"Social group whose primary activities include lewdness & intemperance, & whose recruits suffer humiliation & sadism, sues for defamation." That was a tweet from Washington Post "newspaperman" Dan Zak at 7:39 p.m. Monday evening.
Magazines
By Mark Finkelstein | April 6, 2015 | 9:21 AM EDT
Last week, NewsBusters brought you "Stumped," as April Ryan struggled to cite a single foreign policy success by her super-fave, President Obama. In the best Hollywood tradition, this morning we bring you a sequel--Stumped II: Syria!
On today's Morning Joe, lugubrious lefty Eric Alterman of The Nation mag was stumped when Joe Scarborough asked him what the US should do about Syria. After humming, hawing and a couple of false starts, Alterman asked how much time they had. Right, as if if only he had more time. Shades of that SNL skit in which President George H.W. Bush tries to skate away from a question only to be informed by the moderator that he had plenty more time.
By Tom Blumer | April 5, 2015 | 11:19 PM EDT
Earlier this evening, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism issued its report on Rolling Stone Magazine's November "A Rape on Campus" story. The report follows up on the magazine's request of Columbia to conduct an independent review of how the disastrously false 9,000-word story made it through to publication.
USA Today is reporting that for all the harsh criticism the piece's author and the others at the magazine received, and despite the fact that RS has now formally and fully retracted the story, no one is losing their job or suffering any other visible consequences. In fact, the magazine considers the whole affair "an isolated and unusual episode" (bolds are mine):
By Matthew Balan | March 26, 2015 | 1:23 PM EDT
Yet again, MSNBC had to issue an on-air apology, after one of its left-wing guests on Wednesday made an outrageous statement. On Now With Alex Wagner, Ebony.com's senior editor Jamilah Lemieux responded to Senator Ted Cruz's statement about listening to country music after 9/11 by snarking, "Nothing says, let's go kill some Muslims like country music....I mean, really? That's absurd."
By Tom Blumer | March 24, 2015 | 11:13 AM EDT
On CNN yesterday, after the network cut away from the press conference where Charlottesville, Virginia Police Department announced that it "found no evidence to support claims in a Rolling Stone article that a University of Virginia student was gang raped at a campus fraternity in September 2012," network panelist and CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin bizarrely resorted to "statistics" to defend "Jackie," the student-fabulist involved.
The panel discussion which followed the press conference seemed to be all about telling viewers that "Despite what everyone says, it's really not over." Hostin's major contribution to that meme was to essentially contend that because "only about 2 percent of rapes that are reported are false," any allegation that "Jackie" was making things up is unfair and likely incorrect because it "flies in the face of statistics." Video and a transcript follow the jump:
By Tom Blumer | March 23, 2015 | 3:57 PM EDT
The press's reluctance to let go of a popular but debunked meme — in this case, the nonexistent "epidemic" of college campus sexual assaults — is sometimes inadvertently humorous, though still intensely annoying.
Take how John Bacon and Marisol Bello at USA Today characterized the news that "Police in Charlottesville were unable to verify that an alleged sexual assault detailed in a controversial Rolling Stone magazine article ever took place at the University of Virginia":
By Mark Finkelstein | March 18, 2015 | 8:27 AM EDT
Things got chippy on Morning Joe today after Amy Holmes of The Blaze pointed out that President Obama has personalized and publicized his conflict with Benjamin Netanyahu in a way he hasn't done even with despots like Kim Jong Un or the Castro brothers.
When Holmes added that "only Benjamin Netanyahu seems to be the focal point of this president's ire," former Obama spokesman Gibbs called Holmes' statement "the silliest thing I've probably heard in a long time."
By Tim Graham | March 15, 2015 | 6:24 PM EDT
The New York Times isn’t the only iconic media outlet to ignore George and Laura Bush’s visit to Selma as they obsess over the Obamas. On page 12 of the March 23 edition of People magazine, in the “Star Tracks” section, there’s a whole page devoted to “THE FIRST FAMILY IN SELMA.” In chronicling the events of March 7, there was no picture and no mention of President and Mrs. Bush (or any other Republicans).
By Tim Graham | February 25, 2015 | 7:07 AM EST
No one looks to GQ for political analysis. It would be like looking to Rolling Stone for religion coverage. But they can still ape the rest of the liberal media and mock Fox News. As the Fox haters campaign to get Bill O’Reilly canned, GQ (not an abbreviation for Genius Quotient) has come up with a mocking list of “18 Things That Actually Would Get Bill O'Reilly Fired.”
It includes things like "Failing to attend Roger Ailes' annual oil baron retreat and virgin sacrifice."
By Tom Blumer | February 20, 2015 | 11:32 PM EST
Earlier today, Thaddeus Murphy was charged in U.S. District Court in Colorado in connection with an attempted January bombing in Colorado Springs.
The targeted building houses that city's chapter of the NAACP, a barber shop — and, apparently at one time, a tax accountant's office. Quite a few people leaped to the conclusion that the bomb had to be meant for the NAACP, even though, as syndicated columnist and area resident Michelle Malkin noted last month, "The NAACP office is located on the opposite side of the building" from where the explosion occurred. The Criminal Complaint filed today indicates that the NAACP was not the target. The long vacant accountant's office was.
By Tim Graham | February 20, 2015 | 11:04 PM EST
People magazine featured HBO star Lena Dunham in its half-page feature “Why I Care: Personal Stories About Giving Back.” The headline in the March 2 issue was “The Girls creator, 28, supports access to birth control and reproductive rights.”
Dunham, naturally is “giving back” to the abortion industry. A photo caption read “Dunham, who hosted a Planned Parenthood event in January, says she feels ‘compelled’ to help.” At the bottom of the article, People helpfully instructs: “For more information, go to plannedparenthood.org”. The article was basically an advertisement
By Ken Shepherd | February 19, 2015 | 4:57 PM EST
Time magazine editor-at-large and global-warming alarmist Jeffrey Kluger called on Facebook today to censor users who promote criticisms of vaccines, commonly known as anti-vaxxers. While Kluger is absolutely right to note that Facebook would be well within its rights to do so and that private-party censorship is not a First Amendment free-speech issue, Kluger's paternalistic lecturing and the logic undergirding it is quite telling.