Permanent link to MTA daily media news

I will be a guest on Tony Seton’s America Back on Track today at 3:30 PM ET.  Listen to Tony from 3:00 to 4:00 PM ET every weekday on the Quality News Network.

Headline of the day: “Memo to White House: Bridge Failure Determined to Strike in U.S.”

Meddling in media
John Edwards wants the government to stop Murdoch’s purchase of Dow Jones and not just because of the devil consolidation but also because of ideology… It is not government’s role to punish speakers for their speech. That is the very essence of the First Amendment. It is constitutionally offensive and politically cynical for him to oppose this merger because he disagrees with the buyer.
I’ve said for years that the way to fight right-wing media is to build a media infrastructure of our own.  Someday, someone’s going to listen.  Hopefully, the movement will include folks who actually know how to run media outlets, however.

“The Air Americans” to be Grounded in September
A big shake-up is in the works at Air America Radio. Mark Riley, one of the three original AAR hosts still on the air (Randi Rhodes and Rachel Maddow are the other ones) will be gone and so will Riley’s nightly ensemble show The Air Americans to be replaced by a pair of two-hour talk shows. AAR weekend host, Richard Greene will move his show to weeknights – 8-10pm and Bree Walker, who has been hosting a weekend show on KTLK-AM in Los Angeles, will yak from 10pm-midnight.

$20 Million To Citizen Journalism In One Week
[C]itizen journalism is red hot with Associated Content landing $10 million in financing today from Canaan Partners, and NowPublic pulling in $10.6 million in financing from Rho Ventures on Monday (this time last year, OhMyNews landed $11 million from SoftBank).

Fox, CNN Employ Minneapolis Citizen Journalists
Fox and CNN both relied on citizen journalist reports–Fox calls them uReports, CNN I-Reports–to help tell the story of the Minneapolis bridge collapse Wednesday. CNN said it approved 96 such reports, including three videos, from the accident scene. Fox reported a “significant increase in uReports,” and used several photos on air.

House Committee Approves Proposed Federal Shield Law
The House Judiciary Committee approved a federal measure Wednesday that would give news reporters the right to conceal confidential sources, except in certain cases.

Reporters Could Be Prosecuted Under Espionage Law, DoJ Says
The espionage statutes concerning classified information could be employed against journalists who publish such information without authorization, a Justice Department official told Congress recently.

Venezuelan Court Rules To Keeps Anti-Chavez Channel On Cable For Now
Venezuela’s Supreme Court ruled that an opposition-aligned TV channel will remain on cable for now, acting just hours before a government-set deadline that could have yanked it from the cable lineup.

O’Hanlon begins backpedaling from op-ed.
Just a few days after writing about the progress he saw in Iraq, Brookings analyst Michael O’Hanlon claims that if the situation remains as it is currently, he could not “write another Op-Ed” declaring success.

Coked Up
Demolishing Cokie Roberts’ most recent pro-GOP historical distortion on ABC’s This Week when predicting that “Democrats’ move to end the Iraq War will prove a debilitating political liability for them, ‘just like it was in Vietnam.’” Perlstein writes that Roberts’ recitation of this hackneyed line, like “most of what comes out of conservatives’ mouths about what happened in Vietnam and after is simply made up. Not history. Mythology. No, worse: propaganda.”

On Medicare, The Ump is AWOL
The NYT again missed an opportunity to inform readers on the debate over reforming the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act… A NYT article on the topic comments that “many Democrats say these plans, which serve nearly one-fifth of the 43 million Medicare beneficiaries, are overpaid.” This is true, but the non-partisan Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office also report that private plans cost Medicare 12 percent more per person, on average, than the traditional Medicare program.

Bill O’Reilly & Joe Klein agree: Dem contenders are ‘intimidated’ by left
Mark the day down. This may not happen again. That archenemy of liberals, Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly, and Time magazine’s friend-to-the-left Joe Klein agree on something: They both think the Democratic presidential candidates have been “intimidated” by the left-wing — especially the very vocal left-wing blogosphere.
Which only proves that Joe Klein is no friend to the left, or even the center, which is where most of us described as “the left” really are.

Weimar Watch
“Has there ever before been a time in America where a major political party would virtually pray for our defeat in a war so that they could demonize the leader of the opposition and turn that defeat into victory for them at the polls? Well, you’re seeing just that right now,” - Neal Boortz, fresh from a meeting with the Decider.

Does BMW think that we should “never trust a Muslim”?
[A commenter on] BillOReilly.com says that American Muslims are “freakin idiots,” and that you should “never trust a Muslim!!!!!” Does BMW agree with the hate that BMW is sponsoring? Ask them. Then ask them why Lowes and Home Depot have dumped this hate, but BMW hasn’t.
Click through for the email address to write to.

It’s not over for Coulter
When it comes to GOP twig Ann Coulter and her Palm Beach voting snafu, the fat lady has yet to sing. While most expected the conservative pundit to be off the hook for good when the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office punted a voting fraud probe in April, the Florida Elections Commission now is investigating.

Boston Globe to print newspapers for two of its competitors
The Globe has a five-year deal to print newspapers for the Patriot Ledger, of Quincy, and The Enterprise, of Brockton. Printing will begin in the fall after negotiations are completed with the Ledger and Enterprise press unions.

Murdoch And Dow Jones Pick 5 To Safeguard Wall St. Journal
Five people just signed on for what may be the most thankless task in journalism: making sure that Rupert Murdoch plays fair with his new acquisition, The Wall Street Journal.

Did News Corp. buy off Bancroft advisers to get deal done?
The Times asks: “By paying the bankers and lawyers for the family, did the News Corporation essentially buy off the [Bancroft family] advisers and, more important, did the family receive unconflicted guidance or was it pushed to do the deal by high-priced Wall Street advisers who stood to make far more if a deal was consummated?”

News Corp. Donated $2.5M to Negroponte — Now on New Editorial Panel
Reuters is reporting that Dow Jones didn’t know that one of the people assigned to monitor the Wall Street Journal’s editorial independance had received $2.5 million in funding from Rupert Murdoch’s global media conglomerate.

Judge Backs C.I.A. in Suit on Memoir
Valerie Wilson may be the best known former intelligence operative in recent history, but a federal judge in New York ruled Wednesday that she was not allowed to say how long she worked for the Central Intelligence Agency in the memoir she plans to publish this fall.

Giuliani is treated like an old friend on Fox News Channel
That’s because he’s a longtime pal of network chief Roger Ailes. One political journal found that Rudy Giuliani has logged more time on Fox interview programs than any other candidate, with most of the time being spent with Sean Hannity, an acknowledged admirer of the former mayor.

Report: Google shows phone prototype to manufacturers
San Francisco (IDGNS) - Google has developed a prototype cell phone that could reach markets within a year, and plans to offer consumers free subscriptions by bundling advertisements with its search engine, e-mail, and Web browser software applications, according to a story published Thursday in The Wall Street Journal.

It’s super V-chip to the rescue of kids
WASHINGTON (Hollywood Reporter) - The Senate Commerce Committee approved legislation Thursday asking the Federal Communications Commission to oversee the development of a super V-chip that could screen content on everything from cell phones to the Internet.