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What do you know? We May Have Gotten Mouthpiece Fred Off ABC (by Cliff Schecter)
I started a relatively lonely campaign about 2-3 weeks ago to get Fred Thompson–all but declared presidential candidate who admitted he was benefitting from free ABC airtime–off the radio there. And off their Intertube site… Well lo and behold, ABC is now talking about Fred in the past tense. [See below.]

THE FRED THOMPSON REPORT: ARCHIVES (from the ABC News Radio archives)
The Fred Thompson Report contained the commentaries and opinions of Fred Dalton Thompson. Mr. Thompson is a former Republican senator from Tennessee, and former ABC News Radio contributor. Fred Thompson’s commentaries included …

Cool Reception for Conservative Radio
With the exception of Rush Limbaugh, conservative talk-radio hosts have struggled for years to find a wide audience on the local dial. While Limbaugh’s afternoon program remains popular on WMAL (630 AM), not many other conservatives’ programs have. Latest case in point: WJFK (106.7 FM) yesterday dropped Bill O’Reilly’s nationally syndicated show, “The Radio Factor,” and replaced it with a sports-talk program

The State Of Radio
This week on CounterSpin, we’re talking all about radio. Perhaps the most democratic medium — cheap to produce and to access — US radio is nevertheless not the most democratic in its content, whether that’s music and culture or, especially, political ideas and discussion. How did that happen? What would it take to alter that landscape, and are we seeing an opening for change right now?

Shuster Rips Neoconservative Ajami For Comparing Scooter Libby To Fallen U.S. Soldiers
When Ajami tried to claim that Libby wasn’t a leaker of Plame’s identity, [David] Shuster quickly debunked him, noting that it came out at trial that seven different people in the administration revealed Plame’s identity in a concerted campaign to out her. “Why did Libby lie to the FBI?” Schuster asked. A flummoxed Ajami could only falsely claim, “I don’t know that he did.”
Thank you, David Shuster.  What you did here is exactly what we ask of our journalists.  Click through to watch the video.

Conservative pundits attacked Clinton for perjury and obstruction, but now defend Libby
Unlike Libby, who was convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying to federal officers and later sentenced to 30 months in a federal prison, Clinton was acquitted by the Senate and was not indicted on criminal charges by independent counsel Robert Ray or his predecessor Kenneth Starr.

On CNN, Jeffrey falsely asserted Clinton has “high negatives in her own party”
On the July 5 edition of CNN’s The Situation Room, Human Events Online editor Terry Jeffrey asserted that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has “high negatives in her own party.” In fact, recent polls show Clinton’s unfavorable ratings among Democrats to be under 20 percent, which is comparable to those of the three leading Republican presidential candidates within their party.

MSNBC’s Carlson on Obama: “[H]e sounds like a pothead to me”
On the July 6 edition of MSNBC’s Tucker, host Tucker Carlson … asked [about Barack Obama]: “How high is this guy? It’s like what is he — he always talks between bong hits?” Tucker later said: “Well, he sounds like a pothead to me. I mean, look, tell me what you’re for. I don’t want to hear about the [']empathy['] — what the hell is that? Do you know what I mean? If I want a therapist, I’ll pay for one.”

MSNBC, Fox News devoted far more time to Edwards’ haircuts than to Domenici announcement
On July 5, MSNBC and Fox News devoted significantly more time during their late-afternoon political and prime-time news programs to covering a July 5 Washington Post report on Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards’ haircuts than they did to covering Sen. Pete Domenici’s (R-NM) July 5 press conference on the Iraq war, at which he called for “a new strategy that will move our troops out of combat operations.”

Gallagher: All ‘Muslim Doctors’ Should Be ‘Suspended’ From Entering United States
The eight suspects connected to the recent London terror plots were Muslim men who were doctors or medical professionals. Yesterday on Fox News’s Your World With Neil Cavuto, right-wing radio host Mike Gallagher argued that there is “nothing wrong with suspending the opportunity for Muslim doctors to enter the United States until…we sort this thing out.” He also advocated the practice of racial profiling because “all the terrorists are Muslim.”
Must have forgotten about the home-grown Anglo-Saxon terrorists on trial in London right now.  Odd, that.  I would have linked to Chris Floyd’s Empire Burlesque website on this, but it’s either been hacked again or is down for some other reason.

Professor retracts Mr. Rogers smears.
Yesterday, ThinkProgress noted that Fox News was participating in an effort to “blame Mr. Rogers” for the “sense of entitlement” among some children today. The criticism of Mr. Rogers stemmed from Don Chance, a finance professor at Louisiana State University. Chance later contacted Fox News to issue a statement retracting his attacks: “The reference to Mr. Rogers was just a metaphor. I have no professional qualifications to evaluate the real problems or propose solutions. Mr. Rogers was a great American. I watched him with my children and wouldn’t hesitate to do so again if I had young children.” Chance’s lack of “professional qualifications” didn’t prevent from the mainstream media from catapulting his propaganda.

EXCLUSIVE: Rupert Murdoch buys Dow Jones, owners of the Wall Street Journal
Rupert Murdoch has succeeded with his $5 billion bid for Dow Jones, owners of the Wall Street Journal, according to sources acting for the Dow Jones board. Negotiations on price and matters of principle have been completed, though some details remain to be resolved. None is regarded by either side as a deal-breaker.

ITV To Launch Citizen Journalism Platform
ITV News will launch a citizen journalism website on 31 July that will also feed user-generated comment back to its news programmes.

Technorati’s Troubles
Blog search-engine startup Technorati’s own technorati, including its chief technologist and vice president of engineering, are leaving. With these heavy-hitters will go some of the site’s geek credibility, while Google siphons away some of its traffic. It’s all part of the Silicon Valley life cycle… Like it has done to so many other startups, Google launched a competing product. Google Blog Search climbed from nothing to beat Technorati in U.S. traffic by December 2006, according to Hitwise.