Media Business

Sure, the sitting Democratic governor of Illinois has been arrested and charged with attempting to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat.  But enough about that.  Jay Leno is starting his show 90 minutes earlier!!  Yes, a bit after 1 PM today, MSNBC actually pre-empted its Blago coverage to go to a news conference at which NBC honchos, with Leno present, announced that the Tonight show host would be…

Promise, or threat?  John Harwood declares "the New York Times isn't going anywhere."  The Times correspondent, who also toils for CNBC, made his unconditional claim on today's Morning Joe in response to Joe Scarborough's envisioning of a future in which major news organizations, including the Times, might disappear. Scarborough was concerned that the public would be deprived of the media's…

Condensing a December 7 story by Des Moines Register's Grant Schulte on a lawsuit in Iowa that may create same-sex marriage in the Hawkeye State, USA Today's left out the meat of conservative critiques of the lawsuit, citing three supporters of the lawsuit to one conservative critic. The lone conservative was given just four words in print in the December 7 article "Iowa high court to hear gay-…

Some legendary entertainers were honored at the White House and the Kennedy Center this weekend setting up an uncomfortable encounter -- and an awkward kiss! -- between President George W. Bush and one of his staunchest Hollywood critics, Barbra Streisand.Also recognized for their work were (from left to right) Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend of the Who, dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp,…

"This is a death-bed confession," Seton Motley quipped of Time magazine's Mark Halperin admitting that the mainstream media was biased towards Sen. Barack Obama. The MRC Communications Director made the remark on the November 24 "Fox & Friends" program "As the mainstream media dies, they're trying to rectify their reputations and their relationships with their audience by saying, 'oh, you…

News Corporation executive Roger Ailes has told Los Angeles Times reporter Matea Gold that he has advised employees of the Fox News Channel that "all presidents deserve time to get their team on the ground and get organized" and that "we have some obligation in a new presidency not to attempt to destabilize it."Via TVNewser (paragraph breaks removed):Ailes responded to the report in the New York…

What follows is an excerpt of my November 19 op-ed in the Washington Times. You can find the full article here.The two stars of the recent election were Barack Obama and "mainstream media" bias. In this media climate, the terms "Republican" and "conservative" have been relegated to epithet status.My Democratic-leaning friends argue, fairly, I think, that if the media are so biased, why have…

Rupert Murdoch thinks the newspaper industry will survive its current downturn, but that many editors, reporters, and owners will not.The reason for their likely demise is that many of them betrayed the trust of their readers: "It takes no special genius to point out that if you are contemptuous of your customers, you are going to have a hard time getting them to buy your product."As reported by…

"Barack Obama, have mercy on us!" cried the lepers of the newspaper media unto the president-elect. And lo, he spake unto them, saying, "Go, and print some more."Noticing heavy demand for post-Election Day editions of major daily newspapers, Newsweek wondered of President-elect Obama, "Can He Save the Media?"The subheader to Newsweek's front page tease promised a look at "[h]ow Obama has…

Congratulations, America. It's a she-male!Trumpeting an "exclusive," ABCNews.com is proud to announce that transsexual Thomas Beatie is pregnant again. As we've documented at NewsBusters, the biologically female pregnant "man" was the mid-summer fascination of ABC News both in broadcast and on its Web site, ABCNews.com. Beatie gave birth in July but is preggers again and that's enough to make the…

Well, they held out as long as the could. But now that the presidential election is over, layoffs in the news business have begun.Newsosaur predicted as much on the Sunday before the election, and pointed to a major reason:Public confidence in the mainstream media has been eroding for at least a decade. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reported that only 19% of respondents…