Free Republic

<p>Salon.com -- the online magazine that made a name for itself covering President Clinton's dalliances in the White House -- still owes the White House for travel expenses during that administration... as well as this one.</p> <p>But when the White House asked for its money again last week, Salon.com sent the administration a letter, saying -- "Salon has been incurring losses ... its accumulated deficit totals $86 million ... as of December 31st, 2003. ... [W]e cannot offer a full payment at this time, but would offer you the opportunity to settle all amounts owed by us."</p>

There he goes again!Matt Drudge and the GOP smear machine are back in the Democrats' pants. - - - - - - - - - - - -By Joe ConasonFeb. 13, 2004  |  Is American politics suddenly returning to the bad old days, when Washington journalism became frenzied with sheet sniffing and keyhole peeping? That seems to be the default program of the right-wing media machine whenever Republican poll numbers sink into the red zone. Late Thursday morning -- with George W. Bush's credibility damaged on several fronts as reporters demanded answers to questions about his National Guard service that...

Bad newsWhite House errand boy Robert Novak and credulous New York Times reporters were burned by their sources. Should they be forced to name them?- - - - - - - - - - - -By Eric BoehlertJan. 22, 2004  |  As U.S. courts take an increasingly skeptical look at the long-held belief among journalists that they enjoy a special privilege when it comes to protecting their sources, two high-profile legal skirmishes are addressing that very issue. Unfortunately for advocates of a free press, these battles don't involve stirring instances of media courage, but stories that exemplify what many...

January 15, 2004 Rolling Stone Editor and Adobe Executive Put $800,000 Into Salon Web SiteBy DAVID CARR ann Wenner, the founder and editor of Rolling Stone magazine and chairman of Wenner Media, said yesterday that he would invest $200,000 in the Salon Media Group, the financially struggling Internet media company, and join its board. Also yesterday, Salon announced that John E. Warnock, co-chairman of Adobe Systems and a longtime financial backer, would invest an additional $600,000 in the Web company.As part of the alliance with Mr. Wenner, Salon and Rolling Stone, each known for liberal political leanings, will collaborate on...

The media vs. Howard DeanDemocrats haven't voted yet, but reporters have got the story: The former Vermont governor is angry, gaffe-prone and unelectable. How do they know? Republicans, and anonymous Democrats, told them so. - - - - - - - - - - - -By Eric BoehlertJan. 13, 2004  |  When the Washington Post introduced readers to Howard Dean in a long Page 1 feature July 6, part of a series of "meet the Democrats" candidate profiles, the paper went for the jugular, literally, with a cartoonish, unflattering description to open the article: "Howard Dean was angry. Ropy...

Here is the link: The ReagansYou will need Adobe and a good connection but may be worth it. Report here any "gems" you find.

The Battalion - Opinion Issue: 11/05/03 Biased media coverage causes misconception of Iraq warBy Collins Ezeanyim Last spring, a Battalion columnist argued the then-nascent war in Iraq was theologically unsound. In the column, it was stated there was no reliable evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. The column resulted in e-mails from Aggies who disagreed with this fact, despite President George W. Bush telling reporters on Sept. 17, "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9-11," according to The Associated Press.Yet due to biased media coverage of the war, a frustrating number of Americans...

Biased media coverage causes misconception of Iraq war By Collins Ezeanyim Last spring, a Battalion columnist argued the then-nascent war in Iraq was theologically unsound. In the column, it was stated there was no reliable evidence of a link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. The column resulted in e-mails from Aggies who disagreed with this fact, despite President George W. Bush telling reporters on Sept. 17, "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9-11," according to The Associated Press. Yet due to biased media coverage of the war, a frustrating number of Americans continue to believe Iraq...

Craven Broadcasting SystemTV big shots and politicians blast CBS for its cowardly decision to yank the Ronald Reagan miniseries. - - - - - - - - - - - -By Rebecca TraisterNov. 5, 2003  |  Anyone looking for signs of a return of 1980s-era culture wars probably couldn't dream up a better one. At the center of it -- again -- are the Reagans. Only this time, it's "The Reagans," a fictionalized biographical miniseries that was set to air on Nov. 16 and 18, but was dumped by CBS on Tuesday after heated political pressure from the right....

JON FRIEDMAN'S MEDIA WEBSalon seeks a clean financial slate Commentary: Witty Web site thrives on liberal politicsBy Jon Friedman, CBS.MarketWatch.comLast Update: 7:31 PM ET Oct. 30, 2003SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- If you do a computer search for news stories about Salon.com, the Internet's self-styled "smart tabloid," the headlines reek of gloom and doom."Salon chief calling it quits after 7 years," screamed the San Francisco Chronicle on Oct. 10. Last March, Canada's National Post lamented: "Salon, farewell? The plucky online magazine is facing a death knell -- again." On Feb. 24, the Los Angeles Times declared: "Salon.com's Struggle to Succeed Plays...

The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Struggling online magazine publisher Salon Media Group said its chief executive officer, Michael O'Donnell, is leaving the company after seven years. The San Francisco-based company, which has been battling to survive, gave no reason for O'Donnell's departure in an announcement Thursday. A call to O'Donnell for comment was not immediately returned. O'Donnell will be replaced as CEO by Salon founder David Talbot, who is the company's chairman and editor-in-chief. Elizabeth Hambrecht, Salon's chief financial officer, will inherit O'Donnell's title as president. A former software sales executive, O'Donnell joined Salon as president and publisher...

In March 2001 Premiere Magazine printed a now-notorious article that featured named and un-named sources detailing instances in which the actor groped women's breasts, humilitated assisitants on movie sets, bullied male crew members and cheated on Shriver.Years earlier Connely had revealed in a 1993 US Magazine article that several women who had worked for the famed Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss had auditioned for Schwartzenegger's unsucessful movie 'The Last Action Hero.' Other media outlets published similar stories and Columbia Pictures began investigating whether these women were hired as extras on the over budget movie.Around the same time, a French women's magazine...

Meet Joe Dirt Stuart K. Hayashi In 2001, comedian David Spade came out with a movie titled "The Adventures of Joe Dirt." It now appears that the film was about Joe Conason, the author of "Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth" and an editorialist for the liberal-biased Salon.com. In the person of Brad Pitt, you've already Met Joe Black. Now Meet the Real Joe Dirt. His book purports to expose how right-wingers harness the corporate media to brainwash society. Instead of demonstrating such, however, Joe is too busy flinging his Dirt around. In two...

Media Life'sBest of the BestWhereupon we honor the publishers, editors, magazines and newspapers, producers, shows and web sites that we think have made a differenceBy Gene Ely        Media Life recently celebrated its fourth birthday, making us genuinely old folks on the internet, and as the anniversary approached, we had cause to ponder how much we have learned, and more important, by whom we have been most inspired.   Magazines, Media Life included, may pretend to follow their own star -- it would be heresy to admit otherwise -- but the truth is that each day we see things that...

July 4, 2003 | "Slander" is defined in Bouvier's Law Dictionary as "a false defamation (expressed in spoken words, signs, or gestures) which injures the character or reputation of the person defamed." The venerable American legal lexicon goes on to note that such defamatory words are sometimes "actionable in themselves, without proof of special damages," particularly when they impute "guilt of some offence for which the party, if guilty, might be indicted and punished by the criminal courts; as to call a person a 'traitor.'" So how appropriate it is that in the rapidly growing Ann Coulter bibliography, last year's...

The Republican fall guy in CaliforniaCalifornia Republicans should blame Bush, not Davis, for their state's economic woes. - - - - - - - - - - - -By Robert ScheerJuly 2, 2003  | The other day a woman asked me to sign a petition calling for the recall of California Gov. Gray Davis. Why, I asked. Because he bankrupted the state, she said. When I begged to differ that it was the Bush administration and its buddies at companies like Enron that had put the state into an economic tailspin, she said she was being paid according to the number...

PRESS PASS: Salon Behind on its rentSalon.com disclosed June 30 that it has renegiotionated its headquarters lease after getting sued for falling behind on its rent.The company struck a deal with its landlord late last week that will reduce its monthly rent from $70,000.00 to $12,000.00 according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.Salon will also forfeit a $400,000.00 deposit and rent just one floor of the offices instead of the two floors covered by the pervious lease.

How the left lost teen spirit Bill Clinton won the youth vote. Al Gore split it with George Bush. Will Democrats realize they must embrace pop culture, not demonize it, to win back the White House? - - - - - - - - - - - - By Andrew O'Hehir June 17, 2003 | Danny Goldberg might be the demon who haunts Bill O'Reilly and Rupert Murdoch's nightmares, even after the visage of Hillary Rodham Clinton has faded. In his new book, "Dispatches From the Culture Wars: How the Left Lost Teen Spirit," the veteran music executive proudly confesses...

Dixie Chicked in the heartlandNew York Times reporter Chris Hedges warns the graduates of Rockford College that a warmongering America is "flirting with its own destruction" -- and gets booed off the stage. - - - - - - - - - - - -May 22, 2003  | Editor's note: When New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges, a veteran of conflicts in Central America and the Balkans, delivered the commencement address at Rockford College in Rockford, Ill., on Saturday, he opened another battlefront in the war at home over America's global role. As Hedges delivered his critical remarks on...

The forbidden truth about Jayson BlairIt's the issue nobody at the New York Times wants to discuss: Were a reporter's flagrant journalistic abuses overlooked because he's black? - - - - - - - - - - - -By Eric BoehlertMay 15, 2003  | In 2000 the New York Times published an ambitious 14-part series, titled "How Race Is Lived in America," examining racial attitudes and experiences as told through the lives of ordinary Americans. The project, produced by a team of 34 staffers over 14 months, ran for six weeks and won the Times a Pulitzer Prize for national...