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MRC's Bozell Challenges CBS to Stand Ground, Air Tim Tebow Super Bowl Ad
By NB Staff | January 26, 2010 | 2:38 PM EST

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell called on the CBS television network to stay the course in planning to air a life-affirming Super Bowl commercial featuring Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother, who was pressured to abort him during her pregnancy, after a bout of opposition has arisen among left-wing activist groups:

Radical leftist groups like the National Organization for Women have the gall to claim that this life-affirming ad is "extraordinarily offensive and demeaning." I have to wonder, what is so offensive about celebrating the decision of a mother to have her baby?

Bozell added that "CBS has the opportunity to make this a game-changer for network television," an "opportunity to show balance and fairness -- and simple decency" and "to stand against liberal liberal political censorship."

Ted Turner Advises CNN Not to Follow Fox News Opinion Model
By Jeff Poor | January 14, 2010 | 5:41 PM EST

Since Lou Dobbs left CNN in November, citing a mutual agreement between he and CNN President Jonathan Klein that involved CNN going in a different direction, CNN's ratings have plummeted.

But Ted Turner, founder of the first truly 24-hour cable news channel, doesn't see anything wrong with the channel's heading. CNBC's Joe Kernen asked Turner if he had any problems with CNN's direction during a "Squawk Box" appearance Jan. 14.

"I know you love CNN," Kernen said. "It's your baby. I know you're not involved in running it anymore, but when you look at the way Fox News in 10 years has sort of risen above CNN in terms of ratings and profitability and other metrics, would you advise - should CNN stay the course with their idea it's just straight news, or do they need to change with the times and become more opinion-based."

One More Feminist Upset Over Aging Inequalities
By Mark Finkelstein | January 2, 2010 | 9:42 AM EST
If you bother to read Joanna Weiss' column in today's Boston Globe, expect to get a sense of déjà . . . lu.  Like untold polemics that have preceded it, "Hollywood’s burden on aging women" stamps its feet over the unequal treatment of aging in men and women.

You know: male stars are allowed to age gracefully, but women must struggle ever-harder to conform to a youthful stereotype of sex-appeal. Unfair!

The feminist response is to blame the culture, in this case embodied by Hollywood, for promoting shallow, sexist values.  But the fault, dear Joanna, is not in our stars but in ourselves, or more precisely, our DNA.

Size Matters In Creepy Government Motors TV Commercial
By Mark Finkelstein | December 26, 2009 | 7:50 PM EST

There I was, watching the perfectly harmless Meineke Car Care Bowl, when a truly creepy Government Motors commercial for the Chevy Silverado pickup broke out . . .

GM spokesman, and former NFL player, Howie Long is not-so-subtly comparing the stats of the Silverado with an intimidated, younger, Ford F150 owner.

Olbermann: Must-See TV For Bad Mothers?
By Mark Finkelstein | December 23, 2009 | 6:57 AM EST
Keith Olbermann: fave of the bad-mother demographic?  The question arises in light of a strange TV ad for something called FloTV that aired this morning.

A mother is giving dinner to her kids when she glances at the clock, notices it's shortly before 6 PM, and proceeds to dump the kids plates and toys, pour a bag of flour on the table and . .  . throw a glass of milk in her son's face.

Cut to shocked coming-home-from-work hubby at the door. Mom informs him "I just need an hour." Cut to mother, sitting on park bench, watching . . . Keith Olbermann on her cellphone.  

Christmas 2009: Oh Come All Ye Faithless
By Matt Philbin | December 16, 2009 | 11:41 AM EST

Got an idealized notion of Christmas? A cherished memory, or a favorite carol or story? The simple smell of pine needles in your living room? Do you insist on celebrating the birth of the savior?

If so, you’re at war, like it or not.

The main war on Christmas – we’ll call it the conventional war – has been well-documented, and it goes on, with victories and defeats for both sides. In Loudoun County, Va. on Dec. 1, the Board of Supervisors reversed a ban on religious holiday displays on the courthouse lawn. (The one supervisor who voted “no” said, “I am concerned that this motion would turn the courthouse grounds into a public circus.”) Meanwhile, in Arizona, public school children remain unable to use Christmas themes when decorating ornaments for the Capitol Christmas tree.

There is plenty to report from the conventional front. But there are other fronts. There is the sexualization of the holiday, either in service to commercialism or out of the lefty arts community’s desire to be “transgressive” (read, vile and offensive). And there are the attempts squash the mysteries and magic that accompany even a traditional secular Christmas.

So from “living” lingerie mannequins to Frosty’s “porn collection,” and from the lies you tell about Santa to our president’s “non-religious” observance, here are some dispatches from the war on Christmas, 2009.

For Conservatives Online, Plenty of Commentary But Not Enough News
By Lachlan Markay | December 13, 2009 | 3:54 PM EST
A number of the conservative movement's prominent online figures are battling to be the right's equivalent of Talking Points Memo or Huffington Post--political organizations that report hard news. Many believe that to truly harness the power of the Web, political organizations must report their own news, rather than comment on reporitng from traditional outlets.

"The left needs Daily Kos, but they also need the Huffington Post," Politics Daily columnist Matt Lewis told Politico. He praised the roles of activists and opinion commentators on the right such as Red State's Erick Erickson, but noted that the conservatives have not yet matched the left's capability for original reporting.

Though HuffPo, TPM, and other politcally stilted but journalism-oriented sites, liberals "have the ability to amplify stories into the mainstream media conversation," according to Politico. Conservatives have a large void to fill when it comes to producing original content, rather than solely commenting on what is already out there. There are conservative sites providing original reporting, but there are so far no center-right equivalents to the left's powerhouse online news operations.
CNBC’s 'Squawk Box': All the Media Attention Could Actually Benefit Tiger Woods
By Jeff Poor | December 10, 2009 | 4:13 PM EST

There has been a lot of media focus dedicated to the alleged Tiger Woods scandal - even so much that when examined quantitatively, it overshadows more serious issues.

So what will the net result of this media scrutiny be for Tiger? CNBC's sports reporter, Darren Rovell, took a crack at answering that on the Dec. 10 broadcast of "Squawk Box."

"It's 12 straight days in the [New York] Post right now," Rovell said. "Everyday since Nov. 29, there's been a Tiger Woods story. When does it end? We don't know. I'm not going to get into the details of this, but from a business standpoint - how about Donald Trump on 'Extra' yesterday?"

Get Your Race-Based Holiday Shopping Done at NYTimes.com!
By Clay Waters | December 9, 2009 | 5:31 PM EST

<img src="http://media.eyeblast.org/newsbusters/thumbnails/wiselatina.jpg" align="right" border="0" height="190" hspace="3" vspace="3" width="190" />The New York Times <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/gift-guide/holiday-2009/categories.html">'09 Holiday Gift Guide</a> page has some intriguing suggestions.<br /><br />There's the &quot;Holiday Books Guide,&quot; the &quot;Personal Tech Holiday Gift Guide,&quot; the guide <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/gift-guide/holiday-2009/colorstyleguide/list.html... people of color</a>...<br /><br />Wait. A separate gift page for people of color? Yes. The NYT Picker blog <a href="http://www.nytpick.com/2009/12/unbelievable-nyt-gift-guide-includes.html... the Times</a> has a special gift section for non-whites:<br /><blockquote>We don't like to throw around words like &quot;racist&quot; in the same sentence as the NYT's name, but there's no other word we can think of to describe this page in the NYT's annual Holiday Gift Guide -- called &quot;Of Color/Stylish Gifts&quot; and aimed exclusively at the paper's non-white readers.<br /></blockquote><blockquote>Or, as the NYT describes it, &quot;gifts created for and by people of color&quot;....it's the first time we can remember a gift guide, anywhere, openly defining its offerings by their appeal to a specific racial group.<br /></blockquote>

Murdoch: Regulators, Freeloaders Obstacles to Media Future
By Lachlan Markay | December 1, 2009 | 5:35 PM EST
Rupert Murdoch sees a future in journalism. With newspaper circulation at post-war lows and major dailies shutting down in a number of cities, he may be one of the few optimists left. But first, Murdoch claims, the American government must change its obsolete and destructive regulatory policies that, he says, are preventing major news outlets from competing.

"Good journalism is an expensive commodity," Murdoch told an audience at a Federal Trade Commission workshop on the future of journalism today. "Critics say people won’t pay, but I say they will. But only if you give them something good." Murdoch has announced plans to institute paywalls for all online content offered by his giant news conglomerate, News Corp.

Though Murdoch is confident that paywalls would more than make up for revenue lost by shortfalls in advertising dollars, other newspapers' experiences with the system have failed to do so. The New York Times in 2005 began charging for many of its columns, but eliminated the paywall after revenues failed to outweigh advertising dollars. Still, there are a number of unexplored options for online news payment schemes, and Murdoch is no rookie in the news business.
Not as Advertised: MSNBC Goes with Taped Olbermann During 10 P.M. Hour on Election Night
By Jeff Poor | November 4, 2009 | 2:51 PM EST

It's probably safe to assume many Democrats weren't happy about last evening's election results, no matter how they spun them and how they pertained to President Barack Obama. And to his credit, that's something MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews admitted was not good for the Democratic Party.

However, MSNBC, the so-called "Place for Politics" hyped up its Nov. 3 "Super Tuesday" election coverage throughout the day (emphasis added):

"Tonight, Super Tuesday continues on MSNBC with live coverage of ‘Decision ‘09' inside the key elections that will set the stage for a 2010 political battle," the announcer on the TV spot said. "Follow the results on MSNBC's primetime line-up. Plus, special live editions of ‘Countdown with Keith Olbermann' at 10, ‘The Rachel Maddow Show' at 11 and ‘Hardball with Chris Matthews' at midnight. Super Tuesday continues tonight on MSNBC, the place for politics."

Anemic Newspaper Circulation Numbers Due To Obsolete Strategies
By Lachlan Markay | October 30, 2009 | 12:54 PM EDT
The latest newspaper circulation numbers, measuring copies sold from April through September of this year, show a 10.6 percent decline in daily newspaper sales, the first double-digit drop in circulation ever. Newspaper readership is now at its lowest level since before World War II.

The biggest losers during this six-month period, as reported by NewsBusters's Tom Blumer, were the San Francisco Chronicle (down 25.8 percent daily), the Newark Star-Ledger (down 22.2 percent daily), and the Boston Globe (down 18.5 percent daily).

The New York Times's sales during the period fell to 927,861, the first time the paper sold less than 1 million copies in that time span in decades. The Wall Street Journal saw a 0.6 percent increase in circulation, making it the most purchased newspaper in the country. The Journal surpassed USA Today, whose circulation declined by over 17 percent.