McClatchy Newspapers

Detroit Free Press: 'Which Books Would Palin Want to Ban?'
By Mike Bates | September 28, 2008 | 1:37 PM EDT

Last week, the Detroit Free Press's Web site posted "Which books would Palin want to ban?," a column by syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.  Pitts begins with a series of possible questions for Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.  Then he makes his point:

My first question, though, would not be one of those. I'd simply ask which books she wants to ban -- and why.

Yes, there's a list of titles floating around the Internet right now, but it's a fake. It is, however, established fact that our would-be vice president has in the past tried to pull books off library shelves.
PBS Ombudsman Raps Anti-Palin Wisecrack
By Mike Bates | September 19, 2008 | 9:33 PM EDT

On PBS's Web site today, ombudsman Michael Getler writes of complaints over an incident during last Sunday's pledge drive.  He describes the cheap shot taken by actor Mike Farrell against vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin:

According to Joseph Campbell, vice president of fundraising programs, here's what happened:

CNN's Blitzer: 'I Don't Remember' Biden's Law School Plagiarism
By Mike Bates | September 18, 2008 | 10:55 PM EDT

On The Situation Room today, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer made a surprising admission to, of all people, real estate entrepreneur Donald Trump:

McClatchy Whines: Public Unfair to News Media
By Warner Todd Huston | September 15, 2008 | 4:03 AM EDT

You... yes, you reading this right now. McClatchy wants you to know you are mean to them, your mistrust of them is merely egged on by a sly political tactic, and you fall for it because you only get your news from an "ideologically tailored" source. In other words, they are telling you that you are misinformed, mean-spirited, easily led... well, they are telling you that you are stupid. And then they wonder why people don't trust them!

In "McCain campaign systematically targets the news media," McClatchy writers Steven Thomma and Margaret Talev decided to try and explain why the Republicans are attacking the media with their basic conclusion being that it is an unfair convention that the GOP has employed at least since Spiro T. Agnew (of "Nattering nabobs of negativity" fame) was VP. But, despite the truth staring them in the face, they explain away the ire Americans have with the Old Media.

CNN's Chetry: 'Please Tell Me It's Not Lipstick Again'
By Mike Bates | September 10, 2008 | 11:40 PM EDT

 On CNN's American Morning today, White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux reported on Barack Obama's campaigning in Virginia.  Afterwards, anchor Kiran Chetry had a question:

CHETRY: All right. And Suzanne, what's on tap for the campaign today? And please tell me it's not lipstick again.

MALVEAUX: Let's hope not. He's going to be in Norfolk, Virginia. That is in southeast Virginia, and it's home to the world's largest Naval base. It's one of the most competitive areas that the Democrats and Republicans are fighting over. It's a critical piece of property, piece of land there with folks in Virginia, and they want those voters.
Elite Media Give Big Bucks to Gay Journalist Group
By Brian Fitzpatrick | August 28, 2008 | 12:19 PM EDT

Rarely do the media put their institutional political bias on public display, but this past weekend, America's news industry titans left no doubt that they're fully behind one of the nation's most radical cultural and political movements. 

ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, Fox, NBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the corporate owners of USA Today, the Miami Herald, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Sacramento Bee, The Dallas Morning News and many other newspapers, all spent thousands of dollars sponsoring the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association convention in Washington, D.C.  Many journalists from these Big Media mainstays attended or spoke at the convention. 

In the name of "diversity," all the organizations listed above ran recruiting booths, as did NPR.  Thus, the nation's major news providers demonstrated that they have bought into the central proposition of homosexual activists: that people engaging in homosexuality or bisexuality, along with transsexuals, are a historically oppressed minority group deserving the same preferential treatment and legal protections that society provides to ethnic minorities and women.

Opposite Trajectories: Rush and The Newspaper Business
By Tom Blumer | July 2, 2008 | 8:19 PM EDT

UpDownGraphs.jpegRush Limbaugh's new deal with Clear Channel, as flashed by Drudge (also covered or addressed here and here at NewsBusters; here at the New York Times; and here in a very long New York Times magazine article), is north of $400 million for the next eight years.

Good tax planning too: Maharushie will get his reported nine-figure signing bonus this year before a possible President Obama does his hundreds of billions in damage. Limbaugh's tax savings, if the bonus is $100 million and Obama gets everything he wants, would be a hair under $17 mil (12.4% Social Security on all but $148,000, plus the 4.6% planned increase in the top rate).

One conclusion you can reach, based on what newspaper industry watcher Newsosaur told us earlier this week, is that Old Media covering the Limbaugh story is like zombies covering the living (link in excerpt was in original):

McClatchy Writer Describes Obama Flip-Flops as 'Nuanced'
By P.J. Gladnick | June 27, 2008 | 10:50 AM EDT

The word first popped up in a big way in the 2004 election to explain John Kerry's flip-flops on the issues. See, according to the liberals when a Democrat flip-flops it is really a matter of perception.

McClatchy Worries Obama Will Lose Height Advantage in Sit-down Debates
By Lyndsi Thomas | June 26, 2008 | 4:48 PM EDT

McClatchy Newspapers won the MRC’s 2008 Dan Rather Award for the Stupidest Analysis for its article spinning the success of the troop surge in Iraq as bad news for Iraqi gravediggers. Apparently the editors are aiming for a repeat performance at next year’s program. In his June 26 article, writer Stephen Thomma, on the recently released debate proposal by the Commission on Presidential Debates, found a stature problem for the Illinois senator should he agree to sit-down townhall debates. Here’s the relevant excerpt from "Under Debate Plan, Obama Loses Height Advantage":

Media Snoozes While Obama's 'Altered States' Gaffes Continue
By Tom Blumer | May 19, 2008 | 1:50 PM EDT

Noel Sheppard of NewsBusters posted Saturday on Barack Obama's tirade against Fox News.

The underlying report by Ryan Alessi of McClatchy's Lexington Herald-Leader also contained this nugget (HT National Review' Online's Media Blog), showing that the candidate's basic geography challenges continue:

Obama conceded that he has a steep challenge to get his message and background to voters in states such as Kentucky — where he trails Sen. Hillary Clinton by 27 points, according to a poll published earlier this week — and West Virginia, where voters chose Clinton over Obama by 40 points on Tuesday.

"What it says is that I'm not very well known in that part of the country," Obama said. "Sen. Clinton, I think, is much better known, coming from a nearby state of Arkansas. So it's not surprising that she would have an advantage in some of those states in the middle."

Trouble is, as a look at a US map (with territories) shows, Arkansas may be "nearby," but Obama's home state of Illinois is "adjacent":

McClatchy Uses Global Warming Hysteria to Sell Travel Tours
By Noel Sheppard | May 18, 2008 | 1:01 PM EDT

According to McClatchy News, if you ever want to ski the Alps or dive the Great Barrier Reef, you'd better do it soon because global warming will make both impossible in the years to come.

Never mind that Europe received more snow this winter than it has in many years, as such facts are totally irrelevant to climate alarmists thanks to the propagandist practices of their hero Nobel Laureate Al Gore.

In an article entitled "10 Places to go Before Global Warming Hits Hard," McClatchy's Judy Wiley did her darnedest to get people to travel the world regardless of the obvious hypocrisy in such behavior adding to the so-called problem (emphasis added):

Outrageous: McClatchy Praises Terrorist's 'Charity Work'
By Warner Todd Huston | May 9, 2008 | 2:41 PM EDT

McClatchy News -- the paper chain that likes to claim they speak "truth to power" -- is pleased to show us "another side" to the Iran backed Iraqi militia leader Muqtada al Sadr and that other side is his supposed "charity work." It has been a common tactic of Muslim warlords and other terrorists to pretend at "charity" as they plan suicide bombings and targeted terror attacks among the very people they pretend to be helping with their "charity." The so-called charity is but a screen to hide their terror activities behind, a salve to keep the locals from getting too uppity. But, McClatchy had their hearts go aflutter over Sadr's "humanitarian aid" imagining it to be the "other" softer side of the terror chieftain giving Sadr a nice little bit of free positive publicity quite despite the truth of his murderous actions.

The McClatchy piece written by Shashank Bengali with the assistance of Leila Fadel and special correspondent Hussein Kadhim, detail all the wonderful works of Sadr as he helps people so brutally harmed by... you guessed it... the United States military.