Online Media

"Today on the program, we'll ask whether Americans are losing the skills of true debate and with it a central pillar of this democracy," BBC's Jonny Dymond informed listeners of the May 15 "Americana" podcast. Yet when it came to Dymond's guests, there was no dissent from the liberal line.  Take guest  Charles Pierce, a Boston Globe columnist and author of "Idiot America: How Stupidity…

According to Time's Michael Grunwald, it was insane for Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) to reject $2.4 billion for a Tampa-Orlando high-speed rail project. And yet in the same Swampland blog post he confessed that a similar high-speed rail project going forward in California is dubious at best and that Scott's rejection of the pork project means that the money is now broken up to aid rail…

Just when you consider cutting the Associated Press a break for doing something right, they pull this. Most people know that in the interest of "not spiking the football," the Obama administration has decided that it will not release photos of Osama bin Laden's dead body. Shortly after the decision was announced, AP filed a Freedom of Information Act request for said photos. According to…

Denizens of the Daily Kos were delighted Monday by a more-than-6,300-word rant by an abortionist from Texas bylined "Beket." The headline was "Extreme Religion Stops a Thinking Brain -- and Kills Women and Teenage Girls." Naturally, it was "One of the best diaries I have read on DKos," wrote one thrilled commenter. "Well-written. Well-thought out."  Dr. "Beket" began: "I am a proud, even…

How convenient. Via Editor and Publisher, the newspaper industry's Audit Bureau of Circulations, in issuing its March 31, 2011 circulation figures, tells us we shouldn't try to compare this year's numbers to last year's: Because of the new and redefined categories of circulation on this FAS-FAX report, ABC recommends not making any direct comparisons of March 2011 data to prior audit periods…

Among the many ubiquitous recipients of Pulitzer Prizes this year was one organization less famous than the New York Times and the Washington Post. ProPublica, a libber non-profit news outlet, received its second straight Pulitzer, this year's for a less-than-friendly piece on "The Wall Street Money Machine." ProPublica is an investigative journalism venture funded in large part by Herbert…

The New York Times's supposedly momentous decision to omit "Mr." from references to Osama bin Laden in its Monday obituary is apparently working to distract critics from the item's other problems. Along with Michael T. Kaufman, Kate Zernike, whose primary vocation seems to be finding racism in the Tea Party movement where none exists and otherwise smearing its participants, comes off as…

In his May 2 Swampland blog post "Osama Gone, and Now...", Time's Joe Klein makes some arguably contradictory assertions in his thoughts on the role former President Bush played in ultimately finding and killing Osama bin Laden:

The pastor who preached the Easter sermon that Barack Obama heard this past Sunday is not another Jeremiah Wright, Time's Amy Sullivan insists in an April 29 blog "Swampland" blog post entitled "Conservatives Go After Another Obama Pastor." Sullivan was responding to the complaints of conservative talkers Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, who highlighted some controversial remarks Smith made to…

Yesterday evening (late afternoon West Coast time), Phil Bronstein at the San Francisco Chronicle informed his readers that one of its reporters had been banned by the Obama administration: The hip, transparent and social media-loving Obama administration is showing its analog roots. And maybe even some hypocrisy highlights.   White House officials have banished one of the best…

"Thank God for Jimmy Carter. He takes on the tough ones." That's how "On Faith" moderator Sally Quinn ended her April 26 post "Does God hate women?" Quinn insisted that it was "a question that never occurred to me until I began to study religion" and that the 39th president of the United States had a role in her examining the topic:

Imagine if a Tea Party backer by some miracle got to teach on a college campus, and began describing ways to, oh, I don't know, keep opposing politicians from conducting business, hack into their computers and destroy data, and make their staffs feel threatened. How long would that class last, and how long would it be before it became a national news story? Well, Publius at Andrew Breitbart's…

BuzzMedia.com bills itself as "pop culture amplified." It recently acquired a former Turner Broadcasting site called "The Frisky." BuzzMedia's press release announcing the acquisition said that "The Frisky has struck a major chord with female audiences for its authentic voice and fierce sense of humor." Last Tuesday, The Frisky "Guys" section contributor and Julie Gerstein, whose occupation…

Are you a Christian who also is supportive of Rep. Paul Ryan's budget plan? Then you'd best repent of your sin and be renew your mind with the social gospel. That's the pronouncement of liberal theologian Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite in an April 18 post at the Washington Post/Newsweek "On Faith" website. Brooks Thistlethwaite -- who previously hit Tea Party conservatives as tribalistic --…