MSNBC Execs Scramble to Defend Olbermann as 'Countdown' Ratings Declin
Keith Olbermann's appeal has generally been his incendiary, attack-dog approach to the news. The approach paid off during the Bush administration when bashing the president was good business for a television host. Since Obama's inauguration, Olbermann's ratings have been in free-fall, but MSNBC brass are still more than willing not only to keep him on the air, but to defend him against any and…
Santelli: Media's Coverage of Economy, Tea Parties 'Very Much Lacking
Rick Santelli is the star of perhaps the most politically consequential online video, viral to the extreme, of the past year (right). On February 19, 2009 he let loose on the Obama administration's economic policies on CNBC's "Squawk Box", calling for a "tea party", and inspiring millions of Americans to speak out against what he and many others see as collectivist economics policies pursued by…
Katie Couric Gets Some of Her Own Class Warfare Medicine for $14m Sala
Update - 2/4, 11:46 AM | Lachlan Markay: CBS News President Sean McManus has denied that the network will cut Couric's pay. Details below.Katie Couric may be getting a taste of her own populist medicine. When the Dow hit 10,000 last October, she (and other network news personalities) used the opportunity to bemoan massive payments to Wall Street bankers. But now the populist sentiment has turned…
David Shuster's Online Reading List a Who's-Who of Far-Left Opinion
How can journalists possibly claim to be "objective" (in the Old Media, I-have-no-opinions sense of the term) when they get their news only from hyper-partisan sources on one side of the political spectrum? To do so should make any reporter blush.But David Shuster, apparently, has no issue with undertaking such objective journalistic endeavors as "fact checking and analyzing", while gathering…
Old Media Gatekeepers Worry About Losing Out to New Media Gatekeepers
When Apple CEO Steve Jobs put the New York Times at the center of the ceremonious unveiling of his company's iPad tablet device, the implication was clear: this is the future of the news--or at least Jobs wants us to think it is. He stands to gain not only financially but politically as Apple becomes a major gatekeeper for information.The news media industry itself is divided on whether e-readers…
MSNBC Brass: Shuster Tweets 'Inappropriate'--Breitbart Forces Retracti
A spokesperson for MSNBC told Politico today that the channel's brass has reprimanded David Shuster for derisive tweets he directed at James O'Keefe Tuesday. Within hours, he had retracted portions of his tweeted comments on air during an interview with Andrew Breitbart.This humble blogger documented the Twitter exchange yesterday, and pointed out that Shuster was much quicker to assume O'Keefe's…
Establishment Media Negligence in '08 Campaign Enables Obama Foreign C
In his State of the Union address last night, President Barack Obama had this to say about the Supreme Court's recent ruling on campaign finance: With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests - including foreign corporations - to spend without limit in our elections. I don't think…
Media Continue to Falsely Accuse O'Keefe of Wiretapping
Some in the liberal media continue to insist that James O'Keefe and his three cohorts were trying to "bug" or "tap" Sen. Mary Landrieu's phone lines when law enforcement officials have clearly said that they were not. Since the left doesn't like O'Keefe, the liberal media seems to think standard practices of journalistic integrity don't apply here.According to MSNBC, one law enforcement official…
David Shuster 'Giddy' to Cover James O'Keefe Arrest
Update - 1/28, 10:25 AM | Lachlan Markay: Law enforcement officials have clarified that O'Keefe is not being charged with an attempt to wiretap phones. Will Shuster issue a retraction?It's often said that bias shows through in what journalists decide to cover or not cover. So it was telling when Politico's Michael Calderone tweeted today, "@DavidShuster just said he's off to New Orleans to report…
PPP Prez makes PPP-U Statement About His Own PPP Poll
Yesterday, Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters noted that an organization known as Public Policy Polling (PPP) reported results of a survey it did showing that "Americans do not trust the major tv news operations in the country- except for Fox News." The survey-related quote comes from a post at PPP's blog. Tom Jensen, its author, pecked in quite a presumptuous final paragraph there (italics are Jensen…
Blatant vs. Balanced: CNN, MSNBC Played Faves With Mass. Election Nigh
Building on Brad Wilmouth's critique at NewsBusters of Keith Olbermann's disgraceful treatment of Scott Brown's U.S. Senate victory in Massachusetts, Johnny Dollar (HT Taxman Blog) measured the coverage of the victory/concession speeches of Brown and his opponent Martha (or is it Marcia?) Coakley. Imagine my non-surprise when I saw the results (graph follows the jump): During Tuesday night's…
Time's Joe Klein: What's the Matter with You Morons
Poor Joe Klein wishes he could give a lecture to average Americans -- the "Too Dumb to Thrive" who probably don't read his magazine's Swampland blog anyway -- on the virtues of Obamanomics. Of course, they'd probably be too stupid to understand the enlightened Mr. Anonymous, especially Fox News viewers. Indeed, at least in Klein's mind, these alleged ignorant boobs are practically an existential…
Fox Reporting $25 Mil No-Bid Contract Went to Dem Donor
I don't know why I'm relaying this to readers. After all, according to former White House Communications Director Anita "Mao Inspires Me" Dunn, it's not coming from a real news organization. Her successor, Dan Pfeiffer, agrees. So does David Axelrod. But on the off chance that what follows might actually mean something, here is an excerpt from a lengthy piece of investigative journalism from Fox…
UPDATED | Newsweek: Young Women MIA at the March for Life
Updated : Nearly 6-out-of-10 young adults are pro-life a new survey finds.Every January, hundreds if not thousands of busloads teeming with teenagers and college students, many of them young women, descend on the nation's capital for the annual March for Life. But if one were to believe Newsweek's Krista Gesaman, the March is an aging senior citizen affair that is hurting for attendance by young…
