Permanent link to MTA daily media news

The Left’s Media Miscalculation (Redux) (by Robert Parry)
In view of the MoveOn fiasco, we are republishing our April 29, 2005, report, entitled “The Left’s Media Miscalculation,” which explains how this media asymmetry developed.
Click through to read or re-read the essay.  This problem is so clear to me.  But Bob Parry of Consortium News and Mark Karlin of BuzzFlash seem to be the only progressives with a platform who agree with me.  Where are the rest of you?  Why aren’t we working together to create our own mighty megaphone?

Dan Rather is right (by Eric Boehlert)
Using Bush’s own military records, I’ll list 10 glaring discrepancies regarding his fraudulent military service, none of which is based on the disputed memos that were aired by CBS News in 2004. And yes, I’m pretty sure all 10 discrepancies will come as news flashes to the same journalists who mocked Rather last week for having the temerity to suggest his National Guard report was true.
Please click through to read the entire article.  The destruction of Dan Rather is one of the most important examples of the power of the right-wing megaphone.

Spacey to star in HBO’s ‘Recount’
Kevin Spacey, Laura Dern, Denis Leary, John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson, Ed Begley Jr. and Bob Balaban have been set by HBO Films to star in “Recount,” the drama about the controversial Florida results in the 2000 presidential election. Jay Roach is directing a script written by Danny Strong.
And the Florida non-recount was one of the first national examples of the right wing’s power to re-create reality.

Timing is Everything (by digby, regarding “Recount”, above)
The people involved show that this is not going to be a “Path to 9/11″ hit job so the wingnuts are going to have an epic case of the vapors not seen since … well, their last epic case of the vapors. Good. It’s past time Hollywood pulled out the big political guns and started making some straight-up political movies. We’ll probably have to fight off the Democrats more than the Republicans because as always, they’ll feel the need to distance themselves from even the tiniest bit of partisan controversy, but to hell with them. This story has never actually been told and it’s long ov erdue..
This is how Hollywood can help build the mighty megaphone for truth, honor, and decency.

Bush astounds activists, supports human rights
UNITED NATIONS — President Bush implored the United Nations on Tuesday to recommit itself to restoring human decency by liberating oppressed people and ending famine and disease… Bush didn’t mention the U.S. prisons in Afghanistan or at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. practice of holding detainees for years without legal charges or access to lawyers, or the CIA’s “rendition” kidnappings of suspects abroad, all issues of concern to human rights activists around the world.
Have I told you lately that I love McClatchy?

Trump On Fox: Bush “Perhaps The Worst President In The History Of This Country”
Donald Trump, who is no fan of President Bush, gives his unvarnished opinions on Fox & Friends [Tuesday] morning, which got hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade a little worked up. While it’s clear he’s not considered a hostile guest, the hosts do their best to push back against his criticisms. Kilmeade makes sure that Trump isn’t Pro-Saddam and Doocy proclaims the United Nations hates America!, but The Donald doesn’t miss a beat.

Journalistic progress on Iran
The New York Times does a piece on how — despite right-wing hyperventilation — Ahmadinejad isn’t really that important. Not in his own country, and not in the grand scheme of international relations, except for how we keep supporting him by giving him too much attention and being belligerent.

White House prepares ‘phonetic guide’ for Bush.
As President Bush spoke to the United Nation’s General Assembly [Tuesday] morning, “a marked-up draft of the president’s speech popped up on the U.N.’s website” that included “phonetic spellings of some names and countries, and the cellphone numbers for Bush speechwriters.” White House Press Secretary Dana Perino got annoyed when a reporter asked “if the president has trouble pronouncing some country’s names,” calling it an “offensive question” before saying, “it was taken down and there’s nothing more to say about it.”

Turning Ahmadinejad Into Public Enemy No. 1 (by Juan Cole)
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly has become a media circus. But the controversy does not stem from the reasons usually cited.

O’Reilly Rips Columbia’s Invitation To Ahmadinejad As ‘Revolting,’ But Admits He Invited Him Too
[Monday] night, Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly criticized Columbia University’s decision to invite Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak on campus. O’Reilly, who spent much of last week railing against Columbia’s invitation, called the event “revolting” and singled out Columbia University President Lee Bollinger as being “hypocritical beyond belief” for his invitation. But moments later, O’Reilly revealed that he had also offered an invitation to Ahmadinejad to appear on his own show.

Witt blasts NYT public editor’s column on MoveOn.org ad
Times public editor Clark Hoyt (left) says he would have have demanded changes to eliminate ‘Betray Us” in MoveOn’s ad, “a particularly low blow when aimed at a soldier.” Leonard Witt responds: “I would argue having any one person at The New York Times decide how a public body can properly address a United States general is a particularly low blow to free speech.”

Bashing middle class: Why newspapers die (by Will Bunch)
I’ve been meaning to write something longer on this topic, and still will — in fact, it’s going to be dealt with in my early 2008 book on media reform. It’s how both the ever-shrinking middle class, and newspaper decisions that are hostile to that diminished yet still critical segment of America, are hastening our own death spiral. Instead of connecting with the rank-and-file, many big newspapers are already focusing on what they call “niche” publications, but what they really mean is something that, to paraphrase Barbara Bush, almost rhymes with “niche,” and that’s “rich.”

Media Matters for America headlines

Fox News lashed out at media criticism of O’Reilly’s racially charged comments

Matthews revisited Yankees comments to claim Clinton “tried hard to prove she was a Noo Yawker”

Reliable Sources panel dismissed Rather claims, but left out other times when CBS allegedly placated White House

Fox News’ “body language expert” accused Clinton of exhibiting “evil laughter”

Sowell cited Neo-Nazis’ actions as example of “racial hype game” surrounding Jena 6 case

MSNBC’s Scarborough highlighted O’Reilly’s comments about Sylvia’s in Harlem

MSNBC asks about “GOP hypocrisy?” in denunciations of MoveOn but silence on Limbaugh’s “Senator Betrayus” comments

CNN’s Costello failed to ask NRA’s LaPierre about Nugent’s slurs against Obama, Clinton, Feinstein

Big media enters the spin zone
Will major media conglomerates soon unload some of their biggest assets? Executives from top media firms were asked about possible spin-offs and/or division sales during two high profile media conferences last week… “What a lot of media companies are doing is reassessing what they own,” said David Gurwin, chair of the entertainment and media law group and the technology transactions group at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, a Pittsburgh-based law firm. “But I don’t think any media company lives in a vacuum. No industry is immune from what’s happening in the financial markets.”

Clear Channel Shareholders Approve Buyout
Shareholders of the company approved a $19.5 billion buyout on Tuesday, more than 10 months after the deal was proposed.

Latest Richardson ad enlists bloggers to vouch for his plan to end the Iraq war
Left-wing bloggers today make what appear to be their first appearances in a candidate’s TV ads so far this election, praising Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson for his plan to remove (as his campaign puts it) “every single soldier from Iraq, leaving no residual troops behind.” The bloggers are Chris Bowers of Open Left, Christina Siun O’Connell of Firedoglake and Matt Stoller of OpenLeft.com.

Panel: Political Candidates Stick to Traditional Media
Political candidates from both parties are demonstrating a stubborn devotion to traditional media, along with a cautious streak that is holding them back from truly embracing the Web as an outlet for political ad dollars, according to a group of panelists speaking during a Mixx Conference session.

Bulky Yellow Phone Books Turn the Page to Online Video
The yellow pages are turning a new leaf with video on the Web. Idearc Media Corp.’s Superpages.com, Yellow Book USA Inc., and AT&T Inc.’s Yellow Pages already offer listings on the Web. Now these companies and others are beginning to offer online videos, allowing advertisers to post versions of their TV commercials alongside their Web ads. The directory companies are even offering to produce new videos for businesses, which run as long as two minutes on some sites.

Web Video Ads Will Not Save Your Soul
According to a study commissioned by [Google and AOL] and conducted by market insight and information group TNS, 75 percent of respondents in a recent online survey said they watched more video online than they did a year ago and over half expect to watch more online video in the next year. Seventy-eight percent agreed that online video ads provide as much or more of an opportunity to learn about an advertiser than television. Better news yet for Google and AOL, 63 percent of respondents said they prefer video sites to include advertising in order to keep content free.

Remember when people said they’d never pay to watch TV?
“If the television model is a guide, then the eclipse of subscription-supported news on the Web is probably not a permanent change,” says Peter Osnos. “One of these days someone will conjure a device or a service that will expand offerings and provide them with additional convenience that will eliminate, at least initially, intrusive advertising, for a fee.”

“People will pay for porn, but they won’t pay for Friedman”
That’s Brooke Gladstone’s observation about TimesSelect (and Tom Friedman). “I just want to dispute that,” responds NYTimes.com exec Vivian Schiller, “because actually people did pay for it. …TimesSelect did work, however, in the long haul, just the growth of advertising revenue versus the kind of single-digit growth that we would find in subscription revenue is going to keep us in business longer so that we can keep hiring more reporters and keep covering news of the world.”

The View From Your Airplane Window Was Brought to You by …
A start-up called Ad-Air said it had created the “first global aerial advertising network” — giant, billboardlike ads that will be visible from the air as planes approach runways.