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Rock ‘em, Sock ‘em Republicans Fuel Big Week of Campaign Coverage: November 25 - 30, 2007
The increasingly heated exchanges between Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney helped make the race for the White House the top story last week in PEJ’s Index of the news. On the Democratic side, a former President generated a good chunk of the coverage, and it wasn’t all good. That, plus a football murder case.

BuzzFlash Wings of Justice Award: McClatchy Newspapers/(Boise) Idaho Statesman
It’s not common for BuzzFlash to praise the mainstream media, but the McClatchy newspapers have provided about the only non-White House pabulum coverage of the Iraq War on a regular basis. A few readers have nominated them on that basis, but we are presenting the Wings of Justice Award to them for continuing to pursue the lies and hypocrisy of Senator Larry Craig. McClatchy owns the Boise Idaho Statesman. A newspaper doesn’t take on a sitting U.S. Senator, even a weakened one, without support from its parent company.

Thom Hartmann: How Liberals Can Speak Without Boring Everyone to Tears
It turns out we have a lot to learn from the advertising world and even Republicans.

A Rare Moment of Candor (by David Kurtz at Talking Points Memo)
Dan Bartlett, on the White House’s use of right wing blogs: “I mean, talk about a direct IV into the vein of your support. It’s a very efficient way to communicate. They regurgitate exactly and put up on their blogs what you said to them. It is something that we’ve cultivated and have really tried to put quite a bit of focus on.”

Joe Scarborough Rips Bush On Iran NIE: He’s Either ‘Lying’ Or ‘Is Stupid’
[Tuesday] in his press conference, President Bush asserted that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell told him “we have new information” on Iran’s nuclear program, but “he did not tell me what the information was.” [Wednesday] morning, the cast of Morning Joe chided Bush’s claim. Co-host Willie Geist said, “It’s just not a credible answer, I’m afraid.” Host Joe Scarborough ripped into Bush, saying that president is either “lying to the American people” or is simply “stupid”.
Click through to watch the video.

3 out of 4 Fox primetime shows ignored NIE.
Early Monday afternoon, the Bush administration released a new National Intelligence Estimate revealing that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Though the blockbuster revelation was featured prominently that night in all three network newscasts, it was all but ignored on Fox News. Steve Benen reports that on Monday night, only one of Fox’s primetime shows — Special Report with Brit Hume — even mentioned the report. On Tuesday, after President Bush held a news conference, the shows did cover it, but with only conservatives and administration supporters discussing it.

Nonpartisan AEI (by Paul Krugman)
I have a lot of problems with [a] Kit Seelye piece… But this takes the cake: “Joseph Antos, a health policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute, a nonpartisan group.” Is it really possible for a veteran reporter to believe that AEI is nonpartisan? Not even a qualifier, like “right-leaning” or “free-market-oriented”?

Malkin blames the “liberal media”–for reporting the facts (by Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars)
Case in point: The Boston Globe reports that Romney is using illegal immigrants to
take care of his lawn. Is Michelle Malkin disappointed in him for his hypocrisy of tough anti-immigration rhetoric on the campaign trail and actually supporting at home? Hell no - she is angry at the “liberal MSM” for reporting it. 

Why is The Hill transcribing Republican talking points as though they are news?

GOP claims Democrats are waging ‘war’ on economy
House Republicans released a report Wednesday that claims the policies of congressional Democrats pose a “rising threat” to millions of jobs and families.

Specter on Reid: ‘I wonder if he is up to the job’
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), one of his party’s leading centrists, blasted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Wednesday for his comment that GOP senators were “puppets” of the Bush administration.

Bloch blasts WSJ for ignoring WH’s conflict of interest.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal published a report claiming that Office of Special Counsel chief Scott Bloch, who is “investigating Karl Rove’s White House political operation,” is facing allegations from the White House “that he improperly deleted computer files during another probe.” [Wednesday], Bloch writes a letter to the editor criticizing the paper for ignoring the White House’s own conflict of interest.
Click through to read the letter.

WSJ launches Luddite attack on climate scientists and Al Gore
The bar for Wall Street Journal editorials, in the journalistic equivalent of limbo dancing, keeps dropping. In a piece titled, “The Science of Gore’s Nobel” (subs. req’d), Holman W. Jenkins Jr. of the WSJ ed board, manages to slander the media, Al Gore, the Nobel Committee, and all climate scientists — without offering any facts to back up the attacks.

Wash. Post Obama Story Under Fire
A front page story about Barack Obama’s rumored Muslim ties came with a twist: Many voices within its own newsroom joined in the firestorm.

Breaking: Washington Post Finally Calls Obama Muslim Smears False! (by Greg Sargent at TPM Horse’s Mouth)
Check out the headline on [a] new article on The Washington Post political blog from Perry Bacon, Jr., the author of the original Obama Muslim false rumor piece: “Clinton Campaign Volunteer Out Over False Obama Rumors”. The article goes on to describe the Muslim rumors as false four times. Methinks there’s a bit of tongue-in-cheek overkill push-back going on here, but hey, good for Bacon. Now the trick is to get the paper itself, and not just the blog, to do the same…

ABC’s Boston Legal Takes Swipe At Glenn Beck, Ignores His Affiliation With ABC
While the plot of the show is fictional, [Candice] Bergen’s character took a real-life approach in her arguments defending [a] fired radio host. She blasted the media for censoring political content while ignoring “racist or hateful remarks”: “Glenn Beck. He’s on CNN, the ‘most trusted name in news.’ He’s referred to the Katrina survivors as a vulgarity I’m not allowed to repeat here. He also said he didn’t think it possible to hate any victims faster than the 9/11 victims.”
Why are we leaving it to fiction writers to make these points for us?  Mind you, I’m not complaining.  The more voices we have calling the right wingers on their hate mongering the better, but it shouldn’t be ONLY fiction writers and us non-mainstreamers doing it.

Media Matters for America headlines

Fox’s Griffin reported that Democrats “stalled” funding on Afghanistan, but not that GOP blocked bill

MSNBC’s Brewer, U.S. News’ Walsh didn’t note Huckabee’s reported acknowledgment that he had not even heard of NIE on Iran

O’Reilly: “If I had not done the campaign, then the forces of darkness would have won” the “war” on Christmas

Sacramento Bee uncritically reported GOP’s claims about effects of CA ballot initiative

Savage calls Retired Brig. Gen. Keith Kerr a “gay, phony general”

CNN’s Bernstein cited Russert’s misleading debate question to Clinton as an explanation for “what led to the problem in the Clinton campaign”

Senate Panel OKs Media Bill
A Senate panel approved a bill that would put the brakes on a plan to let broadcasters own a newspaper in the same media market.

New effort afoot to pass FOIA bill
WASHINGTON - Lawmakers are scrambling to align House and Senate versions of a bill to tighten freedom of information laws in time to pass it this year.

At NYC Meeting: Top Media Companies Vow Online Explosion
Newspaper publishers, entering 2008 with some of the worst economic conditions in years, said Wednesday they hope to bring even more readers — and ad spending — to their Web sites with expanded offerings of news, advertising and video.

Moonves on Media
CBS CEO Leslie Moonves offhandedly admitted how much corporate media are indebted to our money-driven political system. He assured attendees at a luncheon speech that political advertising is going to be a major part of CBS next year. We’re seeing a very robust amount of money. We like the fact that there are a lot of candidates. And we like a lot of candidates with a lot of money. We do not want election reform. “To which Forbes helpfully appended: ‘[laughter].’”

Dobbs To Launch National Talk Show
NEW YORK — December 4, 2007: CNN anchor and best-selling author Lou Dobbs announced Tuesday morning at Radio Ink’s Forecast ‘08 conference that he’ll be launching a new daily afternoon talk show with United Stations Radio Networks in March of next year.  “We’re gonna raise a lot of hell and have a lot of fun,” said Dobbs, adding, “We’re going to push back hard against those who think this is a partisan world.”

Hollywood writers cite movement in talks
LOS ANGELES - The union representing striking Hollywood writers said Wednesday that contract negotiations with studios were finally “substantive,” including on the key issue of digital media.

A WSJ.com Gift? Or a Headache? (by Peter M. Zollman at Poynter Online)
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. is expected to close very soon on its acquisition of Dow Jones. Murdoch has said several times he expects to stop charging for online access to The Wall Street Journal’s Web site, WSJ.com, because he would make more money through advertising if the site were open to a lot more traffic. So: Should the Journal be sending out e-mails selling holiday gift subscriptions?