Cable Television

Update/Clarification (Jan. 24): Ocean MacAdams of MTV News responds (see bottom of post) Politico's Ben Adler has a story today about Rock the Vote submitting a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of overturning a law requiring voters furnish photo identification before casting a ballot:

Isn't it often the case that over-confident braggarts are typically insecure types masking their own short-comings with undeservingly cocky bravado? After all, one would think the president of the cable news network whose ratings in virtually every time slot have plummeted for years would be a little humble when referring to his competition in the industry. Quite the contrary, in an interview…

Hillary Clinton's performance in her interview with Maria "Money Honey" Bartiromo of CNBC last week was so bad that she must have sent a double (stop shivering at the thought, will ya?). After all, the genuine Smartest Woman in the World couldn't possibly have said the things she said, as noted at Rush Limbaugh's site last Thursday. It got so bad that Bartiromo, who seemingly has barely cracked a…

First published in Human Events on November 27th, 2007.Wash, spin, rinse, spin. Phone, spin, report, spin, poll, spin. The similarities between the work of the mainstream media and a laundry machine are striking. Yet there is nothing about the cycle -- the spin-report-poll-spin cycle -- that does for political events what detergent does for your boxers or briefs. The media, as One, spend days…

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, the old saying goes. It's certainly applicable to liberal talk show host Bill Maher, who got a taste of venom from the far-left 9/11 conspiracy crowd during a recent taping of his "Real Time" program before a live studio audience.Video (2:55): Real (2.14 MB) and Windows (1.79 MB), plus MP3 audio (1.33 MB).MRC president and NewsBusters publisher Brent…

Like business news on television but don't like CNBC's association with the left-dominated NBC News? Then the newly launched Fox Business Network is probably for you:Rupert Murdoch has entered a dark horse in high-stakes races before, and won. On Monday, the News Corp. media titan trots out the Fox Business Network.Two years in the making, the channel will challenge General Electric Co.'s highly…

Ah to be a liberal, to proclaim my tolerance and open-mindedness with a few tacky bumperstickers and then turn around and try to silence any type of political divergence: Liberal activists are stepping up their campaign against Fox News Channel by pressuring advertisers not to patronize the network.MoveOn.org, the Campaign for America's Future and liberal blogs like DailyKos.com are asking…

The first part of Spike TV's mini-series, The Kill Point, on Sunday night featured a scene in which an Iraq war veteran bank robber holding hostages earned applause from a crowd outside the bank when he denounced the war. Walking outside the bank to meet the police negotiator, “Mr. Wolf” played by John Leguizamo (IMDb bio), a former Marine Corps Sergeant who served a year in Leavenworth for…

As NewsBusters reported Wednesday, this Sunday the Spike TV cable channel will start a mini-series, The Kill Point, centered around Iraq war veterans who rob a bank and end up with hostages in a standoff. A review in Friday's USA Today related how the leader of the robbers, Iraq vet “Mr. Wolf” played by John Leguizamo, “plays for sympathy before the news cameras, stripping down to show war wounds…

Those who oppose the Iraq war are always adamant that they support the troops, but how do you characterize people who think it's good television programming to portray Iraq war veterans as violent criminals? This Sunday at 9pm EDT/PDT, the Spike TV cable channel, part of the CBS/Viacom empire, starts The Kill Point, a four-part, eight-hour mini-series “event” revolving around a group of Iraq war…