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.

From Apocalypse to Disaster, America Is Obsessed with the Prospect of Bad News
Author of the new book A Culture of Calamity, Ken Rozario explains why we are so fond of a good crisis.

A City Floods And Its Paper Sails
The Times-Picayune went from being an average metropolitan daily to a vital must-read resource in an unlikely post-Katrina success story.

Craig Story Nets ‘Idaho Statesman’ its Best Web Day Ever
The Idaho Statesman of Boise drew its busiest Web traffic ever on Tuesday after posting a lengthy story about an alleged sexual incident involving Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) and another man, as well as other alleged improper activities. Today, the paper called on Craig to resign.

Alive in Baghdad: Can Citizen Journalism Done Right Pay the Bills?
Alive in Baghdad is arguably the best-positioned citizen news video outfit in the world.

A Guide to Media Manipulation, Republican Style
[I]n recent years the GOP has turned the technique of making hay from their opponents’ words into a reliable formula for success. Here’s how it works: First, find something your opponent said that might be open to multiple interpretations. Next, take it out of context. After that, distort it beyond all recognition (and don’t worry, the truth-seeking press will offer you no sanction for this deception). Express your consternation, your anger, your amazement that your opponent has revealed him/herself to be such a deplorable reprobate for whom no decent American could consider voting. Finally, repeat the offending statement over and over, from now until election day… [A]ll too often, Democrats give Republicans a helping hand.
Plenty of people know what the problem is.  Very few are willing to work together to solve it.

Matt Drudge rules their world…and falsely accuses them of murder
Here’s how the [death of Richard Jewell, accused by the media of the 1996 bombing at the Atlanta Olympics was] bannered near the top of the Drudge Report, one of the ten most trafficked news sites on the Internet, the news source that former ABC News political director Mark Halperin said “rules our world”: “THE MAN THE MEDIA MURDERED: Richard Jewell dead…”
As YOU know, because you read MakeThemAccountable, Jewell died of natural causes.

Conservative Media Study Finds Bias Where None Exists
Debunking a new Media Research Center study purporting that “since Democrats outnumbered Republicans in campaign segments on the morning shows of ABC, CBS and NBC, the three major networks are ‘actively promoting the Democrats’ liberal agenda.’” While former FAIR intern Volsky knows that “conservatives may tout the report as evidence of the media’s liberal bias” anyway, he finds that “its conclusion falls apart under scrutiny.”
As I suspected.

New Media Meme: White House Is “Confident” It Will Win Iraq Fight Against Dems
As you probably remember, one of the more unsightly aspects of the press’ performance during the 2006 midterm elections was its constant assertion, no matter what the polls said, that the GOP was “confident” and “gleeful” and “on the offensive” against the Dems. A bunch of us stamped our feet for weeks about this, and the big news orgs finally started telling the story right, helping lead to the rout of the Republicans. Now this is starting to happen again. And this time, the new media meme has it that the White House is “confident” that it’s going to “win” the coming showdown with the Dem Congress on Iraq.

Buchanan, Scarborough claimed that a military strike against Iran would be popular, but polls suggest otherwise
On MSNBC, Pat Buchanan claimed that a U.S. attack on Iran is “comin[g]” and went on to assert that a military strike against Iran would be “a very popular initial move.” Joe Scarborough agreed, stating that “a military strike against Iran initially would be extraordinarily popular with the American people.” But polling data show that most Americans say they would oppose an attack on Iran.

Gates Marginalized By White House, Not Informed Of New $50 Billion Iraq Funding Request
On Fox News’ Special Report [Wednesday] night, host Brit Hume revealed that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was unaware of the White House’s plans [to request an additional $50 billion from Congress for the war in Iraq]. “A Pentagon spokesman said Defense Secretary Gates saw the published report this morning and said, quote, ‘this is news to me,’” reported Hume.
Think Progress is reporting this tidbit as being reliable, but I don’t see how we can pick and choose what to believe when it comes from Fox News.  I think we should always assume their reports are made up, unless confirmed by three independent sources.

TNT Won’t Pull Law & Order When Thompson Declares
Now that Law & Order co-star Fred Thompson has signaled his plans to announce his presidential candidacy on Sept. 6, TNT, which airs voluminous repeats of the show, tells B&C in an e-mailed statement that it has “no plans to alter its programming schedule.”

Countering Ann Coulter at Xavier University
Some of the progressive students at Xavier University in Ohio aren’t too happy that the nasty, bigoted homophobe Ann Coulter is appearing on their campus. But, they’ve turned their anger into action at their blog, Counter Ann Coulter. They’re raising money — in $5.00 increments — to bring progressive speakers to campus.
This is absolutely a better way to counter right wingers than shouting them down or throwing pies in their faces.  Click here to contribute, if you can.

CRAIG vs. VITTER….
Lots of conservative bloggers, following Hugh Hewitt’s lead, have called for Larry Craig to resign even though they didn’t call for David Vitter to resign when he was outed for visiting prostitutes last month. Is this because Craig was trolling for gay sex and Vitter was trolling for straight sex? Probably, but before we go too far down that road I think Scott Lemieux is merely stating the obvious with his alternative explanation: “In the specific case of Hewitt, though, there’s probably a more important factor: Louisiana’s governor is a Democrat, and Idaho’s is a Republican. Craig resigning would mean a Republican incumbent going into the 2008 election; Vitter resigning would mean another Democratic Senator.”

CNN’s host Glenn Beck says New Orleans should not be rebuilt
Okay, Jonathan Kaplan and CNN, make up your mind about New Orleans. You sent Anderson Cooper to New Orleans to report live about the struggle to rebuild the city:.. You also had Soledad O’Brien (who never should have left the morning show, p.s.) do an hour long special on called “Children of the Storm.” But then, Mr. Kaplan, you have one of the stars of your network, Glenn Beck, completely trash New Orleans — and say that the city should not be rebuilt.
Since Soledad O’Brien’s departure from CNN’s American Morning, there’s more fluff, more celebrity reporting, stupid animal videos, and lots of sappy interviews by Kiran Chetry with people who once knew somebody who had something happen to them.  Of course, Kiran’s training ground was Fox “News”.

CNN to stop using Reuters news service
The CNN cable television news network said on Thursday it would stop using the Reuters news service, ending a 27-year relationship, to contain costs and invest in its own news gathering operations.
Your own news gathering, CNN?  Like the nonsense dug up by the likes of Kiran Chetry?

GOP no-shows prompt cancellation of debate
Univisión’s Republican presidential debate has been called off after only one contender agreed to participate, though the network hopes to reschedule. The debate for Democrats is still on for Sept. 9.
The Republican debate was scheduled for Sept. 16—much too close to quarterly fundraising reporting.  Republicans will be too busy fundraising to appeal to the Hispanic community.

Look who’s ‘Dancing’
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Is it possible Mark Cuban, Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Wayne Newton can dance? Viewers will find out on the new season of Dancing With the Stars, which has assembled another eclectic field of contestants.
Mark Cuban is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and of HDNet, the current home of Dan Rather.

Florida Papers Post Searchable Database on FEMA Aid
After months of legal wrangling, three Gannett newspapers have launched a searchable database of more than 2 million files about FEMA’s response to the 2004 Florida hurricanes. The results stem from a lawsuit filed by The News-Press in Fort Myers, Florida Today in Brevard County, and the Pensacola News Journal.

Conan O’Brien to Stream on NBC.com
NBC Digital Entertainment has begun streaming the show “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” on NBC.com. This is the first broadcast late-night program to stream on any broadcast network website, and will be made available the following day at 12 noon (PST).

NBC to End iTunes Sales of Its Shows
NBC Universal and Apple were unable to come to an agreement on pricing, leading to the a withdrawal that highlights escalating tensions between Apple and media companies.

First Book Written as a Wiki: “We Are Smarter Than Me”
“We Are Smarter than Me” is a collaborative effort to write a book using an online wiki tool. The book will focus on the importance of collaboration within the business community. Initiated by research done at Wharton and MIT, “We Are Smarter than Me” is taking the crowd-wisdom approach to not only discuss how collaboration can be used for a single goal, but to prove in what manner this can be achieved.

Viacom: It’s Not Copyright Infringement When We Do it to You
Long story short: Viacom runs a clip on TV without permission. The creator takes his clip from TV to post on YouTube. Viacom issues a cease and desist letter to YouTube claiming that they own the clip.

Thailand’s Ban on YouTube Fully Lifted
The Thai government has finally fully lifted its ban on YouTube after a deal was made between the video-sharing network and local Thai officials. With YouTube in agreement to block any clips that are offensive to Thai people or violate Thai law, the Thai government has fully lifted its ban.

New Web Sites Aim for TV Experience
NEW YORK (AP) – Watching video online in small, fuzzy boxes is heading the way of rabbit ears. Some highly anticipated Web sites are being modeled on making the experience of watching video online more like watching television.

Screenvision Brings Live Events to Movie Houses
Watch the Mets Game on the Big Screen, Catch a Pepsi T-Shirt
Huh?