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AOL News contributor Paul Wachter launched an inflammatory attack on Pope Benedict XVI in a Thursday post where he also defended recently-fired CNN editor Octavia Nasr for her eulogy of Hezbollah's spiritual leader. After hinting that the network "overreacted," Wachter suggested that CNN should also fire "anyone who speaks highly of the pope, who...has contributed to the deaths of millions from…

Author Frank Schaeffer, son of the late prominent theologian Francis Schaeffer, can't seem to find anything good about evangelical Christians. In his latest blog on the Huffington Post, Schaeffer criticized evangelicals' support of Israel. "Some of the nuttiest American religious leaders today (and in the past) have latched on to one form or another of Christian Zionism," he said. "To put it…

Recovery summer just keeps getting better and better.  News outlets such as MSNBC.com announce "New jobless claims drop sharply."  Although the unadjusted data reflect an actual increase, the media are reporting a seasonally adjusted drop of 21,000 in jobless claims.  

Reporting on CNN's firing of Octavia Nasr, AP's David Bauder buried the lede in his 7-paragraph July 8 story. Here's Bauder's fourth paragraph wherein he described the Lebanese cleric that Nasr had praised as "[o]ne of Hezbollah's giants [she] respects a lot" (emphasis mine):Lebanon's Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah died Sunday after a long illness. He was staunchly anti-American and…

While sports reporters have sought agents and teammates for the inside scoop on where NBA superstar free agent LeBron James will sign, there's another person who may know The King's next move: his accountant. In a July 1 blog post, the New York Post warned that "dysfunctional lawmakers in Albany" could cost the state a chance to bring the coveted athlete to New York. "If LeBron James goes to…

[Update, 2:22 pm Eastern: CNN.com put up an article on Nasr's "leaving" at 12:31 pm Eastern on Thursday, just before this item went up. H/t: NewsBusters reader johnny dollar.]Both CNN and CNN.com have punted on the firing of Octavia Nasr, the network's senior editor of Middle East affairs, after she mourned the death of Islamist cleric Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, "one of Hezbollah's giants…

Last week, Matt Robare at NewsBusters noted the fact that the Big 3 networks' combined year-over-year audience fell by a bit more than 1 million during the second quarter. Last week's showing appears to be to a slight pickup over the previous week, but it may have been much worse. Here, per Media Bistro, is how the the week of June 28 as reported by Nielsen compared to the week of June 21, the…

The GOP as the party of obstructionism: it's a tried and true media meme, but very often falls a tad short of the truth. Yet on occasion, even stubborn facts are not enough to dispel such accusations.Some in the media have taken President Obama's recess appointment of Donald Berwick to the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as an occasion to bash purportedly obstructionist…

Over the span of two days, the network morning shows have given just 20 seconds of coverage to the recess appointment of Donald Berwick, a pro-rationing doctor who will run Medicare. In contrast, Good Morning America, Today and Early Show devoted 52 minutes of coverage to every detail of Lindsay Lohan's sentencing. On Wednesday and Thursday's GMA, ABC hosts discussed Lohan for 14 minutes. CBS's…

Keith Olbermann on Wednesday called for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to resign.His complaint?Thomas's wife Virginia runs a political organization called Liberty Central which at this point has not revealed who its donors are. "She is a living, breathing, appearance of a conflict of interest," whined Olbermann during Wednesday's "Countdown.""Either she must reveal the names of her donors…

This morning CNNMoney.com reports "Jobless claims slide in latest week."  The article starts:The number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment insurance fell last week, according to a government report released Thursday.There were 454,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended July 3, down 21,000 from an upwardly revised 475,000 in the previous week, the Labor Department…

In an interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric noted President Obama's unpopularity in Israel and pressed Netanyahu to remedy that fact: "To change public opinion in your country, should you be more strongly advocating on his behalf?" Couric preceded that question by citing a recent poll of Israelis, which she seemed perplexed by…

In a new video out today, Sarah Palin sent a warning message to big-government liberals: "You thought pitbulls were tough? Well, you don't wanna mess with the Mama Grizzlies!" The video, which celebrates conservative women's activism, was released this morning by Palin's political action committee, SarahPAC. "It seems like it's kind of a mom awakening in the last year and a half," says Palin…

Happy belated birthday, America, your presence in Afghanistan is "inherently corrupting." That's the message Rachel Maddow gave on her July 6 program.During the Bush administration, the Left often argued that the president had distracted America by engaging in hostilities in Iraq, bleeding resources and attention away from the real war on terror in Afghanistan, which had harbored al Qaeda pre-9…