Ferguson

Networks Refuse to Cover DOJ Shutting Media Out of Ferguson Town Halls
By Curtis Houck | September 23, 2014 | 12:19 AM EDT

Starting on Monday night, a series of town hall meetings in Ferguson, Missouri began taking place in light of the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in conjunction with the Department of Justice (DOJ) that will be closed to the media. When it came to the major broadcast networks reporting this censoring of the press, none of them chose to cover it.

According to an article posted on MSNBC’s website, an agency within the DOJ known as the Community Relations Service (CRS) has been “working behind the scenes to cool racial tensions in the city” by coming in and closing “the meetings to the media and non-residents.”

Stewart Attacks FNC, Claims ‘Every Person of Color’ Has Experienced Racism in ‘Last Couple Hours’
By Kristine Marsh | August 27, 2014 | 12:29 PM EDT

Editor's Note: Quotes contain explicit language

Just back from his summer hiatus on Aug. 26, Jon Stewart had a lot of hate to unload on Fox News, and a lot of sanctimonious posturing on race.

After lamenting the death of the 18-year-old black teenager Michael Brown at the hands of white police officer, Stewart went on to bash Fox News for suggesting that the mainstream media was automatically making this case a race issue.

Stewart condescendingly lectured Sean Hannity, saying “Do you not understand that life in this country is inherently different for white people and black people?”

CBS’s Duthiers on Missouri State Law on Police Use of Force: ‘Sounds to Me as If the Cops Are Protected No Matter What’
By Curtis Houck | August 26, 2014 | 11:30 PM EDT

Reporting on the latest in Ferguson, Missouri for Tuesday night’s CBS Evening News, CBS News correspondent Vladimir Duthiers interviewed a St. Louis detective on what Missouri state law says regarding the ability of law enforcement to use deadly force. After reading from the law directly, Duthiers opined to the detective that it “[s]ounds to me as if the cops are protected no matter what they do.”

To Duthiers’s comment, Detective and St. Louis County Police Association President Gabe Crocker responded that police officers are not “protected by a blanket policy where they can just shoot people and get away with it,” but emphasized that “I do think the law allows for police officers to use deadly force.” [MP3 audio here; Video below]

'So Help Me Golf'; New York Times Columnist Mocks Obama For Golf Obsession
By Connor Williams | August 24, 2014 | 11:15 AM EDT

Even the New York Times has directed criticism at President Obama for being hopelessly out of touch. Following his announcement of American journalist James Foley’s brutal death at the hands of ISIS, the President immediately headed out to the links for a quick round of golf, a move panned in an often bipartisan fashion. Liberal Times columnist Maureen Dowd mocked the President in a piece that played off Abraham Lincoln’s legendary Gettysburg Address.

Headlined “The Golf Address,” Dowd justifiably ripped President Obama for his response to that horrific tragedy: “FORE! Score? And seven trillion rounds ago, our forecaddies brought forth on this continent a new playground, conceived by Robert Trent Jones, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal when it comes to spending as much time on the links as possible — even when it seems totally inappropriate.” [See excerpts below.]