Media Business

It's a love-in, man!Looks like the grown-ups at NBC/MSNBC have taken the kids aside and told them to kiss and make up.  After the embarrassing "tension convention" [to quote Imus] at the DNC amongst Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough, we've already seen the Countdown host plucked out of the GOP convention, under the convenient excuse that he would be anchoring—back in NYC and…

The MSNBC promo bills the network as "the place for politics."   Looks like it's the place for rib-ticklin' comedy, too.  Check out Keith Olbermann's side-splitter from the ad:KEITH OLBERMANN: This is one of those turning-point-in-history American elections.  We as citizens must at some point ignore partisanship.  Not that we may prosper as a nation, not that we may achieve, not that we may lead…

As the Democrats begin to wind down their national convention, we at NewsBusters are revving a series of reports under the banner "Quick Study" that take an in-depth and quantitative look at the ways cable news anchors and correspondents use information and perspectives to frame the race to suit their liberal ideology. We especially intend to shine a bright light on pretentions of objectivity…

Another chapter in the ongoing Matthews-Olbermann feud?  Yesterday, a catfight broke out between the two when Olbermann suggested Matthews had stolen an idea from two female pundits, and later made a hand gesture mocking Matthews gabbing [YouTube here, h/t Undercover Black Man].  Were the warring duo at it again this evening?You be the judge.  Click on the image to the right to view the video..…

Yesterday I posted video of Scholastic News kid reporter Jack Greenberg reminding MSNBC's David Shuster about the centrality of objectivity to journalism.:I try to stay objective through all my work. I try to do my best not to keep a political opinion, because as a journalist I always try to balance it out with what is on the other side. Today Greenberg chatted with Fox News Channel's Shepard…

The Denver Post is reporting that "[a]n ABC News producer was arrested Wednesday outside the Brown Palace Hotel as he attempted to chronicle attendees at a private breakfast held by a Democratic Party campaign committee."In an article filed in the late afternoon on August 27, Post television critic Joanne Ostrow noted that the network insists they weren't breaking the law:ABC said in a statement…

A Russian newspaper, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, has an advertising section in today's Washington Post that looks very much like newspaper copy (although it does bear a disclaimer), notes Matt Lewis of Townhall.com. Of course the above-the-fold front page story presents a decidedly pro-Russia skew to the conflict in the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia. The headline and subhead: "Georgian…

Not that it counts for much but who are the most influential political media figures? It's an interesting question, one that for the most part is hardly a provable assertion. How can one measure influence, after all?You probably can't but you can at least measure how famous (or infamous) a pundit is. New York Magazine attempted to do just that by creating an index that looks at a given…

Despite the fact that MSNBC has positioned itself as the far-left cable network, regular Democrats continue to prefer CNN in surveys. Has this preference extended to how the party leaders treat CNN?In today's Washington Post, reporter Howard Kurtz talks about how the Democratic Party is being accused of favoring CNN by giving it a perfect visual shot during Barack Obama's upcoming speech at the…

Congratulate yourselves as being among the leading edge in Americans interested in the news. According to a recent Pew survey 37 percent of America's news consumers go to the Internet for their news. But it isn't all good news for our sources of news. For one thing, this survey also shows that many of us are logging on at work. This is the sort of thing that could be hurt if more and more…

Over the past 10 years or so, one of the most commonly asked questions in media circles is why the public seems to be increasingly tuning out and unsubscribing from America's establishment media. Various reasons have been offered, including the emergence of interactive media, increased work hours, more commuting - all of which aren't without merit. One explanation that usually isn't…

If the idea of the Fairness Doctrine bringing government control of broadcasted speech wasn't bad enough, there's also a possibility that its oversight powers could spill over onto the Internet and control Web content. FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell raised that possibility after talking with bloggers at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. on August 12. McDowell spoke about a recent FCC…

Yesterday, in a stinging indictment of his Old Media colleagues' la-la-la treatment of the story of John Edwards's affair with Rielle Hunter, Los Angeles Times columnist Tim Rutten asserted that Edwards "may have ended his public life but he certainly ratified an end to the era in which traditional media set the agenda for national political journalism." I'll get to Rutten's mostly perceptive…

Self-censorship toward radical Muslims continues to be a problem in corporate America. The latest casualty: a book by author Sherry Jones about Aisha, the favored wife of Islam's founder Mohammed, whom he is said to have betrothed when she was less than ten years old.Writing in today's Wall Street Journal,  Asra Q. Nomani tells how the book,  "The Jewel of Medina," got canceled by would-be…