Here we go again – the FEC has launched another attack on free speech.
Media Business
NYT's Jackie Calmes Smears Talk Radio, 'College Dropouts' Like Rush Pushing GOP to 'Far Right' With 'Red Meat'
By Clay Waters | July 31, 2015 | 1:29 PM EDT In the second part of her 16,000-word Harvard report on the dangerous extremes of "conservative media," New York Times reporter Jackie Calmes offered a skewed history of talk radio, seeing the dark shadow of right-wing hate hovering over its birth, and lamented that "However frustrated Republican leaders are by this piling on from the far right, they have little choice but to pay heed." And popular radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Steve Deace? Why, they're both "college dropouts." And when did Geraldo Rivera become a "conservative" radio host?
By Melissa Mullins | July 30, 2015 | 8:07 PM EDT
According to The New York Times, Will Dana, the managing editor who oversaw Rolling Stone’s trumped up UVA gang rape story, is leaving the magazine.
By Tom Johnson | July 20, 2015 | 10:06 PM EDT
There soon will be sixteen Republicans officially seeking their party’s 2016 presidential nomination, but Gabriel Sherman probably would replace “officially” with "nominally." In a Sunday post, Sherman suggested that many of those sixteen are CINOs (Candidates in Name Only) who really are running for the title of big-bucks “political celebrity.” He opined that “when it comes to presidential elections…the GOP is at risk of becoming less of a political party and more like a talent agency for the conservative media industry.”
As for why quite a few “(pseudo)candidate[s]” are out there trying to “promote their brand,” Sherman noted that “the rise of billionaire donors and super-PACs enable more fringe GOP candidates to fund their campaigns,” and that “conservatives’ palpable sense of cultural victimhood encourages them to embrace (and reward) their former candidates even if they lose badly.”
By Kyle Drennen | July 6, 2015 | 12:12 PM EDT
Appearing on NBC’s Today on Sunday, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd acknowledged that “the optics look terrible” for Hillary Clinton after her campaign roped off the press during a 4th of July parade in New Hampshire, but he added: “Look, I am sympathetic to the campaign's complaint. She has a large media horde following her around that it makes it hard, because of the media, for her to interact with voters.”
By Mark Finkelstein | July 6, 2015 | 7:51 AM EDT
Remind me: before her View gig, did Nicolle Wallace work for Republicans or Democrats? I ask because on today's Morning Joe, she was the sole voice downplaying the significance of Hillary's minions having roped off the press during her July 4th parade walk.
According to Wallace,"we pay a little bit too much attention to [press] access to Hillary Clinton . . . just as an image, I don't that it was a bad press day for Hillary because of the rope corral."
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By Ken Shepherd | June 25, 2015 | 3:58 PM EDT
"Fox News has officially dropped 'The Five' co-host Bob Beckel from the network, saying the show could no longer be held 'hostage' to his personal issues," Dylan Byers of Politico reported earlier this afternoon, citing initial coverage by Mediaite.
By Kyle Drennen | June 19, 2015 | 11:00 AM EDT
In his first interview since being suspended and removed as anchor of NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams told Today co-host Matt Lauer on Friday that he “was not trying to mislead people” when he fabricated stories about news events he covered.
By Kyle Drennen | June 18, 2015 | 3:18 PM EDT
On Thursday, NBC News officially named Lester Holt as the new anchor of NBC Nightly News, permanently replacing suspended anchor Brian Williams. In a just-released statement, Williams apologized for his dishonest accounts of news events: “I'm sorry. I said things that weren't true. I let down my NBC colleagues and our viewers, and I'm determined to earn back their trust.”
By Mark Finkelstein | May 19, 2015 | 9:25 AM EDT
Did Joe Scarborough just suggest that the suits at his own network are craven cowards who put bucks over ethics?
On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough predicted that if Matt Lauer had pulled a Stephanopoulos, NBC would hesitate to punish him [just as ABC hasn't disciplined Steph], because Lauer's morning Today show "is where they make the money."
By Tom Blumer | April 24, 2015 | 2:36 PM EDT
Rush Limbaugh posted an interesting pair of questions at his web site yesterday: "How can CNN still be on the air with no audience? How can MSNBC have been on the air with no audience? In the old days, they're gone, kaput. Something else is tried. But they stay. And they double down on what they're doing that's losing audience."
A large part of the answer, as I noted on March 30, is that those two networks apparently have suffered very little financially as they have lost audience. That's because, as is apparently the case with most of the major cable channels, their primary source of revenue comes from "subscriptions," also referred to as "carriage fees" or "license fee revenues." In plain English, cable channels get paid a great deal of money even if nobody watches them, and don't benefit as much as would be expected when their audience grows.
By Ken Shepherd | April 23, 2015 | 4:12 PM EDT
This Friday, April 24, will mark 100 years since the beginning of the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottoman government in what is present-day Turkey. The Washington Post apparently saw it a fitting occasion to accept a full-page A-section advertisement by an organization which essentially denies the holocaust of millions of Armenians by the Turks.