opening months of his administration. "A few nights ago, I was up tossing and turning and trying to figure out exactly what to say," he said. "Finally, when I couldn't get back to sleep, I rolled over and asked Brian Williams what he thought." The reference to the...

WashPost sells access, $25,000+ By: Mike Allen July 2, 2009 08:04 AM EST For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off the record, non-confrontational access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors. The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health-care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff." The offer—which essentially...

Media: They laugh at his jokes. They say he's the smartest guy in Congress. And 90% of them agree with him politically. Small wonder the havoc Barney Frank wreaks on the economy gets so little attention.America has its share of problems, to be sure. But one of the most pernicious is the bias that permeates the media. We've been saying this for years, noting how it leads to half-covered issues, an ill-informed populace and wretched legislation that dogs us for decades. Never, however, has it been as pervasive as now. Yes, the fact that the media are head over heels...

Krauthammer on Press/Obama: 'The Hot Sex is Over, They're In the Cigarette Stage' By Brent Baker Created 2009-06-27 15:53 NPR's Nina Totenberg scolded the more adversarial approach some in the White House press corps took to President Obama during Tuesday's press conference, but on Inside Washington this weekend columnist Charles Krauthammer rejected the notion the media's honeymoon is “over,” as he cracked: The hot sex is over, they're in the cigarette stage right now. You get a question or two that's slightly obstreperous, but the adulatory coverage is still all wall-to-wall. That's a comedic improvement over what he offered Tuesday...

"I’ve always been struck by how -- and it’s not too strong a word -- how obsessed the President and the White House are with Fox News." So said ABC's George Stephanopoulos during the Roundtable segment of Sunday's "This Week." I kid you not. With an on-screen chyron shockingly asking, "Free Media Ride For Obama?" the former member of the administration exceedingly paranoid of what it declared was a vast right-wing conspiracy actually discussed with his guests the fawning coverage the current White House resident is getting from the press.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Obama-Announces-Appointments-to-the-Presidents-Commission-on-White-House-Fellowships/ Tom Brokaw: Tom Brokaw is a Special Correspondent for NBC News. During 2008, he served as the Interim Moderator on Meet the Press. From 1982 to 2004, he served as the White House correspondent, the Chief Correspondent for Today, and the NBC Nightly News anchor. He has reported on 23 NBC News documentaries and authored five books, including The Greatest Generation and Boom! Talking About the Sixties. Also, Mr. Brokaw has served as an overseer for the International Rescue committee, a public trustee for the Mayo Clinic, member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a...

Reminiscent of Orwell’s book 1984, soon all television broadcasts may carry Dictator in Chief Barack Hussein Obama and his message all of the time. Joining NBC (the New Barack Channel), ABC (the All Barack Channel) will now begin broadcasting from the White House. We assume CBS (perhaps the Central Barack Station?) will follow its betters soon and announce that it too will officially become an Obama mouthpiece. By the way, no opposing viewpoints will be carried or allowed. ABC also plans to run a free-to-Obama campaign promoting the dictator’s healthcare plan. Does anyone at all remember the name Hugo Chavez?...

Just when you thought the propaganda from the NY Slimes could not get more loathsome and preposterous.

The blogosphere has, once again, proven itself a worthy investigator. Unsurprisingly, that same investigatory spirit is nearly nonexistent in the mainstream media. This morning on Fox and Friends, Michelle Malkin gave an interview on a story that she and HotAir have been following for several days (video embedded to the right). Apparently, many of the Chrysler dealers that have been chosen for closing have made a habit of donating money to Republicans, or nobody at all – and those who donate to Democrats are miraculously safe. Why is it miraculous?