Free Republic

For some Washington reporters and media execs, cheering their team from the sidelines just isn’t good enough: Tugging on a red, white and blue Team Obama jersey is the answer. That’s the case for a whopping 19 journalists and media executives, including five from the Washington Post and three each from ABC and CNN, who’ve gone into the administration or center-left groups supporting the president. Those inside the administration hit 14 this month when the Post’s Stephen Barr joined the Labor Department. That’s a record, say some revolving door watchers, and could even be much higher:

We have always known how anti-Israel and biased CNN (Crescent News Network) is. Now there is no pretense. They have laid bare their antisemitism for all the world to see. Unabashed prejudice. One can only imagine the propaganda packaged as "news" that we will be subjected to from their 'Palestinian' stringers. CNN Fires Entire Jewish Staff Of Israel Bureau - And Retains Only Arab Reporters (Before It's News) CNN's Israel bureau is downsizing, reportedly to cope with a reduced budget due to falling advertising revenues. That doesn't explain why they fired four Israeli Jewish journalists (out of a crew of...

Mitt Romney's decision to avoid confrontations with the press since his victory in Florida last month -- and since his "very poor" comment on CNN -- has become a source of frustration for national reporters already wary of the campaign's strict scheduling and tight message control. But it is angering local press as well. Especially in Colorado, where one reporter from Denver's local Fox affiliate is suggesting that Romney's decision to spurn reporters could cost him should he return to the state in the general election. "[Y]our brand is now significantly tarnished in a critical swing state, one you seemed...

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain got testy with a group of reporters chasing him throughout a hotel in the suburbs of Washington on Wednesday, refusing to discuss the story about harassment allegations lodged at him back in the 1990s. “Let me say one thing,” Cain told the scrum of reporters. “I’m here with these doctors and that’s what I’m going to talk about. So don’t even bother asking me all of these other questions that you all are curious about. Don’t even bother.” When reporters began asking him about the allegations — that Cain has repeatedly denied this week —...

As the national media continues to promote the idea that these absurd "Occupy" protests demonstrate some groundswell of popular opinion, reports continue to emerge from localized media showing how ugly these encampments are becoming. A report out of Cleveland that  police are investigating a rape claim made by a 19-year-old woman last weekend has received little attention. Do you suppose if a rape claim was made against a tea partier that it would receive more attention?It's gotten so bad in Baltimore that organizers are discouraging alleged victims from going to the police (maybe they should go to Sheriff Biden).Meanwhile,...

At Wednesday’s White House daily briefing, Fox News Chief White House Correspondent Ed Henry asked Press Secretary Jay Carney to respond to a report that a White House official had “screamed and cussed at” CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson, over the unfolding Fast and Furious story. Carney said he didn’t know about that specific conversation, but elaborated in his response that, in general, “hard-bitten journalists” ought to be able to handle “tough conversations” and “an extra decibel or two in a phone conversation.”

PALM BEACH, Fla. – When it comes to the national news media's perceived affection for President Obama, radio giant Rush Limbaugh has a unique way of describing the love. Rush Limbaugh On today's broadcast, as he analyzed NBC News coverage of Obama's bus tour in Midwestern states, Limbaugh said, "I don't know of a classy way of saying this." "Next time Obama has a colonoscopy, I wonder who they'll find in there. Which NBC personality will show up first?" His comments came after listening to discussion between NBC anchor Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd, the network's chief White House correspondent...

Sarah Palin's bus tour treats reporters like paparazziPosted by Brian Montopoli May 31, 2011 1:07 PM Sarah Palin and her advisers are refusing to tell members of the media where she is going on her current bus tour - and the former Alaska governor seems to be enjoying the cat and mouse game that's resulted. "I don't think I owe anything to the mainstream media ... I want them to have to do a little bit of work on a tour like this, and that would include not necessarily telling them beforehand where every stop's going to be," she told...

Just watched CBS 60 Minutes' interview with Lara Logan and what happened in February in Cairo. I must say, I'm still confused: just what did happen? After watching Scott Pelley's interview with Logan, I still don't know if she was raped. It's more than an academic question; in every state in the U.S., there's big difference between sexual molestation and rape. I honestly don't know what happened to Logan that night, other than that a mob tore her clothes off and beat her. To be explicit, CBS didn't ask (or chose not to broadcast) whether a penis entered Logan's vagina...

This was a big catch by Brian Wedemeyer from the Arizona Independent. A Boston Globe reporter hid information on Barack Obama’s father for at least two years as she worked on a novel about the man’s life. I posted the story on our web site and then watched to see what kind of reaction, if any, there would be. A small part of me wondered if The Independent — something we have worked so hard to establish as a credible and reliable community news source — would be written off as a bunch of crackpots. After all, we’re not even...

France's controversial burka ban became law today, sparking a protest in Paris during which two women wearing full-face veils were arrested. But the demonstrations were on a relatively small scale, with the handful of protesters being outnumbered by police, reporters and tourists. Ironically, the biggest protest was in London, where a group of women in full black burkas gathered outside the French Embassy.

Update: From a CNN spokesperson: The photo, which CBS said was taken before the attack, was being used on our air as we reported about the sexual assault. We made a network-wide editorial decision to blur the faces of those around Logan because we didn’t know if those in the photograph were involved in the attack, or not. Original Post: In an odd decision, CNN decided to blur out the faces of the people behind Lara Logan in the widely disseminated photo taken shortly before her assault in Cairo. The photo was sent widely by CBS News, and was published...

Covering the melee in Cairo as an American journalist has taken a turn for the worse in the last 24 hours. In addition to the dangers of reporting from an area where the government has failed to ensure basic safety, an alleged pro-Hosni Mubarak mob has infiltrated the protests and is turning violent on protesters and western journalists. Ashley Webster, the overseas market editor for the Fox Business Network, is the latest to face the threats from the pro-Mubarak demonstrators. On Monday, around 10 a.m. Eastern time, Webster tweeted the following:

“I’m ready to offer my services for ur project. Contact me at ur earliest convenience 2 arrange for interview. Thanks in advance for ur consideration.” That’s a real cover letter from a real person claiming to be a real professional, who thinks she can get a real job. The letter was fielded by publicist and trend-spotter Richard Laermer, who gets so many of these he collects them and, when asked, forwards them to reporters for fun. The letter “just made me shake my head till it nearly fell off.” But it isn’t rare. In fact, Laermer says, it’s typical. “Lazy...

A reporter and a cameraman for ABC7 TV were assaulted and robbed Thursday evening in East Oakland while reporting about efforts to find new homes for a pack of severely abused pit-bull dogs. The two men had finished interviewing neighbors in the 600 block of Capistrano Drive, near where officers found the abused and neglected animals in December, about 7:10 p.m. when two men approached them. One forced the reporter, Tomas Roman, to the ground at gunpoint and threatened his life. The other armed man confronted the cameraman, Stan Wong, and beat him with a gun.

Audio: CBS reporters plot hit piece on GOP candidate Tape reveals news team scheming to find 'child molester' supporting politician Joe Miller Reporters from a CBS affiliate in Anchorage, Alaska, allegedly left a voicemail by mistake at the campaign of the state's Republican nominee for Senate, Joe Miller, in which the journalists can be heard plotting to "find" a "child molester" among the politician's supporters. The reporters are also overheard hoping for violence against Miller so they can "send out a tweet" and Facebook alert that "Miller got punched" at a rally he held four days ago. The apparent accidental...

In 1997, Henry Payne, the political cartoonist for the Detroit News and editor of TheMichiganView.com, said he was in Washington D.C. for a press conference on the international agreement on climate change called the Kyoto Protocol. Payne recalled the first question of the press conference was asked by the New York Times environmental reporter. "How do we get Americans to stop driving SUVs?" Payne said the reporter asked. Kyoto sets binding agreements for 37 countries for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations. Payne said the rest of the press conference was "simple cheerleading" by reporters. He used...

Wow, Chicago doesn’t play and an outside radio host for WIND just got a taste of the “thugs” when he dared to ask the questions that local journalist were ignoring. Rahm Emanuel, on the streets of Chicago, walking around with his jacket slung casually over his shoulder, is not appreciative of the direct questions on how the stimulus funds might have made him a millionaire, nor did he seem inclined to answer the questions concerning his residency. However, it was more baffling to watch the local Chicago reporters close in around him and push the man with the hard questions...

Everything you always wanted to know about AfghanistanKabulIf you spend 72 hours in a place you’ve never been, talking to people whose language you don’t speak about social, political, and economic complexities you don’t understand, and you come back as the world’s biggest know-it-all, you’re a reporter. Either that or you’re President Obama. I called my wife. She said, no, she certainly is not vacationing at government expense in some jet-set hot spot with scads of her BFFs. Looks like I’m not President Obama. But I am a reporter, fresh from Kabul. What do you want to know about...

White House reporters are keeping quiet about an off-the-record lunch today with President Obama — even those at news organizations who've advocated in the past for the White House to release the names of visitors. But the identities of the lunch's attendees won't remain secret forever: Their names will eventually appear on the White House's periodically updated public database of visitor logs. The White House posts them with a three-month lag, so records of August visits won't be available until late November. (Although, since many of those invited already work in the White House every day, their lunch visit may...

NORTHAMPTON, Pa. (AP) - Several people were caught on an open microphone mocking Sarah Palin for delivering a "roller coaster" speech after she addressed California State University, Stanislaus last week, FOXNews.com reported Sunday.

Politico's Josh Gerstein and Patrick Gavin have a long article describing the growing anger of the White House press corps towards the Obama White House. Many of the grievances are petty, though some are serious and substantive (involving lack of transparency and media manipulation), but the passage that I found most revealing is this one: Much of the criticism is off the record, both out of fear of retaliation and from worry about appearing whiny. But those views were voiced by a cross section of the television, newspaper and magazine journalists who cover the White House.

CNN and Fox News have packed up and gone home. You’re seeing less and less about Haiti on television these days. Diane Sawyer is firmly ensconced in New York. The reporters have put away their rugged “disaster coverage” attire until the next big one. There are other things that need coverage from the mainstream media today: Sarah Palin writes notes on her hand, the Oscars are coming up, there is snow in Washington D.C. In Haiti there is still death, destruction and desperation.

This is a video that helps explain the mentality of news reporters. Check out this airhead news reporter doing a report on gun safety. The woman reporter in this video keeps pointing the loaded gun at the cameraman. Even after she fired a round down range at a target she looks at the camera and non nonchalantly shakes the gun with the barrel pointed towards the cameraman. Honestly, you cannot make this stuff up. Watch the video of the airhead reporter here After watching this video, all I could think about was all the gun laws we have. The only...

In a situation that most any conservatives can relate to, a stupid Reporter and his Guide catches an anaconda snake off guard. Well they decide to harass the snake and play with him for a few minutes before tossing him like garbage, away from the camp. Remind you of the way the drive-by media treats conservatives? Well, that's the first thing I thought of when I watched it. Anyway, after a little while the Guide hears the reporter screaming for help. So he rushes to where the Reporter is and finds him under attack from the angry anaconda that tracked...

Sarah Palin is no normal politician, and at the Associated Press, apparently "Going Rogue" is no normal book. When the former Republican vice presidential candidate and former Alaska governor wrote her autobiography, the AP found a copy before its release date and assigned 11 people to fact check all 432 pages. The AP claims Palin misstated her record with regard to travel expenses and taxpayer-funded bailouts, using statements widely reported elsewhere. But it also speculated into Palin's motives for writing "Going Rogue: An American Life," stating as fact that the book "has all the characteristics of a pre-campaign manifesto." Palin...

The report issued by Reporters Without Borders (RWB) is positive for the U.S., however, the issue of national security, seems to be one of the biggest problems for United States reporters seeking information from the government. But that pales when you compare the problems Mexican reporters have in covering the news, especially in the border areas with the United States. Reporter Angela Kocherga gave this first hand report: "Mexico is one of the most dangerous places to work as a reporter these days, we see that by the ranking and see that played out in the field. Now the Majority...

Amid all the adulation over Bill Clinton's "rescue" of the two reporters from North Korea, what have we learned since they were released about the circumstances under which they were captured by the North Koreans? Have the two acknowledged whether they crossed illegally into North Korea and thereby precipitated the crisis?

What’s the difference between a prehistoric dinosaur and a journalist dinosaur? A prehistoric dinosaur didn’t know it was a dinosaur. The “bullpen” at the New York Times in September 1942, my birth month. For the benefit of our young readers, the instrument in the foreground is a “rotary” telephone, and those things spread across the desks are printed newspapers.The old notion of a resourceful “ink-stained wretch” digging for facts out of the public eye, plucking the truth from complex human events, and writing about it all has been pushed aside on the fast track of media celebrity. Journalism’s tent of...

Reported during Your World that Steven Rattner would step down and be replaced by a member of the Auto Task Force. No print story currently available at site.

"Iran said Sunday it has released a British-Greek journalist detained for two weeks during its postelection crackdown..."

PARIS – Iranian authorities have arrested 23 journalists and bloggers since post-election protests began a week ago, according to a media watchdog that says reporters are a "priority target" for Iran's leadership. Among those arrested was the head of the Association of Iranian Journalists, Reporters Without Borders said Sunday. ... The group released a list of 23 Iranian journalists, editors and bloggers arrested since June 14, and says it has lost contact with several others believed detained or in hiding. ..

Is it Just Me? (Rant No. 947)   t | t | t | t by Dr. Jeff Mirus, June 12, 2009   Long-time readers of this column know that I try, at least in anemic fits and starts, to keep up with what the larger culture is doing and thinking. God forbid that I should one day know so little of the world around me that I can’t make a few intelligent comments in the course of a week! So among all the solid Catholic publications I read, it is my habit to toss in a subscription to a...

N.Korea says US reporters 'admit to smear campaign' by Simon Martin Tue Jun 16, 10:44 am ET SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) – North Korea said Tuesday that two female US journalists whom it jailed last week for 12 years had admitted a politically motivated smear campaign against the communist state. Official media, giving its first details of their alleged crimes, said they crossed the border illegally "for the purpose of making animation files to be used for an anti-DPRK (North Korea) smear campaign over its human rights issue." A Pyongyang court on June 8 sentenced Laura Ling, 32, and Euna...

Gore held back from going to NKorea to negotiate release of two US reporters Posted: 09 June 2009 1044 hrs WASHINGTON : Former US vice president Al Gore was "held back" from travelling to North Korea to negotiate for the release of his two employees - journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee. That is according to Selig Harrison from the Centre for International Policy, who said Gore sought diplomatic backing from the Obama administration in a private meeting on May 11. Ling and Lee have just been sentenced to 12 years in North Korean labour camp. Neither Al Gore nor...

LISTEN TO THE REAL REVEREND JESSE ON THE INTERNET OR A RADIO STATION IN YOUR AREA......BOND Action, Inc...Educating, Motivating and Rallying Americans! The Jesse Lee Peterson Radio Show Streamed live online from 6-9 a.m. PST / 9-12 a.m. EST. Call in the same times usually. For Live Questions or Comments Call 1-888-77-JESSE(5-3773) You can email comments and questions to radio@bondaction.org For more information on getting The Jesse Lee Peterson Show picked up on a station in your local area call Ermias Alemayehu at 1-877-WE ACT77 (932-2877)

Amid an avalanche of new interest in Utah's widely recognized concealed-carry firearm permit, two of the state's best-known gun-rights advocates hosted a no-cost class to acquire the permit for Salt Lake media members on Sunday. Applications for Utah concealed-carry permits have skyrocketed this spring according to the Utah Bureau of Criminal Identification, the agency tasked with issuing and administrating concealed weapon carry permits. Last February's 2,548 applicants jumped to 8,142 this year and March permit seekers more than doubled from 4,412 in 2008 to 10,878 in 2009. Clark Aposhian, a registered lobbyist, firearm instructor and chairman of the Utah Shooting...

WASHINGTON – It was the hottest ticket in town, a black-tie dinner gathering of Washington's political and media elite but Dick Cheney couldn't make it. The former vice president was busy, President Barack Obama joked, working on his memoir "tentatively titled, How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People."

Face Fwd Comments: Below is the text of 12 of the 13 questions asked Obama.(one I couldn't catch because it came from the floor) The answers don't really matter because because we learned nothing from them. Instead read the questions and you can learn much about how easy the press is treating this president. Here are some questions I would like to have seen asked: Question1: Mr. President, you campaigned on getting the troops out of the middle east within the first three months of talking office, but you have not. Does that mean you were just lying to get...

"Robert Gibbs gave White House reporters a "strong A" Friday for their work over the first 100 days of the new administration." -- Michael Calderone, Politico.comNote to press: Getting an 'A' from the White House means you're not doing your job. In other headlines:Bad students give high praise to easy teachersDirty players love blind referees Crooks give "strong A" to incompetent cops This should be a mark of shame for the self-appointed non-partisan watchdogs supposedly keeping government honest. Instead, they provide fawning coverage that would embarrass Mussolini. Gibbs' praise has branded White House reporters as the supplicant toadies they are....

The newspaper business may be dying, but journalists’ careers are being reincarnated by the Obama administration. The latest is the Chicago Tribune’s Jill Zuckman. She’s hooking up with the administration as Director of Public Affairs at the Department of Transportation. Peter Gosselin, one of her coworkers at the Trib, recently hired on as chief speech writer for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Time Magazine’s Jim Carney is now Joe Biden’s communications director. CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta is rumored to be in the running for Surgeon General. Many conservatives fear this intentional blurring of the lines between impartial journalism and partisan politics.

The website of a New York TV network whose aim is to improve American perceptions of Islam was shut down this morning, two days after its founder admitted to the beheading of his wife. And while that irony might bring a momentary smile, another attempt to conceal the facts behind an honor killing right here in America should stir nothing short of outrage. Muzzammil Hassan, CEO of Bridges TV, whose motto is "connecting people through understanding," apparently didn't think Thursday's honor killing -- and make no mistake about what this was -- at the station might somehow blur that message....

It’s 3 p.m. and the phone in the White House press secretary’s office is ringing. It rings and rings and rings. Eventually, a recorded voice asks callers to leave a message—followed by a second voice saying the voicemail box is full. After a full week of such calls, a human being answers. But Ben Labolt immediately bristles when asked to spell his name, refuses to give his job title, and says he is going “off the record” until I stop him to explain that the reporter grants that privilege, not the other way around—a basic journalistic standard that Labolt seems...

There hasn't been this much excitement in the Washington Post newsroom since Brad Pitt dropped by. Barack Obama, here for a meeting with Post editors and reporters, did what comes naturally for a politician: He worked the room. The whole room. The whole room of grizzled journalistic veterans, most of whom stood and, well, stared.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich wanted President-elect Barack Obama "to put something together&something big" in exchange for going along with Obama's choice to fill his vacant U.S. Senate seat, according to a FBI affidavit unsealed following the governor's stunning arrest. "I've got this thing and it's f***ing golden, and, uh, uh, I'm just not giving it up for f***in' nothing. I'm not gonna do it. And I can always use it. I can parachute me there," Blagojevich said in a phone call secretly recorded by the FBI on Nov. 5, the day after the election, according to the affidavit. Click here...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — As the photographer pulled his 2000 Ford Explorer into a soccer field, the crackle of his police scanner was broken by a lone accordion riff. The riff, a fragment of a "narcocorrido" glorifying drug smugglers, was an announcement that the death toll in Mexico's drug war – already above 4,000 this year – had just risen. Hector Dayer already knew that as he looked out at the seven bodies, bound, beaten and repeatedly shot. What he didn't know was whether yet another colleague was among the victims. Two weeks earlier, Dayer had photographed a friend –...

Print By RAMOLA TALWAR BADAM, Ramola Talwar Badam MUMBAI, India – The gunmen who attacked Mumbai set out by boat from the Pakistani port of Karachi, then later hijacked an Indian fishing trawler that carried them toward this financial capital on their suicide mission, a top police official said Tuesday. As evidence of the militants' links to Pakistan mounted, Mumbai police commissioner Hasan Ghafoor said ex-Pakistani army officers trained the group — some for up to 18 months — and denied reports the men had been planning to escape the city. "It appears that it was a suicide attack," Ghafoor...

FReep this Digg!!! (We need FReepers to FReep the Vote over at Buzz too! Any volunteers???) Post your own links exposing ObamaNation on Digg, Buzz, Reddit, etc. Saturate these boards. They're massive and they are crawling with independents and undecideds. And don't post them all in one category, like politics or elections. Finally, repost your links on FR to we can put a protective FReep around them :o) For examples of how to do this, see my history. Let's use our combined FReeperPower to FREEP THE VOTE!!!

The buzz in political-media circles Friday was that reporters from The Dallas Morning News and two other newspapers had been kicked off Barack Obama's campaign plane because the papers endorsed John McCain. Not exactly. Our reporter, Todd J. Gillman, was told a few days ago that there's no space for him after today. We have protested, arguing that a paper of The News' size and stature should be on-board for the final stretch of a historic campaign.