Are the Media Trying to Incite a Battle Over Miers
Recent press accounts suggest earlier calls for a unifying nominee were a red herring.The past few months have been a target-rich environment for America’s press. Between the president’s declining poll numbers, increased hostilities in Iraq, two devastating hurricanes, exploding energy prices, some high-profile political scandals, and a couple of Supreme Court vacancies, the media certainly have…
Sen. Schumer Only a Rumor in Times's Democratic Scandal Coverage
After a long delay and some unsatisfying back-and-forth between bloggers and Times ombudsman Barney Calame, Thursday's New York Times prints a Raymond Hernandez story that finally notes the Democratic scandal involving aides to New York Sen. Chuck Schumer obtaining the credit report of possible Republican Senate candidate Michael Steele, the Lt. Governor of Maryland. The piece is at best dutiful…
Media Bolster Lawyer's Attacks on Insurance Contracts
Hurricane devastation has left millions trying to rebuild their homes and lives. But flood-damage lawsuits against insurance companies now threaten the industry’s solvency across the country, and the broadcast media are helping make the case against industry. According to reporters on CBS and NBC, the fact that some homeowners didn’t have flood insurance is “an ugly surprise” and a “hard…
Editor & Publisher's Wishful Thinking
Once upon a time, Editor and Publisher, as "America’s Oldest Journal Covering the Newspaper Industry," had a certain degree of respectability. These days, conspiratorial speculation and advocacy are every bit as important as fact, and the byline "By E&P Staff" means that anything to follow needs to be parsed very carefully to distill facts from wishful, often overtly partisan projection. A…
Grooming Hillary Clinton's "Centrist Crusade" for
Mrs. Triangulation is the title of New York Times contributing writer Matt Bai's profile of Sen. Hillary Clinton (on the cover the article is referred to even less plausibly as "Hillary's Centrist Crusade"). Bai has apparently been taken in by Clinton's centering propaganda, as has the Times in general: It's coverage of the senator has consisted largely of portraying her as a safe centrist and…
NY Times: Bush is a Chicken for Picking Miers
In an article in today’s New York Times entitled “When a President is Not Spoiling for a Fight,” journalist Richard Stevenson practically called President Bush a chicken for nominating Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court:“There is still much to learn about Harriet E. Miers, but in naming her to the Supreme Court, President Bush revealed something about himself: that he has no appetite, at a…
