The state of the news media

[incarcerated]

First we hear from the Huffington Post, which I will not hot-link here (add the www. to complete the url):
.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/11/anita-dunn-fox-news-an-ou_n_316691.html

Anita Dunn: Fox News An Outlet For GOP Propaganda

Posted 10-11-09
The White House's communications staff announced this week that it was charting out a new, more aggressive strategy this past week, defined largely by a pledge to push back hard against news stories that are either inaccurate or unflattering.

On Sunday, the strategy was on full display as communications director Anita Dunn gave a lengthy and brutal denunciation of Fox News, calling the cable outlet a vehicle for Republican Party propaganda and an ideological opponent of the president.

Here are just a few choice nuggets from Dunn's appearance on CNN's Reliable Sources

"If we went back a year ago to the fall of 2008, to the campaign, that was a time this country was in two wars that we had a financial collapse probably more significant than any financial collapse since the Great Depression. If you were a Fox News viewer in the fall election what you would have seen were that the biggest stories and the biggest threats facing America were a guy named Bill Ayers and a something called ACORN."

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So, where are Americans turning for news during an economic downturn and a socialist Administration?
(Hint: it ain't the Huffington Post!)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...11qbdu4McUHlXA

Wall Street Journal to pass USA Today as top US paper

(AFP) – 21 hours ago
WASHINGTON — The Wall Street Journal said Saturday that it expects to become the largest US newspaper by weekday circulation when the latest figures are released, leapfrogging USA Today.

According to Editor and Publisher magazine, Audit Bureau of Circulations figures to be published on October 26 will show that USA Today's circulation fell 17 percent to 1.88 million for the six months ending in September.

The Journal, with a total circulation of just over two million, said that would make the News Corp.-owned newspaper the largest in the country by weekday circulation....

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http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/ente...mad_men_1.html

Fox News soars in ratings -- Bill O'Reilly rolls on

September 2, 2009
The August ratings are out, and once again, the ratings for the Fox News Channel are phenomenal.

Rather than throwing a million pieces of data that every channel is spinning into madness, I ask you to consider just this one: On Sunday night, the third episode of AMC's highly-publicized and much-discussed series, "Mad Men," drew an audience of 1.6 million viewers at 10 p.m. when it debuted. Throughout the month of August, Fox News Channel averaged an audience of 2.29 million viewers during every single hour of prime time. And some nights, Bill O'Reilly drew an audience twice as large as that of "Mad Men."

My question for this news-savvy group of readers: Why? How does Fox News Channel keep running these kind of numbers? (And by the way, what about the relatively small size of audience for "Mad Men"?)

For starters, forget MSNBC and CNN -- they are not in the same galaxy as the Fox folks on this discussion. Fox is the the third highest rated cable channel in prime time behind entertainment channels USA and TNT.

What's so impressive to me is that while MSNBC and CNN are down, Fox is showing huge increases from last August to this August -- and August 2008 was a high point in news channel viewing because of the national conventions and one of the most viewed Presidential election contests in recent history.

O'Reilly, for example, is up by a third in total viewership and almost two-thirds in the key news demographic of 25-54.

So, how and why is Fox doing it? Facts are facts. You might want to ignore these, but I think it is a wiser course to acknowledge and try to understand them....

[incarcerated]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009...ws-1925819282/

White House Escalates War at Fox News

Senior Obama administration officials took to the airwaves Sunday to accuse Fox News of pushing a particular point of view and not being a real news network.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
FOXNews.com
The White House escalated its offensive against Fox News on Sunday by urging other news organizations to stop "following Fox" and instead join the administration's attempt to marginalize the channel.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told CNN that President Obama does not want "the CNNs and the others in the world [to] basically be led in following Fox."

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod went further by calling on media outlets to join the administration in declaring that Fox is "not a news organization."

"Other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way," Axelrod counseled ABC's George Stephanopoulos. "We're not going to treat them that way."

By urging other news outlets to side with the administration, Obama aides officials dramatically upped the ante in the war of words that began earlier this month, when White House communications director Anita Dunn branded Fox "opinion journalism masquerading as news."

On Sunday, Fox's Chris Wallace retorted: "We wanted to ask Dunn about her criticism, but, as they've done every week since August, the White House refused to make any administration officials available to 'FOX News Sunday' to talk about this or anything else."

The White House stopped providing guests to 'Fox News Sunday' after Wallace fact-checked controversial assertions made by Tammy Duckworth, assistant secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, in August. Dunn said fact-checking an administration official was "something I've never seen a Sunday show do."

"She criticized 'FOX News Sunday' last week for fact-checking -- fact-checking -- an administration official," Wallace said Sunday. "They didn't say that our fact-checking was wrong. They just said that we had dared to fact-check."

"Let's fact-check Anita Dunn, because last Sunday she said that Fox ignores Republican scandals, and she specifically mentioned the scandal involving Nevada senator John Ensign," Wallace added. "A number of Fox News shows have run stories about Senator Ensign. Anita Dunn's facts were just plain wrong."

Fox News senior vice president Michael Clemente said: "Surprisingly, the White House continues to declare war on a news organization instead of focusing on the critical issues that Americans are concerned about like jobs, health care and two wars. The door remains open and we welcome a discussion about the facts behind the issues."

Observers on both sides of the political aisle questioned the White House's decision to continue waging war on a news organization, saying the move carried significant political risks.

Democratic strategist Donna Brazile said on CNN: "I don't always agree with the White House. And on this one here I would disagree."

David Gergen, who has worked for Democratic and Republican presidents, said: "I totally agree with Donna Brazile." Gergen added that White House officials have "gotten themselves into a fight they don't necessarily want to be in. I don't think it's in their best interest."

"The faster they can get this behind them, the more they can treat Fox like one other organization, the easier they can get back to governing, and then put some people out on Fox," Gergen said on CNN. "I mean, for goodness sakes -- you know, you engage in the debate.

What Americans want is a robust competition of ideas, and they ought to be willing to go out there and mix it up with some strong conservatives on Fox, just as there are strong conservatives on CNN like Bill Bennett."

Bennett expressed outrage that Dunn told an audience of high school students this year that Mao Tse-tung, the founder of communist China, was one of "my favorite political philosophers."

"Having the spokesman do this, attack Fox, who says that Mao Zedong is one of the most influential figures in her life, was not…a small thing; it's a big thing," Bennett said on CNN. "When she stands up, in a speech to high school kids, says she's deeply influenced by Mao Zedong, that -- I mean, that is crazy."

Fox News contributor Karl Rove, who was the top political strategist to former President George W. Bush, said: "This is an administration that's getting very arrogant and slippery in its dealings with people. And if you dare to oppose them, they're going to come hard at you and they're going to cut your legs off."

"This is a White House engaging in its own version of the media enemies list. And it's unhelpful for the country and undignified for the president of the United States to so do," Rove added. "That is over- the-top language. We heard that before from Richard Nixon."

Media columnist David Carr of the New York Times warned that the White House war on Fox "may present a genuine problem for Mr. Obama, who took great pains during the campaign to depict himself as being above the fray of over-heated partisan squabbling."

"While there is undoubtedly a visceral thrill in finally setting out after your antagonists, the history of administrations that have successfully taken on the media and won is shorter than this sentence," Carr wrote over the weekend. "So far, the only winner in this latest dispute seems to be Fox News. Ratings are up 20 percent this year."

He added: "The administration, by deploying official resources against a troublesome media organization, seems to have brought a knife to a gunfight."

[incarcerated]

In the interest of being ballanced, here is an opposing view:

The O’Garbage Factor

Fox News isn't just bad. It's un-American.
Oct 17, 2009
Jacob Weisberg
http://www.newsweek.com/id/218192





We have heard from these objective people before:
http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/...light=newsweek

[Team Sergeant]

obama, Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel taking note on how their socialist dictator buddy handles the media. Look if it's working for Chavez it could work for the White House.

What happens when the White House disagrees with another news organization?

I bet ammunition sales just went up, again.




Chavez and the Latin Left: Muzzling the Media?
By TIM PADGETT Tim Padgett – Tue Sep 22, 6:20 am ET

Talk like a communist, walk like a democrat. That has been the paradoxical strategy pursued by Latin America's new radical left - at least until now. Venezuelan President Hugo ChÁvez will gush effusively in the presence of Fidel Castro one moment, then just as earnestly he'll remind the world that he submits to the kind of free elections and free speech that Castro and his brother, Cuban President RaÚl Castro, still forbid.


But in recent months, ChÁvez and his allies from Argentina to Nicaragua have taken steps that critics say make them walk too Cuban for comfort - especially when it comes to independent media, an institution critical to the region's modernization. ChÁvez's socialist Bolivarian Revolution recently revoked the broadcast licenses of 32 private radio stations and two television stations - it plans to take more off the air soon - and just passed a sweeping and often vague new education law outlawing media material that "produces terror in children" or "goes against the values of the Venezuelan people."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/2009092...08599192512900

Anti-Chavez TV station faces possible shutdown
The government said Monday a leading TV channel aligned with Venezuela's opposition could lose its broadcast license for allegedly airing a viewer's text message calling for a coup and the assassination of President Hugo Chavez.

By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER

Associated Press Writer

CARACAS, Venezuela —
The government said Monday a leading TV channel aligned with Venezuela's opposition could lose its broadcast license for allegedly airing a viewer's text message calling for a coup and the assassination of President Hugo Chavez.

Diosdado Cabello, president of the telecommunications commission, said authorities will also ask prosecutors for a criminal probe to determine whether the owners of Globovision should face trial for allegedly trying to incite rebellion.

Asked if the government would close Globovision, Cabello responded: "That depends on the investigation."

Ana Cristina Nunez, Globovision's legal adviser, said the channel would never intentionally broadcast unlawful text messages.

"We are very careful in attempting to stop people from using Globovision's screen to make illegal petitions," Nunez said.

Earlier in the day, the telecommunications commission issued a statement accusing Globovision - the last major channel on Venezuela's regular airwaves that is strongly critical of Chavez - of airing messages that "allude to violent acts," including a call for a coup attempt.

The 24-hour news channel also purportedly sought to "promote public protests, which could generate a climate of tension and nervousness in the population," it said.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...uelamedia.html

[greenberetTFS]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

obama, Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel taking note on how their socialist dictator buddy handles the media. Look if it's working for Chavez it could work for the White House.

What happens when the White House disagrees with another news organization?

I bet ammunition sales just went up, again.




Chavez and the Latin Left: Muzzling the Media?
By TIM PADGETT Tim Padgett – Tue Sep 22, 6:20 am ET

Talk like a communist, walk like a democrat. That has been the paradoxical strategy pursued by Latin America's new radical left - at least until now. Venezuelan President Hugo ChÁvez will gush effusively in the presence of Fidel Castro one moment, then just as earnestly he'll remind the world that he submits to the kind of free elections and free speech that Castro and his brother, Cuban President RaÚl Castro, still forbid.


But in recent months, ChÁvez and his allies from Argentina to Nicaragua have taken steps that critics say make them walk too Cuban for comfort - especially when it comes to independent media, an institution critical to the region's modernization. ChÁvez's socialist Bolivarian Revolution recently revoked the broadcast licenses of 32 private radio stations and two television stations - it plans to take more off the air soon - and just passed a sweeping and often vague new education law outlawing media material that "produces terror in children" or "goes against the values of the Venezuelan people."


http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/2009092...08599192512900

Anti-Chavez TV station faces possible shutdown
The government said Monday a leading TV channel aligned with Venezuela's opposition could lose its broadcast license for allegedly airing a viewer's text message calling for a coup and the assassination of President Hugo Chavez.

By CHRISTOPHER TOOTHAKER

Associated Press Writer

CARACAS, Venezuela —
The government said Monday a leading TV channel aligned with Venezuela's opposition could lose its broadcast license for allegedly airing a viewer's text message calling for a coup and the assassination of President Hugo Chavez.

Diosdado Cabello, president of the telecommunications commission, said authorities will also ask prosecutors for a criminal probe to determine whether the owners of Globovision should face trial for allegedly trying to incite rebellion.

Asked if the government would close Globovision, Cabello responded: "That depends on the investigation."

Ana Cristina Nunez, Globovision's legal adviser, said the channel would never intentionally broadcast unlawful text messages.

"We are very careful in attempting to stop people from using Globovision's screen to make illegal petitions," Nunez said.

Earlier in the day, the telecommunications commission issued a statement accusing Globovision - the last major channel on Venezuela's regular airwaves that is strongly critical of Chavez - of airing messages that "allude to violent acts," including a call for a coup attempt.

The 24-hour news channel also purportedly sought to "promote public protests, which could generate a climate of tension and nervousness in the population," it said.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...uelamedia.html

Wonder when BHO will shut down Fox News? .................

Big Teddy

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by greenberetTFS

Wonder when BHO will shut down Fox News? .................

Big Teddy

I think if they could they would.....

They know if they did, they themselves would be shut down shortly there after.....

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

I think if they could they would.....

They know if they did, they themselves would be shut down shortly there after.....

Some voted for Gore in order to get the revolution started earlier.

[Sdiver]

Originally Posted by greenberetTFS

Wonder when BHO will shut down Fox News? .................

Big Teddy

As soon as he appoints a FOX Czar.

[GratefulCitizen]

The president appears to be struggling with a severe bout of colpitis.

The prognosis is not good.

[Surf n Turf]

Originally Posted by GratefulCitizen

The president appears to be struggling with a severe bout of colpitis.

The prognosis is not good.

Alright, you made me look it up.
Accurate reporting
SnT

[Richard]

The president appears to be struggling with a severe bout of colpitis.

More like Replicatus Anus, a rare mutation most often associated with descendants of people who once attended the Ivies but which now seems to have spread throughout the rest of the US political pool.

Replicatus Anus, commonly referred to as Double-Ass Disease, is rarely found in people as young as BHO, but the disease, unless treated quickly, can be permanent and debilitating as happened to former Senator Edward Kennedy and President Jimmy Carter.

Dr. A. Lotta Bunz, surgical czar at Chicago's Our Lady of Perpetual Guilt Food Kitchen and Pet Hospital, had this to say, "The President is doing very well and surgery was successful. We removed the...er...'second bottom'...and - as advised by the office of the recently appointed compensation czar - used it in a successful transplant procedure on a stockbroker who recently lost his ass on Wall Street."

Dr. Bunz also said BHO would be back on center-stage at the UN in no time with his song and dance partners - Presidents Ghadaffi, Chavez and Ahmadenijad - but that there would be some slight adjustments that he'll need to make. When asked about the specifics of the 'adjustments', she said, "Oh...well...he can cut down on toilet paper purchases and won't need so many secret service agents assigned to covering his ass!"

However, if history offers any lessons here, it is that once this disease strikes, it can return at any time or - worse - lead to the dreaded BCS (Bill Clinton Syndrome) in which the President may show signs of reacting to the pressures of his position by shoving his head so far up his own ass that he will be unable to dislodge it without outside assistance. *

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02

* With appreciation to the fine ffolkes at The Spoof.

Originally Posted by Richard

More like Replicatus Anus, a rare mutation most often associated with descendants of people who once attended the Ivies but which now seems to have spread throughout the rest of the US political pool.

Replicatus Anus, commonly referred to as Double-Ass Disease, is rarely found in people as young as BHO, but the disease, unless treated quickly, can be permanent and debilitating as happened to former Senator Edward Kennedy and President Jimmy Carter.

Dr. A. Lotta Bunz, surgical czar at Chicago's Our Lady of Perpetual Guilt Food Kitchen and Pet Hospital, had this to say, "The President is doing very well and surgery was successful. We removed the...er...'second bottom'...and - as advised by the office of the recently appointed compensation czar - used it in a successful transplant procedure on a stockbroker who recently lost his ass on Wall Street."

Dr. Bunz also said BHO would be back on center-stage at the UN in no time with his song and dance partners - Presidents Ghadaffi, Chavez and Ahmadenijad - but that there would be some slight adjustments that he'll need to make. When asked about the specifics of the 'adjustments', she said, "Oh...well...he can cut down on toilet paper purchases and won't need so many secret service agents assigned to covering his ass!"

However, if history offers any lessons here, it is that once this disease strikes, it can return at any time or - worse - lead to the dreaded BCS (Bill Clinton Syndrome) in which the President may show signs of reacting to the pressures of his position by shoving his head so far up his own ass that he will be unable to dislodge it without outside assistance. *

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02

* With appreciation to the fine ffolkes at The Spoof.

The phrase we're all looking for is...

"Rectal Cephalo Intussusception"

[incarcerated]

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/...ap_border.html

Klein: Fox's 'hateful crap' borders on 'sedition'

October 24, 2009
George Joyce

For a fascinating glimpse into the seething and completely unhinged liberal mind check out Joe Klein’s dark and disturbing rant over at Time Magazine. The first line of the piece reads:

"Let me be precise here: Fox News peddles a fair amount of hateful crap. Some of it borders on sedition. Much of it is flat out untrue.”

Although Klein’s vitriol is off the charts it pales in comparison to what can only be described as his unseemly boot licking. Here’s an example:

"If the problem is that stories bloated far beyond their actual importance -- ACORN's corruption, Van Jones's radical past -- are in danger of leaching out of the Fox hothouse into the general media, then perhaps the Administration should be a bit more diligent about whom it hires and whom it funds.”

When a writer worries about stories “in danger of leaching out” he or she can best be described as a storm trooper, not a journalist. Just what is Klein trying to say here? Is he saying that snakes that are more capable of shrouding their identity from Fox News are a better bet for the Administration?

The philosopher Eric Hoffer once said the “missionary zeal seems rather an expression of some deep misgiving, some pressing feeling of insufficiency at the center.”

In other words, watch for these juvenile, Klein-like tantrums to only get worse on the left.

[The Reaper]

Funny, Klein didn't seem to be that concerned about negative reporting and personal attacks by almost all of the MSM outlets during the previous administration.

In fact, he seemed to be part of it.

Hmm.

TR

[incarcerated]

http://features.csmonitor.com/politi...r-of-commerce/

After Fox News, next on Obama hit list: Chamber of Commerce?

By Mark Sappenfield | 10.25.09
Call it a Summit of the Disgruntled.
On Sunday, Fox News hosted leaders from America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), and the US Chamber of Commerce.

For those of you not keeping score at home, the Obama administration has:

1. Declared repeatedly that Fox News is not a news organization.

2. Made AHIP its long-sought-for enemy in the healthcare-reform battle.

3. Tried its best to undermine the authority of the US Chamber of Commerce.

Not surprisingly, the tone of the panel was a bitter, decrying the Obama administration’s “name-calling.”

A vast left-wing conspiracy?

Yet it appears there is more than just the ordinary partisan frustration at work. Since August, the Obama administration has undertaken a clear strategy of seeking to discredit and marginalize some of the most influential conservative voices in Washington, according to a report in Politico.

The result is a Washington turned even more antagonistic. It took President Bush – the self-styled compassionate conservative – hardly more than a year to lose that moniker, and President Obama – elected as a great uniter – is now reportedly embarking on a strategy to emasculate the political right.

But that’s how the city works, says political scientist Sidney Milkis. “Partisanship is at least part of the solution to the political challenges he and the country face,” he said at a recent roundtable about partisanship at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va.

His argument is that the current partisanship is neither unprecedented nor unusual but rather “unvarnished,” and that all the most consequential presidents in history were also “extraordinary party leaders.”

Obama as provacateur

Indeed, Obama’s actions of recent weeks have the appearance of “rallying the troops.”

Fox News – whose war with the Obama administration has been very open – is only the most obvious target. As the White House has been casting aspersions on Fox News, it has also been meeting directly with executives at some of America’s most powerful firms.

To the Chamber of Commerce, the effort amounts to an end run – bypassing one of Washington’s most powerful lobbying groups in an attempt to undermine its authority.

The White House feels this is necessary because of the Chamber of Commerce’s opposition to some of Obama’s flagship reforms, most importantly cap-and-trade and financial regulation.

Evidence suggests that the White House can have some success in peeling away certain businesses from the Chamber of Commerce. Nike and Apple quit, for example, in protest over the organizations’ opposition to energy reform.

But this campaign has come at the expense of cordial relations between the White House and the Chamber.

At the beginning of Obama’s term, the Chamber of Commerce backed him on the stimulus and the bank bailouts. Now, speaking of the apparent war the White House has started, Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue said: “Tell ’em to put their damn helmets on.”

AHIP check

The same situation applies to AHIP. In May, administration officials were praising AHIP and other insurers for wanting “to be a part of the solution” after they agreed to voluntary cost-cutting reforms that would result in $2 billion in savings over 10 years.

Earlier this month, however, AHIP released a report that angered the White House and many Democrats. It suggested that healthcare costs for a typical American family would go up significantly – by $20,700 between 2010 and 2019 – if the Senate Finance Committee’s version of healthcare reform passed.

The president responded in his weekly radio address, saying insurers were “ breaking out their massive war chest … for one last fight to save the status quo. They’re … funding studies designed to mislead the American people.”

Professor Milkis suggested that Obama has used the presidential bully pulpit to its fullest extent, trying to maximize the influence of the presidency, which he argued is more powerful than at any point since Richard Nixon.

Others have drawn different comparisons with Nixon, saying Obama has an “enemies list” as Nixon did.

It appears, however, the White House has not yet completely cast off its “enemies.” Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel will speak to the Chamber of Commerce on Nov. 4.