By Lachlan Markay | September 21, 2009 | 3:31 PM EDT
The mainstream media has left Americans with little reason to believe they will serve as watchdogs against foul play on the left. After major media outlets were scooped by two twenty-somethings with a hidden camera, and failed to vet former Green Jobs Czar Van Jones, leaving it to bloggers at Gateway Pundit to expose his trutherism, it comes as little surprise that the Washington Times is now turning to the center-right's online grassroots community to expose the White House's most recent instance of malfeasance. And it is a doozy.

On August 10, the National Endowment for the Arts, the federal agency that is nation's largest source of funding for the arts, held a conference call with some 75 artistic leaders to discuss ways in which those leaders could "help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda – health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal."

Patrick Courrielche of Big Hollywood, who participated in the conference call, reported that there were a number of high-level White House officials present, including Yosi Sergant, the Director of Communications for the National Endowment for the Arts, and Buffy Wicks, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. Callers were openly encouraged to back the president's message, as they had during the campaign.
By Tom Blumer | September 21, 2009 | 12:09 PM EDT
abreitbart

Much of the reaction in the blogosphere to Andrew Breitbart's column yesterday at the Washington Times has to do with the BigGovernment.com proprietor's promise that "It ain't over yet."

Fair enough. But Breitbart asserted what I believe is a bigger point. It isn't just that the establishment media would have ignored the story if James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles had attempted to put it out there on their own. Breitbart believes that Big Media would have actively worked to bury it and to discredit its authors. There's little doubt that Andrew is absolutely correct.

Here are the passages from his Times column where Breitbart makes this point (bolds are mine):

By Jeff Poor | September 3, 2009 | 3:17 PM EDT

Once again, one of the masters of the universe trotted out on MSNBC has discovered the cure to one of society's ills - more Obama.

Daily Voice editor and CNBC contributor Keith Boykin waved off the reservations of some parents about President Barack Obama addressing their children in the classroom. Boykin appeared on MSNBC on Sept. 3 in a segment about the classroom controversy and added his insightful commentary on the matter.

"So much of the debate about President Obama has been politicized in an effort by some to delegitimize his presidency," Boykin said. "This is clearly much ado about nothing. We're talking about the President of the United States speaking to school kids. Why wouldn't schools want this to happen? That's why our kids are so dumb today, because they don't want to have basic common sense in the classroom."

By Jeff Poor | August 29, 2009 | 7:42 AM EDT

It's no secret the print newspaper industry is struggling. It's become all too common to hear that papers, like the Christian Science Monitor or the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, have ceased publishing a print edition and gone completely online.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright addressed this challenge and its impact on a government at the Aspen Institute's Forum on Communications and Society earlier this month. According to Albright, the fourth estate was intended to keep government in check and that countries without a free press tend to be authoritarian societies.

"Let me just say, in terms of Democracy and the free press, I think it is absolutely an essential part and all we have to do is go back and look at our Constitution," Albright said. "But I have looked at this from a number of different angles. When I was an academic, wrote about the role of the press internationally in political change. And there is no question in my mind, in terms of authoritarian societies, if you do not have information, you can't operate and it is power."

By Jeff Poor | August 15, 2009 | 10:58 PM EDT

If you haven't noticed, a lot of media outlets have gotten worked up into a tizzy over the mere mention of death panels. The New York Times got so worked up, it went after a few conservatives outlets by name in its Aug. 13 issue.

"But the rumor [that Obama's health care proposal would create death panels] - which has come up at Congressional town-hall-style meetings this week in spite of an avalanche of reports laying out why it was false - was not born of anonymous e-mailers, partisan bloggers or stealthy cyberconspiracy theorists," Jim Rutenberg and Jackie Calmes wrote for the Times. "Rather, it has a far more mainstream provenance, openly emanating months ago from many of the same pundits and conservative media outlets that were central in defeating President Bill Clinton's health care proposals 16 years ago, including the editorial board of The Washington Times, the American Spectator magazine and Betsy McCaughey, whose 1994 health care critique made her a star of the conservative movement (and ultimately, New York's lieutenant governor)."

By NB Staff | June 30, 2009 | 10:49 AM EDT

<p>Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Washington Times commentary section editor <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/29/pulitzer-laureate-mary-l... target="_blank">Mary Lou Forbes</a> passed away last Saturday.

By Brad Wilmouth | June 29, 2009 | 2:13 PM EDT

Apart from several reports on FNC, and a few on CNN, the mainstream television news media have ignored the controversial firing of former Inspector General Gerald Walpin, who had recently battled for tougher penalties against Obama friend and Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson after an investigation by Walpin found Johnson had misused hundreds of thousands of tax dollars granted by the AmeriCorps program to the Johnson-founded St. Hope charity. Over the past weeks, there have been a number of developments, including the opening of an FBI investigation into the St. Hope charity, further casting doubt on the White House's decisions and bolstering Walpin's case that he was wrongfully booted. In the June 22 editorial "Walpin-gate Opens Wider; FBI Investigation Embarrasses the White House," the Washington Times wrote that "The FBI has opened an investigation into a Sacramento program formerly run by a close ally of President Obama's, giving credence to the IG's work."

By Ken Shepherd | June 15, 2009 | 1:34 PM EDT

Conservative blogger and friend of NewsBusters Andrew Breitbart has an excellent column in today's Washington Times entitled "Left cries 'racist' in crowded country."

The creator of the Big Hollywood blog noted in his June 15 column the inconvenient truth the mainstream media did not focus on in the aftermath of last week's Holocaust Museum shooting, even as the MSM furthered the meme that 

The perpetrator, James von Brunn, has far more in common with Rosie O'Donnell's conspiracy theorist views of the world than say the politics of Rush Limbaugh or Fox News fans (emphasis mine):

By Tim Graham | June 13, 2009 | 6:38 AM EDT

For those who hold out hope that perhaps Sonia Sotomayor will be a pro-life surprise on the bench, there are sobering reminders. First, all of the modern "surprise" justices have been closet liberals appointed by Republicans. Clinton's appointees have hardly turned out to be closet conservatives.

By Brent Bozell | June 2, 2009 | 11:03 PM EDT

In the very heart of the pro-life community, there is nothing they wanted less than another shooting of an abortionist. An unhinged vigilante's shooting of notorious Kansas late-term abortion "provider" George Tiller prompted an avalanche of press releases from pro-life groups denouncing the killing.

By Tom Blumer | May 27, 2009 | 4:02 PM EDT

Burriss0509Maybe it should be put to music:

Blago and Burris,
Sitting in a tree,
But they'd rather we not know their political party.

There has been yet another revelation about contacts between Democratic President Barack Obama's U.S. Senate successor, Democrat Roland Burris and former Illinois Democratic governor Rod Blagojevich over Blago's pre-Senate appointment, uh, deliberations. A released FBI audio recording reveals that Burris offered to make a campaign contribution to Blago as he lobbied to be selected.

This news has brought on yet another wave of stories that fail to tell us what party Blago and Burris belong to.

The Washington Post is the only publication that identified the party of both men in the course of reporting their story. The Post's Peter Slevin and Perry Bacon Jr. also identified the Democratic Party affiliation of the Senate Ethics Committee's Barbara Boxer:

By Ken Shepherd | May 20, 2009 | 2:11 PM EDT

If the cheers of Columbia University's Class of 2009 are any indication, the future of journalism will be looking for a federal bailout.

Washington Times correspondent Christina Bellantoni live-tweeted today's event, noting the remarks from university president Lee Bollinger appealing for more government-owned media outlets. Bollinger also received "big cheers" for his call for increased spending on public broadcasting.

Here are the relevant tweets from Bellantoni's feed in reverse chronological order (emphasis mine):