Permanent link to MTA daily media news

I will be a guest on Joe Vecchio’s Cup O’Joe Show this morning.  Listen to Joe from 11:00 AM to 12:00 noon ET every weekday on the Head On Radio Network.

AOL/Microsoft-Hotmail Blocking Delivery of Truthout.org (thanks to Thomas Paine’s Corner)
Currently, AOL- and Microsoft-related email providers, including Hotmail, are preventing delivery of a range of Truthout communications to thousands of our subscribers… It is critically important if it does become clear that you are still on our list, and we are sending to you, that you demand your rights… Marc Ash, Executive Director – t r u t h o u t
I’ve had my own problems with AOL.  They’ve blocked the MTA Yahoo group several times.

Yes, Surge, That’s My Baby: Press Responds to Bush Speech
By the time President Bush addressed the nation tonight, little suspense about his remarks remained. So the media had plenty of time to figure out how to respond. Here we will carry some of the reactions, starting with Tom Ricks’ live-blogging and a report that the Joint Chiefs want more troops out.

A look at the facts behind Bush’s speech
WASHINGTON – President Bush pointed to political realignment in Iraq’s volatile Anbar province as evidence that Iraq is a fight that the United States is winning.
Click through for the AP’s fact check.

Edwards buys ad to rebut Bush on Iraq
In the clamor of Democrats assailing President Bush on Iraq, presidential candidate John Edwards has found a way to be heard after Bush addresses the nation Thursday night: He’s buying time for a rebuttal.

CNN ignored Boehner’s “small price” comment after latching onto Kerry’s “botched joke”
On CNN, Rep. John Boehner stated: “[T]he investment that we’re making today [in Iraq] will be a small price if we’re able to stop Al Qaeda here, if we’re able to stabilize the Middle East, it’s not only going to be a small price for the near future, but think about the future for our kids and their kids.” CNN did not re-air Boehner’s comments, or provide any discussion of the controversy that followed them. By contrast, CNN extensively covered John Kerry’s October 2006 “botched joke” and the controversy that followed.

CNN host Glenn Beck attacks CNN and all media for not supporting our troops
No one could have imagined that CNN’s in-house bigot, racist, homophobe, misogynist, anti-Semite is now starting to bite the hand that feeds him. You see, the reason the public thinks things are going badly in Iraq is because, apparently, CNN’s news team has joined the rest of the media in refusing to report the truth about how great the Iraq war is really going. All CNN cares about, apparently, is painting our troops as baby killers. CNN’s own host, Glenn Beck, said as much. And they pay him for this.

Giuliani, others in GOP target New York Times over bill for MoveOn ad
This morning, the New York Post published a story about something that had been percolating for a day or two in the conservative blogosphere: That The New York Times had given a big “discount” to MoveOn.org Political Action for the controversial “General Betray Us” ad that ran in the newspaper on Monday… [Wednesday] afternoon the pro-Bush organization Freedom’s Watch posted online a TV advertisement it plans to begin airing that calls MoveOn’s ad “despicable” and calls on members of Congress to condemn it.
Click through to watch the Freedom’s Watch ad.

Katie Couric is the right wing’s new ’sweetheart.’
Last week, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric reported from Iraq, but her stories largely repeated the Bush administration’s talking points. She even admitted that her stories were largely based on “what the U.S. military want[ed]” her to see. The right wing is now embracing her. Roll Call reports that conservative aides on Capitol Hill say that Couric is “our sweetheart.” 

The War Party
The media-savvy cartoonist and commentator [Ted Rall] lists examples of how, “rather than set the record straight, the media continues to spread the Democrats-can’t-stop-the-Republican-war meme this week”… As FAIR has explained time and again, “Congress does not have to pass legislation to bring an end to the war in Iraq—it simply has to block passage of any bill that would continue to fund the war. This requires not 67 or 60 Senate votes, or even 51, but just 41.”

The disgraced ABC consultant and the push for war in Iran (by Will Bunch)
[A] much-used consultant to ABC News [Alexis Debat ] published a phony interview with Barak Obama… Debat — a former French defense official who now works at the (no, you can’t make these things up) Nixon Center — has also been a leading source in pounding the drumbeat for war in Iran, and directly linked to some bizarre stories — reported on ABC’s widely watched news shows, and nowhere else — that either ratcheted up fears of terrorism or that could have stoked new tensions between Washington and Tehran… Either Debat is a lone wolf, a deluded self-aggrandizer whose main agenda is promoting himself. Or he is acting in his role at the Nixon Center as a conduit, spreading information and occasional disinformation at the behest of others. Either way, this is unarguably yet another huge black eye for the American media.
Click through to read the entire fascinating story, including the list other public figures who say they were not interviewed by this man, as he claimed.

There’s Something About Iowa and New Hampshire
Explaining why he thinks it’s great that two small, overwhelmingly white states have an enormous impact on the early stages of the U.S. presidential campaign, [The NYT’s Adam] Nagourney sees the voters there as simply smarter about politics… The apparent evidence is that they show up and ask real questions, unlike the dopes elsewhere in the country…: One man is shown to be a political pro because he speaks like a campaign consultant and—wouldn’t you know it—can name two of the “three H’s” attributed to John Edwards. Yes, that would be house, hedge fund and haircut.

Beware the Ideas of Newt
By claiming that he’s a “man of ideas,” Newt Gingrich has gained a following of columnists. But, Eric Alterman asks, what are his ideas?

Is the Drug Industry Driving People to Suicide?
A recent study purports to show that FDA warnings about the link between the use of anti-depressants and teen suicide may have led to more suicides. The NYT has an excellent article this morning pointing out that the evidence in the article is far from conclusive… Unfortunately, this article does not mention the perverse incentive created by patent rents on this issue.

Kurtz said Fox News is “entitled” to be a Bush “cheerleader” and “misinform[] our society”
During the September 12 edition of CNN Headline News’ Glenn Beck, Washington Post media critic and CNN Reliable Sources host Howard Kurtz said that MSNBC host Keith Olbermann has described Fox News as a channel that “poses as a news organization and puts out dangerous misinformation [and] is a cheerleader for the Bush administration, that it is misinforming our society.” Kurtz added: “But you know what? They’re entitled to do that.”

Censored! (by the San Francisco Bay Guardian)
The top 10 big stories the US news media missed in the past year.

Media get stern warning about photos at underwear event
Journalists at an underwear promotion in New York City were warned that they’d be fined at least $25,000 if they took unauthorized photos of Carmen Electra, the event’s star. Attendees were required to sign a legal agreement limiting their coverage of the event, which was held Tuesday night.

Rutgers Player Drops Imus Suit
The Rutgers women’s basketball player who sued Don Imus last month over his “nappy-headed hos” blast has withdrawn her slander and defamation lawsuit without explanation.

Back in 1987, it was thought that newspapers were dying
David Callaway was just starting his news career then. “The post-Watergate rush to become a reporter was over. Circulations were down,” he recalls. “And new technologies were threatening. At one point, the hot new thing was to deliver news by fax machine, and papers were going to die because readers would be able to get news quicker by fax. They would even be able to tailor the type of news they wanted to receive. Imagine that?”

Support journalism at its source (by Jeff Jarvis)
Supporting journalism at its source should be a moral imperative for anyone who depends upon that journalism: reporters, editors, news organizations, bloggers. It’s just enlightened self-interest: Link unto others as you’d wish they’d link unto you. And it is the basis, I believe, of the architecture of the news industry in the future: News organizations should do what they do best and link to the rest.

CNN makes major ‘360′ tweaks
CNN is permanently shifting to taped programming for the second hour of “Anderson Cooper 360,” scaling back an ambitious programming block created in 2005 to showcase the studio and field-reporting talents of Cooper, who it viewed as an emerging star… Cooper averaged 747,000 viewers in his second hour in August, less than O’Reilly’s 965,000 and a steep drop from the 1.1 million he averaged during the first hour, according to Nielsen.

Book Deal for Writer Who Fabricated Parts of Memoir
James Frey, the author who admitted making up portions of his best-selling memoir “A Million Little Pieces,” has signed a new book deal for a novel with HarperCollins.

Stats: Facebook Traffic Up 117%, Veoh Soars 346%
Nielsen//NetRatings has released its August traffic report for social networking, blogs, and video sites. In the report, Facebook shows 117% growth since August of last year to 19 million unique visitors, while MySpace still grew at a healthy 23% pace to 60 million uniques. On the video side of things, Veoh was the biggest gainer, up 346% from August of last year to nearly 3 million monthly uniques. MySpace video actually lost traffic, shrinking 6% to 16.7 million uniques, while YouTube was up 66%.

Prince to sue YouTube, eBay over music use
LONDON (Reuters) – U.S. pop star Prince plans to sue YouTube and other major Web sites for unauthorized use of his music in a bid to “reclaim his art on the Internet.”