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.
Magazines
By Tom Blumer | February 17, 2015 | 10:45 PM EST
In a rundown of the deteriorating situation in Libya in its February 23 issue, New Yorker Magazine's Jon Lee Anderson quoted "a senior (Obama) Administration official" (the capital "A" is Anderson's) who, incredibly, claimed that the country's descent into virtual chaos resulted from "the politicization" of the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack which killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three others.
You see, because of that alleged politicization, Team Obama-Hillary claims that it, in the Administration official's words, "reduced our geographic scope and presence in the country," and, in Anderson's words, that it "wound down its diplomatic presence and essentially abandoned its role" there. A "senior Administration official" chimed in with how Benghazi "brought a 'broader chill'" to U.S. efforts.
By Mark Finkelstein | February 16, 2015 | 8:01 AM EST
Joe Scarborough says he doesn't want to be "torn to shreds online" for analogizing the threat of radical Christianity to that of radical Islam. Simple solution: stop analogizing the threat of radical Christianity to that of radical Islam.
On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough twice suggested such parallels, analogizing radical Islamists to "ultrafundamentalist Christians who believe every single word of the Bible has to be interpreted in the exact ways which could also lead to some violence." A bit later, Scarborough circled back, saying "it doesn't matter what faith you're in," that a literal reading of scripture attracts the outcasts of society, for better or "for much worse."
AP Obsesses Over Walker's Refusal to Answer Evolution Question; Time Interviews His High School Teacher
By Tom Blumer | February 15, 2015 | 11:41 PM EST In London, England earlier this week, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker delivered a speech about global trade at the Chatham House think tank. Given that the group's mission is "to help build a sustainably secure, prosperous and just world," and that it encourages "open debate and confidential discussion on the most significant developments in international affairs," it seemed a reasonable expectation that those present would ask questions relevant to those matters.
Instead, Scott Walker was asked several brazenly off-topic questions, including if he believed in evolution. He refused to answer them. In the case of evolution, he said, "I’m going to punt on that one ... That’s a question that a politician shouldn’t be involved in one way or another," while reminding the audience that "I'm here to talk about trade and not pontificate on other issues."
NYT's Parker-Pope Posts on 'False Memories' in Williams' Defense — Four Days After NBC Pressure Was Known
By Tom Blumer | February 11, 2015 | 1:49 PM EST Tara Parker-Pope attempted a defense of disgraced NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams in an item ("Was Brian Williams a Victim of False Memory?") posted at the New York Times "Well" blog — late Monday afternoon. It even made Tuesday's New York version of the Old Gray Lady's print edition.
Parker-Pope's premise, similar to that used by Marison Bello at USA Today three days earlier — even using the same "expert" as a source — is that the Williams saga "offers a compelling case study in how memories can change and shift dramatically over time." Parker-Pope's post is particularly pathetic because it appeared online a full four days after Variety reported that Williams "had been counseled in the past by senior NBC News executives to stop telling the story in public." Over the next several days, other media outlets corroborated and built upon what Variety reported. In other words, even if one buys into the memory-shift idea, it can't possibly apply in the Williams case. Excerpts follow the jump (bolds are mine):
By Tom Blumer | February 11, 2015 | 12:00 AM EST
In his story on Brian Williams at 10:55 p.m. ET Tuesday, Gabriel Sherman at New York Magazine reported that the now-suspended anchor and his agent "were presented with a dossier of Williams' apparent lies," and that "Williams himself was only slowly grasping the depths of the mess he'd created."
That begs the obvious question of whether the public will ever get to know what's in that "dossier," and what impact its contents may have had on the substance of NBC's news reports during the past dozen (if not more) years. Excerpts from Sherman's report follow the jump (links are in original; bolds are mine):
By Tom Blumer | February 10, 2015 | 3:28 PM EST
In a new book, Obama 2008 campaign manager and longtime Obama adviser David Axelrod reveals that, in the words of Zeke J. Miller at Time.com, "Barack Obama misled Americans for his own political benefit when he claimed in the 2008 election to oppose same sex marriage for religious reasons."
The subheadline at Miller's coverage calls it "A striking admission of political dishonesty from the keeper of the Obama flame." In my view, given that David Axelrod wouldn't make such an admission without permission, it's also a juvenile "Nyah-nyah, we fooled you, and you can't do anything about it!" taunt. Additional excerpts from Miller's article follow the jump (HT Michael Walsh at PJ Media; bolds are mine throughout this post):
Wagon-Circling USAT Reporters Defend Brian Williams For 'False Memories' and Against 'Seething Reactions'
By Tom Blumer | February 7, 2015 | 10:48 AM EST At USA Today Friday afternoon, two of its reporters came down on the side of Brian Williams in the controversy over what even the often media-enabling Associated Press has called his "fake Iraq story."
Roger Yu tried to portray Williams as a victim of a "synergistic stretch" who is now having to defend himself against the "firestorm on the Internet and social media," while Marisol Bello, who covers "breaking news, poverty and urban affairs," wrote that "there are reasons that it's plausible" that "Williams would remember riding in a helicopter that was shot down if he was nowhere near it."
By Clay Waters | February 5, 2015 | 8:11 AM EST
The UK-based Economist magazine took a snotty tone trying to explain the popularity of American Sniper to its sophisticated worldwide audience, attributing the movie's popularity to mindless pro-American jingoism, mocking it as "more John Wayne than Wilfred Owen." Isn't the whole "John Wayne" caricature getting old?
By Seton Motley | February 2, 2015 | 9:37 AM EST
The Seattle Seahawks yesterday - in a moment of profound foolishness - forsook Beast Mode for Least Mode. And it cost them the Super Bowl. But they can take ever so slight solace - the Media has been in Least Mode for decades.
This has been on prominent display throughout the Barack Obama Administration - and certainly when it comes to the Administration’s many, MANY unilateral power grabs.
First, a bit of a Constitutional primer for a Media that seems to desperately need it. Congress is the Legislative Branch. They write laws - which the President then signs. Said President presides over the Executive Branch. His many, many, MANY Departments, Agencies, Commissions and Boards are then - and only then - charged with executing the legislation Congress first composed.
Time 2013 and WSJ 2015: 'Car of the Future' Will Still Use the Internal Combustion Engine; Al Gore Hardest Hit
By Tom Blumer | January 31, 2015 | 11:51 PM EST At the recent meeting of the world's elites in Davos, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and former Mexican President Felipe Calderon circulated a proposal to ban cars in all major cities in the world by dense-packing their layouts. The cost, as I noted on Monday: a mere $90 trillion (that's right, trillion). It's telling in a foreboding sense that the pair's idea wasn't laughed off the continent.
Enviro-nutty ideas such as these trace their origin to Gore's 1992 book, "Earth in the Balance," in which Gore called the internal combustion engine "the mankind's greatest enemy." In reality, it is arguably the greatest enabler of human progress in the world's history. So readers should take some delight in articles appearing two years apart — one at Time.com, and another at the Wall Street Journal, where the authors predict that the odds seem to be in favor of the evil internal combustion engine continuing to outshine the enviros' favored alternatives for at least the next couple of decades. Gore and his media enablers surely wail and gnash their teeth when such inconvenient items rear their scientific heads.
By Tom Blumer | January 22, 2015 | 5:28 PM EST
Earlier today (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I posted on the establishment press's apparent determination to punish anyone who dares to mention the existence — in their view, the "myth" — of "no-go zones" in France and other European countries.
The tactic seems to be working. The Washington Post's Erik Wemple, who criticized CNN for allowing guests to use the term and failing to challenge them after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, is now praising the network, particularly Anderson Cooper, for backing away, even though one of those guests was a "former CIA official" who, it would seem, would have been asserting his position about their existence based on job experience and other acquired knowledge. Before the term completely disappears down the memory hole, readers should be reminded that it was being used even before the 2005 riots in Europe.