Permanent link to MTA daily media news

Durbin: No Immunity For Telecoms ‘Until We Understand What The Program Has Been About’
Early reports suggested that the Senate was prepared to back down on the immunity provision [of the new FISA reform legislation]. FireDogLake reported that the Senate version of the FISA bill “does contain immunity/amnesty for the telecom companies.” But this weekend on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) spoke out forcefully against granting unconditional immunity to the telecom companies for potentially illegal acts.
I, for one, will keep hoping that they won’t cave on this.  Click through to watch the video.

Fox News: Gore’s Never ‘Actually Done Something For Peace;’ Give Petraeus The Prize
[Friday], after Al Gore was named a co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Fox News kicked off the right-wing smear attacks on the former Vice President, comparing him to “Yasser Arafat and that crazy Jimmy Carter.”… [A]fter suggesting that Gore has never “actually done something for peace,” Fox ran a chyron advocating that a different American be awarded the peace prize: Gen. David Petraeus.
Click through to watch the video.

UNSTOPPABLE CLOWNING: (by Bob Somerby)
Showing its unfailing sense of the parameters of modern multimillionaire comedy, the Washington Post has Gore’s film out on the front page [Friday] morning: “Al Gore’s Film Has 9 Errors, British Judge Rules in Suit.”…. [W]hen a possibly daft British judge settled a silly school board complaint, the Post … pimped [the] story on page one… [The reporter] doesn’t make the slightest attempt to say of the judge is right or wrong about the nine “errors” he thinks he has found. More specifically, you’ll note that she hasn’t asked any actual scientist to comment on the things the judge said.
Fox flogged this judge’s decision, which you’d expect, but so did CNN.

Sliming Graeme Frost (by Paul Krugman)
[T]he Graeme Frost case is a perfect illustration of the modern right-wing political machine at work, and in particular its routine reliance on character assassination in place of honest debate. If service members oppose a Republican war, they’re “phony soldiers”; if Michael J. Fox opposes Bush policy on stem cells, he’s faking his Parkinson’s symptoms; if an injured 12-year-old child makes the case for a government health insurance program, he’s a fraud. Meanwhile, leading conservative politicians, far from trying to distance themselves from these smears, rush to embrace them. And some people in the news media are still willing to be used as patsies.

White House Embraces Right-Wing Blog That Called For ‘Destroying’ Graeme Frost
Much of the far right’s smear campaign against 12-year old SCHIP recipient Graeme Frost was driven by the right-wing blogosphere. One blog in particular, Redstate, featured especially vitriolic comments. A poster there wrote of the Frost family: “If federal funds were required [they] could die for all I care.”… Rather than distancing themselves from the smear campaign, the White House today decided to embrace RedState and reward the blog with an official White House posting.

Ad Campaign Criticizes Pro-Life Members of Congress for Voting against Children’s Health Insurance
Washington – Catholics United will launch a radio advertising campaign targeting ten members of Congress whose opposition to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) have compromised their pro-life voting records. The ads, which feature a mother urging her Congressional Representative to support SCHIP, will primarily air on Christian and talk radio stations from Monday Oct. 15 to Wednesday, Oct. 17 as Congress approaches a critical Oct. 18 vote to override President Bush’s veto of bipartisan SCHIP legislation.
So, will the right wingers slam the Catholics, too?  Do you want to bet that Catholics aren’t real Christians?

The Daily Show: Target Iraq!
Howie Kurtz has been making the rounds peddling his new book and during an appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America he makes this bold statement about the network news; I believe that these news casts in 2005 and 2006 played the biggest single roll in helping to turn public opinion against the war. Oh reeeally? Jon Stewart points out that the network news had a lil’ something to do with driving public support FOR the invasion of Iraq.
Click through to watch the video.

Hillary Wins Charles Krauthammer Primary (by Greg Sargent)
Conservative Washington Post writer Charles Krauthammer … accuses [Hillary Clinton] of “opportunism,” “slipperiness,” “cynicism,” of having “no principles,” etc., etc. To Krauthammer, these are virtues because they mean she’d be less likely to adhere to the liberal principles that would imprison her fellow Dems… He also writes with perfect sincerity that she’s to be admired because of her obvious (he claims) willingness to torture, concluding: “I (and others of my ideological ilk) could live with her.”

Political reporters hate candidates who aren’t entertaining
Look at Fred Thompson: “He waited so long to declare, thereby building expectations that he would be a smash on the trail,” writes William Powers. “There is nothing the media hate more than a widely hyped performer — in this case a genuine actor — who turns out to be a dud. How dare he bore us!”

Media Matters for American headlines

Liasson gave misleading report on NPR poll results, suggesting independents favor congressional Republicans

NY Times again omitted Bush’s 2000 pledge to “properly recognize[]” “genocidal campaign” against Armenians

Angle falsely claimed Dems’ bill would be first to require a court order to intercept terrorism suspects’ calls to U.S.

Gibson defended his comments about race of school shooter, attacked “Soros-backed” Media Matters

Wash. Post’s Kornblut misrepresented earlier mischaracterization of Clinton torture comments

Scarborough on “perfecting Jews” controversy: “I think Jesus had a different take than Ann Coulter”

Vieira on Coulter: “Of course we are” part of the problem, “[w]e’re perpetuating it”

Wash. Post reported coalition’s findings on seafood consumption without noting ties to industry

What to expect from Fox Business Network

Google and Random House Considering Book Search Partnership
Random House is reportedly considering joining Google’s publishing partner program, which means its book may wind up searchable on Google Book Search. As recently as 2005, Random House participated in a lawsuit against Google hoping to cease the scanning of copyrighted material without explicit consent from the publisher. Only two years later, however, Google’s partnership program has expanded to over 10,000 publishers and 27 academic reference libraries. The program’s proven ability to boost book sales of back-listed titles resulted in Random House engaging in “periodic constructive conversations with Google on issues of mutual relevance.”
The problem I have with this Google service isn’t with the search, that’s text based.  But the result is some kind of graphic, so you can’t copy any text to the clipboard.  If I’m going to post a quote from one of these books, I don’t want to have to type it.

Al Gore’s Network Gets a Makeover
Al Gore’s network CurrentTV is relaunching, with a new name and a new perspective. In dropping the “TV” the site is no longer about video content for various topics, but is now about the sharing of social media in several ways , covering the same various topics. That means there’s less focus on the video, and a broader approach for ways in which to share news and discuss ideas. The new Current is still in private beta. So now all users are invited to submit stories, links and videos. This looks somewhat like a social bookmarking site, and as users can vote on content it’s a bit of a Digg approach as well.

NY Times Launches Elusive Reader Comments on Homepage
Looks like the NY Times is testing out a new feature. Users comments have been spotted on the homepage for headliner stories. Silicon Alley Insider caught a screen shot, displaying these comments that show almost as a mini feed or ticker, with reader’s comments on the big story. Few have seen these new comments on the homepage, so it hasn’t been confirmed if the comments will show for major stories only, or if the Times is simply testing it out to gain some basic feedback from readers.
Click through to see the screen shot.

Huffington Post can’t afford to pay its thousands of bloggers
Blake Fleetwood, a Huffington Post contributor, says “no newspaper or publication could possibly afford to pay the large number of posters at HuffPo. …For HuffPo to have paid their posters from the beginning, would probably have doomed the experiment at its inception.” He adds that Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer “are not getting rich off HuffPo.”
She would LOVE to pay them, but she JUST CAN’T!

Music Industry Looks to Build Its Own iTunes Competitor
Universal Music is looking to join forces with other major record labels to build a competitor to iTunes, according to a report in BusinessWeek… While the success of subscription music services like Napster and Yahoo Music has been minimal compared to the mass adoption of iTunes, Total Music would introduce an interesting new business model: free music. The theory is that with the promise of free music, consumers will buy many more devices from Apple’s competitors, in turn offsetting the costs of the plan.
We’re going to have to pay for content of all kinds.  Payment for internet access should continue to be separate, I think, but subscription services for music and video will someday encompass other forms, as well.  The sooner we progressives get into the act, the more influence we’ll have in driving that process.

Help Catch the Bad Guys with New Widgets from the FBI
The FBI has released several new widgets that allow you to help fight terrorism and stop crime through your blogs and profiles. The agency is currently offering four different widgets: Wanted by the FBI, Predators and Missing Persons, FBI News, and FBI History.

The Weather Channel: Now on iPhone
The Weather Channel has joined the seemingly endless list of companies optimizing applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The new application utilizes touch screen technology to allow users to check conditions, forecasts, and interactive maps via their Apple weapon of choice. The Weather Channel has also added various surfaces views and the ability to navigate radar and cloud maps.

Live, Local News on Your Yahoo Messenger Chat
Yahoo Messenger now has real-time local news updates available, letting you check things like weather, traffic reports and other items while chatting with friends.

Wow: Google Blocking Anti-MoveOn.org Ads?
According to Fox News anchor John Gibson, Google has blocked ads that US Senator Susan Collins (Republican) attempted to place in the search engine protesting the actions of grassroots political organization MoveOn.org… Gibson attempts to draw a connection between MoveOn, Google, and Al Gore [who] sits on Google’s board of directors. For Google’s part, it claims that the Senator’s ad against MoveOn violated the company’s policies. Meanwhile, it should also be noted that FOX News is usually strongly associated with the Republican party.

‘Fact-free’ ads & cherry-picked numbers: How candidates may mislead
In “99% Fact-Free,” [FactCheck.org examines] the abundant “fact-free” ads that the presidential campaigns are airing — ads that “associate the candidate with a string of positive words and images but are void of specifics.” Voters, FactCheck warns, should “beware” of such commercials. “Remember to read the fine print, and avoid making judgments based only on fine-sounding words that could mean anything,” FactCheck advises. But when candidates do throw around “facts,” voters should also be wary, FactCheck’s fact-checkers say.