Joe McCarthy

Chicago Sun-Times: HCUA Was 'Helmed by Sen. Joseph McCarthy'
By Mike Bates | February 14, 2011 | 12:02 AM EST

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) isn't alone in having trouble understanding how the government is organized.  In a Sunday article posted on the Chicago Sun-Times's Web site, staff reporter Mary Houlihan credits the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) with running the House Committee on Un-American Activities.  That would have been quite an accomplishment, given the fact McCarthy never served in the House of Representatives.

Houlihan writes of photographer Milton Rogovin, who died last month.  After military service during World War II, Rogovin "organized a chapter of the optometrists’ union and served as librarian for the Communist Party of Buffalo."

Then the inevitable happened. In October 1957, Rogovin was caught in the net cast by the House Un-American Activities Committee helmed by Sen. Joseph McCarthy. It was the waning days of the Communist witch hunt, and the experience would change Rogovin’s life.

Toledo Blade Cites McCarthy 'And His House Committee on Un-American Activities'
By Mike Bates | April 26, 2009 | 1:12 PM EDT
Appearing today on the Toledo Blade's Web site is the article "Candide: Toledo Opera production offers the liveliest aspects of opera, musical theater, and operetta."  Author Sally Vallongo writes:
In the 1950s, as then-Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R., Wis.) and his House Committee on Un-American Activities investigated liberal and progressive artists in search of Communist-oriented dissidents, Hellman and Bernstein collaborated on what would become one of several major works fomented by government activities: the play and film Cradle Will Rock, and Arthur Miller’s play and opera The Crucible are others.

Sometimes, readers must wonder if newspaper correspondents ever passed a class in basic civics.  If journalists had, they’d know that Congress consists of two bodies, the House and the Senate.  A member of one body doesn’t chair a committee from the other.  No Senator – not even Joe McCarthy – could run a House committee.  A clue might have been that his title was senator rather than congressman or representative, but perhaps that's expecting too much.    

Cleveland Columnist Inadvertently Explains Why Blogs Exist, and Are Important
By Tom Blumer | November 17, 2007 | 2:10 PM EST

Not that Dick Feagler meant to.

(Note: This is about a local Northeastern Ohio column, but deals with a media bias issue of broad significance.)

What Feagler revealed gets to the very heart of journalism's failure, why blogs exist, why many news consumers pay attention to them (in fact, feel that they must), and why they matter.