Media
08-Oct-07
Permanent link to MTA daily media news
FCC Accused of Unfairly Aiding Some Firms
If not the most surprising headline in the history of the world, this piece does provide gruesome details of how “congressional investigators have found some companies and trade groups have received special treatment” from the regulatory body that is “supposed to treat every group equally… from giant phone companies to small consumer advocates.”
Fineman: Intel Community To Release ‘Three Iran Reports’ To ‘Slow Down’ Bush’s Warmongering
On the Chris Matthews Show today, NBC’s Howard Fineman revealed that the intelligence community will release “three different reports” in upcoming weeks to “slow down” the administration’s current drumbeat for war with Iran.
Click through to watch the video. I hope they can stop the juggernaut. Petraeus is rattling his saber again.
The Media and the Latest ‘Torture’ Revelations (by Greg Mitchell)
The latest “torture” revelations from The New York Times this week seemed to shock many in the media, which also says a lot. That the U.S. has been torturing prisoners has been known for years, producing only measured outrage from most editorialists and pundits. Now how will they respond?
‘NYT’ Reporter Reveals How He Got ‘Blackwater’ Scoop
“It was a regular old cop story,” James Glanz, an eight-year Times veteran told E&P via cell phone from Baghdad, referring to the shooting of Iraqis by the private contractors. “If you forget about official sources and look at it like a shooting at 34th and Broadway, you have the story.”
Reporters becoming detectives? That would be a very good thing.
Mum’s The Word (by digby)
When I saw the roundtable line-up this morning on Meet The Press, I was actually interested, for once. Since Monsignor Tim insists on having David Brody, a “journalist” from Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcast “Network” on, I thought at least we could get some inside information on the reported unhappiness among the religious right with the Republican front runner. Russert didn’t even bring it up. Neither did Brody. Neither did anyone else… The Religious Right is threatening to bolt the Republican party and the flagship Village [Beltway insiders] gasbag show doesn’t even mention it. This is the first show since September 9th that Russert hasn’t discussed the Move On ad.
Chris Wallace asks Nancy Pelosi if she “prays for the troops to win in Iraq” (by John Amato)
Nancy Pelosi went on FOX News Sunday today to talk aboout the SCHIP/Bush veto. And here’s example # ___ (fill in the blank) of the ridiculous questions that come from a FNC host…Only on FOX would Chris Wallace actually ask this of a Democratic leader: “Wallace: You said the other day that you pray for President Bush to change his mind about vetoing SCHIP…Ahhh, do you pray for our soldiers to win in Iraq? Pelosi: Of, course I do. Wallace: To win? Pelosi: Of, course. What a question….”
Hateful people attribute their hateful motives to others. That’s why right wingers insist on thinking liberals want to lose the Iraq war and we want our country to fall into a recession. It’s what they would want if the president were a Democrat. And speaking of attributing their motives to others, see below.
Crime and Punishment: Why Do We Conform to Society?
In [a] new study, [economist Ernst] Fehr and colleagues uncovered activity in two areas of the brain underlying the neural mechanism involved in conforming to society’s values. They further determined that subjects with Machiavellian personalities—a strong sense of self-interest, opportunism and manipulation—have heightened activity in one of these regions, which the authors believe is related to assessing the threat of punishment.
Just as I thought. When right wingers follow the law, it’s because of the threat of punishment. So they think that’s true of all of us.
This Week: George Will Tells Social Conservatives To “Grow Up”
On This Week with George Stephanopolis, the roundtable discussion turned to the recent “threats” by the Religious Right (who apparently renamed themselves Social Conservatives) to run a third-party candidate as a result of their distaste for the all-but-presumed Republican candidacy of Rudy Giuliani… George Will has just one thing to say to them: Grow up.
Hate Week Comes to Campus (by Aaron Hess)
If you wanted to know what Sen. Joe McCarthy would sound like if he came back from the dead, read David Horowitz’s explanation for “Islamofascism Awareness Week,” an event he is sponsoring on college campuses across the country from October 22-26: The progressive left is the enabler and abettor of the terrorist jihad. It has forged an “unholy alliance” with the most retrograde and reactionary forces in the world today.
Teacher: I was fired, said Bible isn’t literal (thanks to Feministe)
“As a taxpayer, I’d like to know if a tax-supported public institution of higher learning has given veto power over what can and cannot be said in its classrooms to a fundamentalist religious group,” [Steve Bitterman] said. “If it has … then the taxpaying public of Iowa has a right to know. What’s next? Whales talk French at the bottom of the sea?”
Novak: Wilson did not forcefully object to naming of CIA wife in column
Columnist Robert Novak said Saturday Ambassador Joe Wilson did not forcefully object to the naming of his CIA operative wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, when Novak spoke to him prior to the publication of a column that sparked a federal investigation and sent White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby to jail.
So it was Wilson’s fault that you helped to out his wife as a CIA agent? Pretty pitiful, Bob.
Novak: Senate Conservatives Knew About Craig’s ‘Weird Conduct,’ ‘Didn’t Do Anything About It’
On Bloomberg Television [Saturday], right-wing pundit Robert Novak revealed that “sources in the Senate” have told him that Senate conservatives had prior knowledge about Sen. Larry Craig’s (R-ID) “problem” but intentionally kept it “in the closet”.
Click through to watch the video.
Post Maintains Dogma on the Fed and Financial Bubbles (by Dean Baker)
[T]he Post ran a column on efforts to promote savings in the U.S. that completely ignored the stock and and housing bubbles. This is close to mind-boggling since the wealth effect on consumption is one of the most widely accepted theories in economics… Those who are concerned about a lack of savings by households probably should begin their list of policy prescriptions by telling the Fed to fight the growth of irrational bubbles. Every other item to promote savings that appears on the list in the Post piece is trivial in comparison.
‘NYT’ Op-Ed Recalls Errors of ‘Liberal Hawks’ on Iraq — Newspaper’s Editor Was One of Them
NEW YORK The New York Times carried an Op Ed column today by Tony Judt, warning that the “liberal hawks” who had helped promote the U.S. into an invasion of Iraq in 2003 are “back,” defending anew that war and possibly an attack on Iran… Ironically, Judt’s column appeared in the same spot on the Op- Ed page where one of pieces that made the term “liberal hawk” popular appeared on February 8, 2003, during the fateful run-up to the war. The earlier column was called “The I-Can’t-Believe-I’m-a-HawkClub.” It was written by Times columnist—now executive editor—Bill Keller.
Media Matters for America headlines
Kurtz: Clinton’s Ground Zero ad is treading on Giuliani’s “turf”
As War Dragged On, Coverage Tone Weighed Heavily on Anchors
As the U.S. occupation of Iraq stretched into its fourth bloody year, the media coverage was turning increasingly negative, and the three evening news anchors constantly agonized over how to deal with the conflict.
From Howie Kurtz’s new book. Click through and read on, if you want to gag.
Will an Imus Return Get Backers?
Jilted Jock Could Soon Be Back on Air — but It’s Not Certain He’ll Find Sponsors
Pay the Talent? Sorry, Suckas, That’s Not the HuffPo Financial Model
New CEO Betsy Morgan’s Endgame Should Include Compensating Bloggers Who Give Website Credibility
MSNBC to Acquire a Chattier News Site
Newsvine, which encourages users to write articles and comment on other articles, shows the increasing importance of community features on news Web sites.
Google and I.B.M. Join in ‘Cloud Computing’ Research
Google and I.B.M. are investing to build large data centers that students can tap into over the Internet to program and research remotely, which is called “cloud computing.”
Resource: A look at federal government blogs
Here’s a list of some blogs authored by federal authorities:
How to Set Up a Search Feed
Say you’re an education reporter in Boulder, Colo. One topic you’d want to follow regularly is the Boulder Valley School District. Sure, you can keep up with coverage in the local mainstream media easily enough — but what about what people are saying on blogs and other kinds of online venues? Surprisingly often, good leads and under-the-radar issues crop up there. To keep on top of that content, you can go to popular feed aggregators.
Microsoft-loving (former) security czar calls for closed internet
Richard Clarke, the man who served President Bush as a special adviser for cyber security, has a five-point plan for saving the internet. Speaking at a Santa Clara University conference dedicated to “trust online,” Clarke called the net “a place of chaos in many ways, a place of crime in many ways,” but laid out several means of righting the ship, including biometric IDs, government regulation, and an industry wide standard for secure software. He even embraces the idea of a closed internet - which seems to have sparked a death threat from net pioneer Vint Cerf… Several years ago, when Clarke suggested the idea to Vint Cerf, the internet founding father had a fit. “[He] implied he was putting together a firing squad to take me out,” Clarke said.
U.S. Online Ad Spending Topped $5 Billion in Second Quarter
Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) — U.S. online advertising spending topped $5 billion in the second quarter, a record for a three- month period, signaling that more advertisers are abandoning newspapers and television.
Major Internet Hubs See Lesser Influence
NEW YORK (AP) - The recent rush by major Internet portals to buy advertising companies and extend their sales networks is a sign that the business of being a one-stop shop for information and entertainment isn’t what it used to be… Instead, those companies are now more aggressively trying to follow Web surfers elsewhere - and bring lucrative advertising to them.
Licensing Deal: Home Run — or House of Cards?
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Get ready to see “For Sale by Better Homes and Gardens” signs sprouting from lawns across the country. Better Homes and Gardens, which has already licensed its name to products ranging from home decor to computer software, is extending its brand to real-estate agents.
Ask.com Pushes Into TV Show Integrations
Latest Deal With ‘Entertainment Tonight’ Based on Popular Search Terms
A New Ratings System Stirs Up the Fall TV Season
Overnight television ratings have lost much of their meaning as more people begin to use digital video recorders and commercials get ratings of their own.
Time Inc. Eyes New Ad Apps, Including On-Page Video
The Oct. 4 issue of Wenner Media’s Rolling Stone sports an impossible-to-miss lenticular ad for the Fox TV network, featuring characters from the net’s Sunday-night lineup whooping it up on a roller-coaster ride, their images changing as the reader tilts the ad… As marketers look for more ways to capture the attention of media-saturated consumers, publishers are exploring much more intricate ad units, up to and including ads that feature video.
For Google, Advertising and Phones Go Together
Google, which seeks to extend its dominance of online advertising to the mobile Internet, is expected to unveil the fruit of its secret mobile phone project later this year.
The real media consolidation: Google (by Jeff Jarvis)
Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch and Ashkan Karbasfrooshan at HipMojo make critical calculations about Google’s growing advertising hegemony. Bottom line: Google controls nearly 40 percent of online advertising. Now pair that news with the folding of TimesSelect. Consumers, as we used to be called, won’t support media and journalism with their money. Advertising will. We will become entirely dependent on advertising. And what happens when Google controls the majority of online ad revenue in this country?
Wash. High Court: Campaign Lies Are Protected Speech
OLYMPIA, Wash. A sharply divided state Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a law which bars political candidates from deliberately making false statements about their opponents violates the First Amendment right of free speech.
BlackBerry as a Weapon in the Fight to Commute
A free service named Clever Commute distributes updates sent by New York area transit riders about train and bus delays that they are witnessing firsthand.
Cell Phones Help Narrow Digital Divide
Increased computer usage and better e-mail and Web access may narrow the digital divide, although globalization critics may perceive such changes as a threat to local cultures and economies, a new Pew Research Center study suggests.
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