Free Republic

Remember what I wrote last week about the McCain campaign pulling back the curtain and finally allowing the press and the public to interact, however fleetingly, with its long-sequestered vice-presidential nominee? Um, nevermind. Knowing that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is currently visiting Manhattan, Father of Stumper a . . . .

Folks, please excuse this vanity. It's my hope that my thoughts here will appeal to many of you, and more importantly, we can get some political mileage out of it, effecting change, if we came together on this. Many of us have spent years on this forum watching the media march right into the tank for the DNC. Today it's no longer a secret to any thinking individual that the major media outlets have shed all pretenses of being fair and balanced. What FoxNews heralded years ago as something of a quasi marketing ploy, is now the sad unabashed reality....

Can someone please start a thread on all the Palin rumors that are coming out. Include any references that show the rumors to be false. It would be great if we could have this all at one spot to work on. Thanks!

McCain presidential campaign strategist Steve Schmidt went on the record with the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz today, revealing the depths to which the mainstream media has sunk in their efforts to destroy the family of Republican vice presidential pick Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.Schmidt said that the campaign has been deluged with demands from reporters that the Palin family submit to DNA testing to assuage baseless rumors promulgated by the Democratic party's favorite website, the Daily Kos.Schmidt accused the media of being "on a mission to destroy" Sarah Palin.Kurtz writes that Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the Daily Kos, believes the...

With media stocks plummeting, a noisy army of pundits is predicting the imminent extinction of print newspapers and magazines. I hope they're wrong--for two reasons. The obvious reason is self-interest: If freebie blogs and news aggregators kill off the National Post and its ilk, then I'm going to have to go back to my high school job, manning the drive-thru at McDonald's. But I have a more noble reason, too: a genuine, altruistic desire for an educated citizenry. Not to be old-fashioned, but there are certain kinds of important stories that simply cannot be covered, except by deep-pocketed traditional media...

CNN’s chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour, reporting on Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin on Thursday’s “The Situation Room,” expressed her shock that the European crowd didn’t seem to have the same mania for the Democrat that the media has: “I did ask some people as they were leaving what they thought. Everybody said good, good. But I was surprised that there wasn't this sort of euphoria afterwards, given how many people had come to listen and how much it had been anticipated.” She later stated in the segment that one unnamed political analyst talked about how “people [in Europe] want...

The White House press corps is having a crisis. It may not interest the rest of the country much, but the problems in the Fourth Estate will, in due time, impact the nature and the completeness of White House coverage. The ostensible trigger to the current crisis involves the so-called pool reports by members of the print media traveling with the president. But there are deeper problems with the way the presidency is covered by the media.

In some ways, Barack Obama's speech on race last week was as brilliant as it was nuanced. But for all its rhetorical beauty, it was also an enormous step backward and, in the end, a rather self-serving call for more discussion about racial grievance in a country that has already done way too much talking. Until last week, so much of Obama's appeal lay in the fact that he was not asking us to talk about the racial divide. Instead, he offered himself as a living and breathing symbol of racial reconciliation; his very origins pointed to the goal of...

Some 50 delegates were reportedly poised to unite behind Barack Obama if he had won by even 1 point in Texas. He lost the popular vote by 100,000 ballots, and now we learn that 100,000 Republicans voted for Hillary Clinton, probably not because of some change in party allegiance but because they thought she would be the easier candidate to beat. This kind of strategic voting often backfires (think Ralph Nader). The Texas crossovers are winners. By helping to prolong the Democratic race, they can claim credit for weakening the eventual nominee, whoever it turns out to be. Obama has...

Those of us who have been participating in the Eliot Spitzer Media Waiting Game -- halting our respitory activity in anticipation of the Jurassic Press actually ascribing Party affiliation to the recently resigned Big Apple Governor -- can finally breathe easy. The Agence-France Presse and Yahoo! have teamed up to finally do what's right. Only they do it so VERY wrong. Eliot Spitzer (R) holds a news conference in New York City with his wife Silda by his side

1. We expect promises of change from Democratic candidates, but it's disappointing to watch certain Republican candidates yield to that superficially seductive sound bite, too. It's like the global-warming freight train, which few politicians have displayed the guts and character not to board. 2. It's disappointing to watch candidates from both parties accept the premise that criticizing your opponents' records and pointing out their inconsistencies and lies is engaging in dirty politics. It is not dirty but obligatory to draw distinctions between you and your opponents. Dirty politics is distorting one's record or spreading lies about a candidate. Why do...

Less than three months after he left his post as the White House’s deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove has agreed to become a Newsweek contributor and will pen opinion pieces for the magazine and its Web site. Rove will turn out several columns on the 2008 campaign up until inauguration day, according to the Washington Post. In a statement, Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham said: “Newsweek has a long tradition of asking practitioners and opinion-makers to offer our readers the benefits of their experience in occasional opinion essays. “Whether one agrees or disagrees with Karl, there is no arguing that...

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...

In September, I posted another vanity (linked below) in which I observed that the historical trends in this election favored Fred Thompson. Since then, his RCP average has dropped from about 22% to 16-17%. In the more volatile Rasmussen daily tracking poll, he has also dropped to 16%, about a 10 point drop from his post announcement high. In light of the above poll numbers, is it time for me to issue a mea culpa? No. This is not at all inconsistent with the hypothesis of my previous post. Neither of the successful insurgent candidates in modern times, Reagan or...

The papers this morning were full of the revelation in a BBC documentary that the Queen had had a hissy fit and stormed out of a photo-shoot with the photographer Annie Leibowitz. As the Times reported: The Queen offered a rare, public display of displeasure when she sat for Leibovitz, who is famed for her Vanity Fair photographs of stars such as a pregnant Demi Moore in the nude. A camera crew was invited to film the encounter for a fly-on-the-wall BBC One series, A Year with the Queen, made by the production company behind Wife Swap. The portrait was...

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - After a month of hoopla and intense competition spurred by the arrival of Katie Couric, the evening news race has settled back into a familiar pattern: NBC first, ABC second and CBS in third place. "NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams" won last week's derby with 8.5 million viewers -- its highest weekly average since late August, and its 114th victory in the past 118 weeks. It was followed by ABC's "World News With Charles Gibson" (8 million) and "CBS Evening News With Katie Couric" (7 million). There was some good news for CBS, however....

Feb 11, 2002Pentagon Spokesmen Say Soldiers Justified in Barring Reporter From Attack Scene By Matt KelleyAssociated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon said Monday that U.S. soldiers were justified in keeping a newspaper reporter away from the scene of a deadly U.S. missile strike in Afghanistan. The officials said they didn't know if soldiers had threatened to shoot Washington Post reporter Doug Struck, as the Post reported. "We don't know the circumstances of what happened on the spot," Defense Department spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said at a news briefing. The newspaper reported Monday that U.S. soldiers held Struck at ...

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday denied a report that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, is under investigation by the FBI in connection with a corruption probe.ABC News, citing high level Justice Department sources, said information implicating Hastert had been developed from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government.But department officials, who asked to not be identified, said the story was not accurate and that Hastert was not under investigation. "The story is wrong. Hastert is not under investigation," one official said.

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

NEW YORK Saturday night’s much-awaited White House Correspondents Dinner, featuring appearances by President Bush, George Clooney and Valerie Plame, among others, kicked off with a round of cocktail parties scattered over two floors at the Washington Hilton. At the Reuters’ party you could get a drink called The Cheney Shot—made with Wild Turkey. Over 2700 attendees were expected. Jeff "Skunk" Baxter of the Doobie Brothers, a guest of The Washington Times, was dressed in a kilt. About 15 protestors from the conservative Web site Free Republic raised a fuss outside on a sunny evening, passing out baby pacifiers with “CNN”...

The Bush administration, seeking to limit leaks of classified information, has launched initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources. The efforts include several FBI probes, a polygraph investigation inside the CIA and a warning from the Justice Department that reporters could be prosecuted under espionage laws. In recent weeks, dozens of employees at the CIA, the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies have been interviewed by agents from the FBI's Washington field office, who are investigating possible leaks that led to reports about secret CIA prisons and the NSA's warrantless domestic surveillance program, according to law enforcement and...

An FBI sweep launched in Puerto Rico to prevent a "domestic terrorist attack" is eliciting widespread outrage on the island - and as far away as New York City - with critics accusing the agency of trying to use terrorism as a guise to turn public opinion against Puerto Rico's independence movement. The Friday morning raid on the U.S. commonwealth, which targeted five private homes and one business, was launched to prevent attacks from the Boricua Popular Army, the FBI said. The special agent in charge of the San Juan Division of the FBI, Luis Fraticelli, said the searches were...

The mainstream U.S. media outlets have failed to report a major terrorist plot against the U.S. - because it would tend to support President Bush's use of NSA domestic surveillance, according to media watchdog groups. News of a planned attack masterminded by three Algerians operating out of Italy was widely reported outside the U.S., but went virtually unreported in the American media. Italian authorities recently announced that they had used wiretaps to uncover the conspiracy to conduct a series of major attacks inside the U.S. Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said the planned attacks would have targeted stadiums, ships and...

Amanpour Unaware Of Eavesdropping Responding to this post, a CNN spokesperson released the following statement: "Neither CNN nor Christiane Amanpour is aware of alleged eavesdropping by the government on Ms. Amanpour and we are unable to confirm this story. We are looking into it." >

The full grovelBy Thomas LifsonJan. 1,2006 Byron Calame, public editor of the New York Times, addresses his newspaper's role in publishing leaked classified information about the NSA's surveillance program. As the Department of Justice has launched an investigation of the probably criminal leaking and possibly criminal publication of the data, interest in the matter could not be higher. Shockingly enough, his superiors stonewall him when it comes to explaining why they waited a year to publish the revelations. Moreover, their story about the actual time interval of the delay has certain inconsistencies. Usually, when those under investigation for possible criminal...

DALLAS Belo Corp. said Thursday that upcoming Audit Bureau of Circulation figures will show that its flagship Dallas Morning News will take a circulation hit of about 13% on Sundays and 9% on other days, for the most recent six-month period. It said circulation at its Providence (R.I.) Journal will be down about 1%, with The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif., off 3% Sundays and 2% other days. Belo Corp. also disclosed that it received a subpoena this week from local prosecutors regarding overstated circulation figures at the Morning News. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert W. Decherd said the company...

Support The DrudgeReport; Visit Our Advertisers MEDIA PLACES MRS. ROSE ALITO UNDER HOUSE ARREST Thu Nov 03 2005 16:33:47 ET The DRUDGE REPORT has learned from exclusive sources that Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s 90 year-old mother Rose has become a prisoner in her own Hamilton, NJ home because of a barrage of media requests. The quiet neighborhood Mrs. Alito has lived in for over 50 years has been turned upside down all week by a swarm of national reporters who have phoned and shown up at the doorstep of not only her but many of her neighbors....

There is quite a show going on this minute. McClellan came out to brief press on Alito nomination and they are having none of it. Discarding even the mask of "press impartiality," they are bombarding McClellan with the most hysterical Far-Left questions: 'Shouldn't Rove resign?' 'When will Bush fire Rove?' 'Does the president want Libby to tell the truth or lie?' 'Why is the White House trying to deflect attention from [the biggest scandal since Watergate] with the Alito nomination?' 'Why didn't the president nominate a woman? Isn't he committed to diversity?' 'Doesn't the president believe the judicial branch is...

The man backed by many in the Bush administration to head Baghdad's postwar government said Sunday that documents uncovered over the weekend show that Saddam Hussein tried to recruit U.S. citizens to undermine the Bush adminsitration's war effort in Iraq. "We have captured a great many files of Saddam's services and there is astounding information about the extent of their networks and their efforts to recruit foreign nationals - including Americans - to work in the Mukabahrat [Iraqi intelligence service]," said Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress. "I think that this is something that must be pursued,"...

"Can the News REALLY be Fair, Accurate and Objective?" asked the title of the first lecture in the 2005-2006 George E. McCammon Memorial Distinguished Speaker Series. "Yes," said Marcy McGinnis, senior vice president, news coverage CBS News, speaking at McKendree College in Lebanon on Tuesday night. Her answer was not surprising because she is in charge of news coverage for CBS, a television network that prides itself on those values despite a couple of recent problems. "My job is to pay really close attention to the news, to watch closely and care about it," McGinnis said. She said fair, accurate...

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO — “It’s better to have a gun and not use it than to have none when you need it.” Within the guiding principle, San Fernando City Councilor Alex F. Patio is taking steps to promote responsible gun ownership, especially among media personalities. As a step, Patio will be opening on Saturday his first-ever shooting competition at the Maimpis Firing Range in Barangay Maimpis in the city dubbed as the “1st Councilor Alex F. Patio Cup”. Patio said the competition, which will be sanctioned by the Philippine Practical Shooters Association (PPSA), aims to show the public the...

The following exchange is from Thursday's White House Press Conference, between (P)(MS)NBC reporter David Gregory and White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan: Q Scott, does the President retain confidence in his FEMA Director and Secretary of Homeland Security? MR. McCLELLAN: And again, David, see, this is where some people want to look at the blame game issue, and finger-point. We're focused on solving problems, and we're doing everything we can -- Q What about the question? MR. McCLELLAN: We're doing everything we can in support -- Q We know all that. MR. McCLELLAN: -- of the Department of Homeland Security...

It's a question from the press sure to be posed more and more as the months go on, directed at public officials who continue to support the Iraq war: If you believe in the cause so deeply, why aren't your own kids signing up? Most prominently, President Bush (through his press spokesmen) is now hearing it, but it's now trickling down to the congressional and state level. Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, a strong backer of Bush policy in Iraq -- who has give sons age 24 to 35 -- heard the query yesterday, from a Boston Herald reporter. Romney,...

The New York Daily News throws garbage on Jeanine Pirro today by saying in their headline that she took "Mob Cash". Gee, I wonder who passed this information along (cough)Hillarysupporters(cough)I'd be willing to bet this came to them from someone in the Clinton camp. But those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Because it turns out some of Pirro's "mob contributors" also gave money to .... Democrats. The article states that: Worth Construction of Connecticut gave $1,000 to Pirro's campaign in the past year. In 2003, an FBI agent testified that Worth Construction owner Joseph Pontoriero is an associate of...

NY Times 'Fishing Expedition' Prompts Call for Probe By Melanie Hunter CNSNews.com Senior Editor August 05, 2005 (CNSNews.com) - A free enterprise group is calling for an investigation into the New York Times' effort to get sealed court records regarding the adoptions of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' children. The Free Enterprise Action Fund, which is a shareholder in the New York Times Company, sent a letter Friday to the company's chairman Arthur Sulzberger requesting that the findings of such a probe be made public and "appropriate disciplinary action" be taken towards anyone guilty of employee misconduct. "We can't understand...

THE editor of Melbourne's The Age newspaper has defended Australia's Journalist of the Year, Paul McGeough, in the wake of revelations that he may have erred in two significant reports he filed from Iraq. McGeough claimed in an article published in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald that former Iraqi interim leader Iyad Allawi shot dead as many as six prisoners in June last year. But the story was discredited by a report yesterday that Iraqi officials and US special forces bodyguards assigned to Allawi had passed lie detector tests in denying the murder allegations. "My view is that...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted on Fri, Mar. 25, 2005 Media are in the middle of every story — no wonder you hate us By JOE POSNANSKI Columnist You can't stand us. You really can't stand the media. No, this is not breaking news. We've all seen those studies that show people rank journalists somewhere below Enron executives. We've all watched movies in which obnoxious reporters get in the way, hound the innocent, mess up the story, get someone killed and so on. It's been a long, long time since a reporter was a hero in a movie. No journalist can work for...

NEW YORK - Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are now showing up in the nation's homeless shelters. While the numbers are still small, they're steadily rising, and raising alarms in both the homeless and veterans' communities. The concern is that these returning veterans - some of whom can't find jobs after leaving the military, others of whom are still struggling psychologically with the war - may be just the beginning of an influx of new veterans in need. Currently, there are 150,000 troops in Iraq and 16,000 in Afghanistan. More than 130,000 have already served and returned home....

<p>One in three U.S. high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper stories before readers see them, according to a survey being released today.</p> <p>The survey of 112,003 students finds that 36% believe newspapers should get "government approval" of stories before publishing; 51% say they should be able to publish freely; 13% have no opinion.</p>

As the Senate Judiciary Committee voted today on the nomination of Alberto Gonzales for Attorney General, we hear a speech by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh on torture from Guantanamo to Abu Gharib to Vietnam.Hersh is the author of 'Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Gharib.' He spoke last month at the Wise Free Synagogue in New York.'The amazing thing is that we have been taken over by a cult of eight or nine neo-conservatives that have somehow grapped the government.' 'Just how and why they did it so efficiently, we will have to wait for much later...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A top aide to firebrand Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who appealed to kidnappers to free a Western journalist, said Friday they had promised to release him. The pan-Arab television station Al-Jazeera reported Thursday that a militant group calling itself the Martyrs Brigade had abducted New York journalist Micah Garen and threatened to kill him within 48 hours unless U.S. pulled out of the wear-shattered city of Najaf. Sheik Aws al-Khafaji, a top aide to al-Sadr whose rebel Mahdi army has been fighting coalition forces in Najaf for two weeks, said he had spoken Friday to the kidnappers,...

Iraqi militants who kidnapped and threatened to kill an Australian journalist "Googled" his name on the internet to check his work before releasing him unharmed. John Martinkus, a veteran freelancer who has covered conflicts from East Timor to Iraq, was released yesterday, a day after he was taken hostage by four Sunni militants and ex-Iraqi army officers. Mr Martinkus was filming a report for SBS's Dateline program and was preparing to leave Iraq when he was grabbed about 5pm (AEST) on Saturday outside a hotel popular with foreign correspondents. John Martinkus ... kidnappers checked his work on the internet. Photo:...

Contacts at WRAMC tell me that reporters from the NYT were ejected from the post yesterday after walking around and interviewing recovering soldiers. The Times people entered the facility unannounced, uninvited and unescorted. They were "asked" to leave when the PAO found out what they were up to. It is unlikely they will be invited back.

Journalists' killers 'not being brought to justice' Dominic Timms Tuesday January 18, 2005 The culprits responsible for killing more than 100 journalists and other media workers worldwide last year are only half as likely to be caught as London burglars, a leading international press group claimed today. The International Federation of Journalists said most of the 129 deaths of media staff in 2004 - the highest on record - resulted from either "deliberate attacks" by gunmen, corrupt officials, armed gangs and governments, or "nervous, unruly and ill-disciplined soldiering". In most cases, the IFJ added, the killers were still at large....

CBS News turned over its entire "Face the Nation" broadcast on Sunday to inveterate Bush-basher Ted Kennedy, after refusing a White House request that they also include a Republican to rebut Kennedy's bloviations. "The White House was happy to put Dan Bartlett or somebody else on that program and CBS said, 'Thank you, No,'" reported Brit Hume on "Fox News Sunday." The CBS snub comes just a week after the network promised Bartlett, who recently moved from Communications Director to the White House counsel's job, that they'd stop skewing their coverage against the president. According to Broadcasting & Cable, CBS...

CBS Lying about terrorism and big-bore rifles--

Black leaders in New York yesterday said they wanted to stop the presses at the free daily Metro after top executives at the newspaper made headlines for telling crude racist jokes. A member of the board and the president of the company that distributes 42 free newspapers around the world, including Metro New York, have come under fire for jokes that disparage blacks. The company, which is selling 49 percent of its Boston paper to The New York Times, and its president, Steve R. Nylund, have apologized, but outraged officials say they are not ready to turn the page....

Hams Demand Apology By TIME Magazine: Hams around the U.S.A., and in other nations as well, have been writing to TIME Magazine. They are demanding an apology from TIME for failing to edit out a slur against ham radio in TIME's December 31, 2004 issue. That edition featured an article by Lev Grossman about Internet blogging. At one point, Mr. Grossman wrote this: “Before this year, blogs were a curiosity, a cult phenomenon, a faintly embarrassing hobby on the order of ham radio and stamp collecting.” KEN LINDER KC7RAD was apparently the first to spot this statement and started a...

MINNEAPOLIS — Lots of newspapers lose lawsuits. But the $625,000 jury verdict against a small suburban newspaper has gotten the attention of media-watchers. The Chanhassen Villager was hauled into court over an editorial about an elected official — the sort of thing where newspapers usually have wide latitude. “This would probably bankrupt two-thirds of the newspapers in the state of Minnesota,” said Mark Anfinson, attorney for the chain of small papers sto which the Villager belongs and for many other smaller papers. Attorneys for the Villager aren’t claiming that the Villager itself is in jeopardy. Media attorney Paul Hannah, who...

Six Navy SEALs filed a lawsuit against the Associated Press and one of its reporters yesterday, saying the news organization revealed their identities, compromised their security and invaded their privacy by publishing personal photographs in a Dec. 4 story.     The complaint says AP reporter Seth Hettena used about 40 images from the personal photo-storage Web site of a Navy SEAL wife. [snip] The images were picked up by the Arab press, including Al Jazeera, and have made their way onto a billboard outside U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where detainees from the war on terror are being kept. The...