Daily Caller

Facebook Upgrade Raises Questions About Network Favoring Liberal Groups
By Lachlan Markay | May 25, 2011 | 11:44 AM EDT

A software upgrade at Facebook has some conservative groups worried that their hard-earned followings might be rendered useless. The upgrade will "archive" all existing Facebook groups, thereby revoking administrators' access to member lists, unless they receive an exemption from Facebook (and the accompanying software).

The company has not revealed how groups are being chosen for these exemptions, but a number of prominent conservative groups recently told the Daily Caller that they had not received one, and feared they wouldn't. Losing access to member lists would remove key functionality, as administrators would no longer be able to contact group members en masse (Facebook "pages" will not be affected).

Facebook insisted in a statement that the company "determined what groups to archive based on a number of factors, including the amount of recent activity."But a quick look at a few of the groups that did and did not get these exemptions demonstrates that neither activity nor group size was the overriding factor. Indeed, plenty of conservative-leaning political groups with active memberships are still waiting on the software given to smaller, far less active liberal-leaning groups.

Howard Kurtz: Why No Outrage Over Democrat Saying Republicans Want to Kill Women?
By Noel Sheppard | April 10, 2011 | 3:53 PM EDT

As NewsBusters previously reported, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday Republican freshmen in the House "are here to kill women."

On CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday, host Howard Kurtz correctly wondered why this didn't cause any media outrage (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Media Question Whether Santorum's Comments In CNSNews.com Interview Are Racist
By Matt Hadro | January 20, 2011 | 6:58 PM EST

In an interview with CNSNews.com last week, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum (R) referenced President Obama's African-American heritage last week and "found it remarkable" that he could be pro-abortion. Santorum, later clarifying his comments under media scrutiny, said he meant he is dismayed that a President who "rightfully" fights for civil rights ignores the civil rights of the unborn in America.

Santorum, speaking of President Obama's position on abortion, said in the interview "the question is--and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer--is that human life a person under the Constitution? And Barack Obama says no. Well, if that person, human life, is not a person, then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, no, we are going to decide who are people and who are not people."

The media picked up on the comment and, without publishing what Santorum said leading up to the segment, questioned if he had racial motivations. Jennifer Epstein's Politico piece was headlined "Rick Santorum plays race card on President Obama." Epstein labeled Santorum's remark "eyebrow-raising."
 

AP Deliberately Captions Palin Haiti Photo to Cast Her As Self-Conscious Celeb
By Tom Blumer | December 15, 2010 | 10:55 AM EST

Maybe we need to add the word "Palinography" to the dictionary. Its definition would be: "The process of preparing news photographs and accompanying captions about Sarah Palin in a deliberately negative light."

One example many will likely remember involved the amateurish wire service shoes-and-calves-only photos frequently seen during Palin's vice-presidential run.

Lori Ziganto at the Daily Caller's DC Trawler flagged the latest outrage, which is shown below (direct link):

Funny Stuff: NYT Writers Accuse Other Media of 'Tilting the Field,' Presenting 'Political Opposition Research' As News
By Clay Waters | July 26, 2010 | 5:17 PM EDT
The New York Times went to town on Andrew Breitbart and Fox News on Sunday and Monday, rehashing the racial controversy over the Shirley Sherrod tape and suggesting conservative media outlets were guilty of "tilting the field," blowing "obscure or misleading stories...out of proportion" and presenting "political opposition research" as news. Hmm. Isn't that what the New York Times has been doing to conservatives for years?

Media reporter Brian Stelter made the front of Monday's Business page with his Fox News-bashing take on the controversy, "When Race is the Issue, Misleading Coverage Sets Off an Uproar."
In the last couple of days, Andrew Breitbart, a conservative Web site operator, has been called a liar, a provocateur, a propagandist -- and even a race-baiter. But he says he knows who the true race-baiters are: some Democratic activists.
Andrew Breitbart highlighted the edited video clip of Shirley Sherrod on one of his Web sites. "It's warfare out there," he says.

It was one of Mr. Breitbart's Web sites, BigGovernment, that highlighted the heavily edited video clip of Shirley Sherrod, a black official at the Department of Agriculture, apparently saying that she had been biased against a white farmer she was supposed to help. Ms. Sherrod's full speech actually demonstrated the opposite, but do not expect Mr. Breitbart to be embarrassed.
Stelter later evinced a convenient concern for journalist credibility for "when obscure or misleading stories are blown out of proportion and when what amounts to political opposition research is presented as news." Stelter must have missed the Times's hit pieces on John McCain alleging an affair and suggesting his birthplace made him unqualified to serve as president, or the paper's sabotage of two successful Bush-era terror-fighting programs it disapproved of.
Olbermann's Production Staff Jumping Ship, JournoListers Hate Him
By Noel Sheppard | July 23, 2010 | 10:39 AM EDT

While on a much-needed vacation, things for Keith Olbermann have gone from bad to worse.

News is coming out almost daily concerning members of his production staff jumping ship to work for Lawrence O'Donnell's new program.

On top of that, the Daily Caller has published e-mail messages of liberal JournoList members expressing their disgust for the "Countdown" host.

As lefties hating on Olbermann is guaranteed to brighten a conservative's day, let's start there:

Tucker Carlson to JournoList Partisans: 'Stop Pretending to Be' Journalists
By Lachlan Markay | July 22, 2010 | 5:22 PM EDT
Tucker Carlson posted a piece on his website, the Daily Caller, Thursday evening in what he claims is an attempt to refute two key criticisms of the website's recent exposes involving the lefty reporter listserv JournoList.

The first, that the reporters are opinion commentators and not "straight news" journalists Carlson says is irrelevant. "What we object to is partisanship," Carlson stated, "which is by its nature dishonest, a species of intellectual corruption… Those who engage in it are not journalists. They should stop pretending to be."

The second line of attack taken on in the post is the notion, "familiar to anyone who has ever published a piece whose subject didn’t like the finished product," that excerpts of JournoList emails published at the Daily Caller were taken out of context. Carlson challenged the accusers to publish the full emails and refute his charges.
After JournoList Exposé, No One Better Ever Deny Liberal Media Bias Again
By Brent Bozell | July 22, 2010 | 12:18 PM EDT

Managing Editor's Note:  NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell today reprimanded members of the press in light of the recently exposed e-mails from the now-defunct JournoList that show a blatant, deliberate campaign to smear conservatives. That statement is published below. Click here for more background on JournoList.

The revelation of these e-mails simply proves that we have been right all along.  The liberal media have no interest in being fair or unbiased.  In fact, they are deliberately violating any sense of journalistic ethics.

There is no excuse – none- for the attitudes and lack of professionalism these so-called journalists displayed not only in these e-mails but in their reporting.  Any member of the media that was privy to these Journolist emails, and remained silent, is just as much to blame as the folks that crafted these e-mails. Their silence indicts them. 

We said in 2008 that the media were making excuses for Jeremiah Wright and now we have the proof. Just today we learned from the Daily Caller that these people went so far as to say that Rush Limbaugh ‘deserves’ their hate.  Sadly, I am not surprised, as this is what we have been exposing year after year about the media.  And it’s exactly why Americans refuse to trust them.

JournoListers Conspired To Destroy Sarah Palin Day McCain Picked Her
By Noel Sheppard | July 22, 2010 | 10:53 AM EDT

New e-mail messages published by the Daily Caller Thursday show a coordinated effort by the JournoList's members to destroy Sarah Palin the moment she was named John McCain's running mate on August 29, 2008. 

Some even discussed how the former Alaska governor's decision to have a Down Syndrome baby rather than abort it could be used against her.  

As the attacks ensued, the Nation's Chris Hayes wrote, "Keep the ideas coming! Have to go on TV to talk about this in a few min and need all the help I can get." 

Witness America's so-called journalists conspiring to destroy a woman most of the nation had not even heard of yet:

Daily Caller Runs Pieces of Obama Election Glee from JournoList, Plus One Call for Violence
By Tim Graham | July 22, 2010 | 6:39 AM EDT

The latest installment of The Daily Caller's exploration of the liberal JournoList isn't an article, but a list of euphoric reactions to the election of Obama. Jonathan Strong does quote here from some establishment media. When one writer (Laura Rozen of Politico) starts listing Bushies who will no longer have to be listened to, Time's Joe Klein nominated "Pete Wehner," one of those dreaded neoconservatives. CNN's Jeffrey Toobin wondered "As a side note, does anyone know what prompted Michael Barone to go insane?"

Washington Post reporter Alec McGillis enthusiastically shared, "If you need further proof that VA is looking to go blue, check out what’s going on in VA-5 in deepest Southside Virginia, where Tom Perriello, my college roommate and a very good guy, is now up .06 percentage points — 2,000 votes — against Virgil Goode with 88 percent reporting." (Rep. Perriello is down 58-35 in this year's campaign.)

Spencer Ackerman (now with Wired magazine) is again talking about putting conservatives through a plate-glass window (as in the Caller's first piece), in this case terrorism expert Michael Ledeen: "Let’s just throw Ledeen against a wall. Or, pace Dr. Alterman, throw him through a plate glass window. I’ll bet a little spot of violence would shut him right the f--- up, as with most bullies."

But most of the journalists were much more gleeful:

In Light of NAACP Condemnation, Media Brings Back Tea Party Fraud
By Rusty Weiss | July 21, 2010 | 11:59 PM EDT
Memo to media members wishing to invite the Tea Party Founder on your show, or use him as a source for your biased reports:  He isn't exactly who you think he is.

Since the NAACP voted to condemn extremist elements in the Tea Party, news networks, sites, and liberal blogs have rushed to include ‘Tea Party Founder', Dale Robertson, in their reports.  Problem being, Dale Robertson as Tea Party anything has frequently and thoroughly been, um ... ‘refudiated'.   

Despite this, the media has a history of holding Robertson up as a shining example of Tea Party racism.  Why?  Robertson once demonstrated a level of ignorance that boggles the mind by holding a sign reading "Congress = Slaveowner, Taxpayer = (N-Word)", at a Houston Tea Party Society (TPS) event.

The reality however, is that Robertson has predominantly self-described, if any, links to the Tea Party movement, while legitimate factions of the movement have had to repeatedly distance themselves from the man.  Robertson was expelled from the event at which he was holding the aforementioned sign on the very same day.  He was formally denounced in a statement released by the Houston TPS.  He was called ‘no friend' of the Tea Party at Pajamas Media, and mocked at RedState.  He was shown to be for his infamous sign, before he was against it.

So logically, the media has decided to help further the cause of the NAACP by bringing Robertson back out of the shadows.  Since word of the the NAACP resolution got out, Robertson's name has appeared at...

NPR Publicizes Apology of Sarah Spitz for Limbaugh Death Wishes, Insists She's Not on Their Payroll
By Tim Graham | July 21, 2010 | 4:23 PM EDT

NPR's blog The Two-Way is running the apology of public-radio producer Sarah Spitz, who claimed to her fellow liberals on JournoList she would "Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out" if Rush Limbaugh were dying in front of her. But they also wanted to insist that her ties with NPR were few:

In fact, Spitz has never been an NPR employee. For many years, she has worked for KCRW, a public radio station in Santa Monica, California, as a producer and publicist.KCRW is one of some 900 independently-operated public radio stations across the country that air NPR's news, talk and entertainment programming. Like network TV affiliates, they air national programming but act autonomously.At 2:10 p.m. ET, Spitz issued this statement: