Culture/Society

Be careful when channel surfing; you might get an eyeful of advertisements for pay-per-view porn. But where is the mainstream media's warning to parents and concerned customers? According to a March 9 article on adage.com, cable and satellite providers such as Comcast and DirecTV, are picking up their effort to boost sales through adult entertainment and the advertisements are expected to…

Bonnie Erbe, a columnist and blogger for U.S.News and World Report, is keen to make sure that Democrats continue to cheat on re-districting as much as possible. She is insisting that Democrats not fall for a bi-partisan or a fair approach to re-districting and says that the Census should stay "politicized" because, after all, it’s Democrats in power now! So, as far as she is concerned, the…

Correspondent Lisa Stark’s report on ABC’s World News on Sunday almost completely slanted in favor of President Obama’s decision to overturn the ban on federal funding of stem cell research which destroys human embryos. Stark minimized the controversial nature of the research, devoting only one sound bite out of four to a critic of the president’s move.Anchor Dan Harris introduced Stark’s report…

At the top of Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Julie Chen incorrectly declared: "Reversing course. President Obama lifts the ban on embryonic stem cell research today...But is the President going far enough?" During the later segment, co-host Maggie Rodriguez had to offer a correction: "And we should say, this under President Bush was not banned or illegal, except now we're getting federal…

This is not a story of bias in the media. It is a story, rather, that affects both the Old Media of newspapers, TV and radio, as well as the New Media of the Internet. Our disagreements with the Old Media aside, we both stand to see trouble if a recent court case in Massachusetts gains momentum or is applied liberally henceforth. The Associated Press reports on a libel case in Boston that pits…

The Obamas, Barack and Michelle both, pretty much diplomatically botched the recent visit of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife. Oddly enough, the U.S. Old Media seems uninterested in the story that is a hot topic in England, a story that's left many Brits a bit miffed. As the visit of the national leader of our closest ally began, the President informed the Brits that he wouldn't…

Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe started off her column on March 6 with the exact same feeling about the current Obama/Limbaugh feud that I at first had: I wasn't going to talk about it either. But after reading her column of distortions and outright lies about Limbaugh -- as well as the ever present fat jokes and general incivility -- I couldn't resist analyzing her column. It is, as it occurs…

Less than a week after stating that the Republican National Convention “literally look[s] like Nazi Germany,” D. L. Hughley has decided to end the run of his CNN program. Both Entertainment Weekly and the TVNewser blog gave the official CNN statement on the matter: “D.L. approached CNN about being permanently based in Los Angeles, where his family lives. To accommodate this, we agreed upon a new…

Don’t you dare go buy that $300 department store satin dress for your senior prom; a Captain Planet costume is more appropriate. Some high school students are entering an online video contest called Project Green Prom in which they promise to create a “zero waste event” for their high school prom.For the next 25 days, high school students have the opportunity to send in three minute videos…

ABC and CNN, two reputable news sources, have done their part in promoting a “study” that posits conservatives are the nation’s biggest consumers of online pornography. Problem is, many think the study is full of holes and fuzzy math. ABC and CNN bought it: hook, line and sinker. “Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers” is a New Scientist article by Ewen Callaway that alleges…

Back during confirmation hearings in 2001 for former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson Dan Rather reminded Evening News viewers of Thompson's "hardline anti-abortion stand." Eight years later, there's a whitewash of President Barack Obama's HHS' nominee abortion record. As a Democratic governor in red-state Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius has vetoed several bills that would…

Playboy Magazine got its undies in a bundle over the nation wide Tea Party protests held last Friday that were inspired by CNBC's Rick Santelli's free market rant of February 19. As Noel Sheppard noted on March 1, the skin mag published a piece claiming that Santelli was part of a vast right-wing conspiracy to protest Obama's socialist policies. It turns out, however, that the story has been…