Permanent link to MTA daily media news

Just Six More Months Please (by dday at Hullabaloo)
As Andrew Bacevich said the other day, … the real goal of the surge [was] to keep our troops stuck in Iraq for as long as possible, so the occupation could be passed off to the next President. The idea was to create enough security success in the short-term by flooding the zone with troops to offer a propaganda victory, to allow the neocon wags to sputter “We’re winning!” and forestall the inevtiable drawdown… This is just one of the dozens of landmines that Bush is going to put in place to make himself look better and to trip up his successor. He doesn’t much care about the future of the country, only saving his own skin.
Are the Democrats preparing for the awful mess that the new Democratic president is going to inherit?  It won’t be just a little bit of trash strewn around White House offices and a few “W” keys missing from computer keyboards.  And the right-wing media machine will do everything in its power to blame every single mess on Democrats and absolve Republicans of any wrongdoing.  That’s why Congressman Wexler’s hearings are so important (see below).  We must have accountability, or it will be much easier for the right to rise again.

Impeachment resolution a matter of accountability (by Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-WI)
The call to impeach is one I did not take lightly. But as we said in our letter to Chairman Conyers, the issues are too serious to ignore. We simply cannot discount or overlook numerous, credible allegations of abuse of power by the Bush administration that, if proven, may well constitute high crimes and misdemeanors under our Constitution.

Study: False statements on Iraq by Bush, others
A study by two non-profit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.
We MUST leave a clear record for history, not just of the abuses, but also of unambiguous condemnation of the abuses.

Freedom’s Watch and its quarter-billion dollar budget (by Steve Benen at Crooks and Liars)
Freedom’s Watch has loudly announced that there will be no limits to what it might do…. While initial reports suggested a budget of $200 million, people who have talked to the group in recent weeks say the figure is closer to $250 million, more than double the amount spent by the largest independent liberal groups in the 2004 election cycle. The “no limits” phrase probably wasn’t intended this way, but it has two meanings. First, with a quarter-billion dollars, Freedom’s Watch will be able to do what it pleases. Second, driven by contemporary Republican norms, the range of Freedom’s Watch attacks with know “no limits,” because they’re unlikely to be concerned about pesky details (like decency and accuracy).
And where’s the organization to counter the upcoming indecencies and inaccuracies?  Nonexistent.  Progressives, big donors and small donors alike apparently don’t think it’s important to counter right-wing lies.  Those of us who do think it’s important are severely underfunded.

Debunking the coulda-shoulda-woulda myth of online news (Ryan Sholin, thanks to Poynter Online)
“Here’s the deal: Putting the news behind a paywall as early as, say, AOL’s heyday — or earlier if you prefer — would have actually served to accelerate the rise of blogs, citizen media, and flight away from news-on-paper.”
I still think people are willing to pay, they just don’t want to pay for lots of different subscriptions.  The first person to come up with a creative way to bundle subscriptions is going to have a lot of say over how news is gathered and presented to the public.

BLOGS AND THE NARRATIVE…. (by Kevin Drum at Political Animal, the Washington Monthly)
Of the three basic types of campaign coverage — horserace/process stories; “outrage of the day” hyperventilating; and actual policy coverage — I’d peg the blogosphere’s overall percentages at about 40/50/10… [W]e’ve ended up pretty narrative driven ourselves, haven’t we?
But sometimes the outrage of the day coverage can bring about real change.  See below.

The blog swarm Chris Matthews never saw coming (by Eric Boehlert at Media Matters)
When Chris Matthews’ long-winded monologue at the opening of the January 17 Hardball program eventually touched down with an apology to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) for the way the cable talker had been treating the candidate on the air, the moment represented an unmistakable victory for the liberal blogosphere. By not only getting Matthews to apologize, but by also forcing the rest of the press — post-New Hampshire — to back off its, at-times, overtly sexist coverage of a prominent Democratic contender, the blogs have already had more impact on how the traditional press covers this presidential campaign than they did during the entire 2004 White House run.
Eric gives us a most interesting blow by blow.  Click through to read the whole article.

CNN readers respond angrily to ‘race or gender’ story
(CNN) — Within minutes of posting a story on CNN’s homepage called “Gender or race: Black women voters face tough choices in South Carolina,” readers reacted quickly and angrily. Many took umbrage at the story’s suggestion that black women voters face “a unique, and most unexpected dilemma” about voting their race or their gender.

Viewership of Debate Sets Record
CNN said Monday’s Democratic debate averaged 4.9 million viewers, easily exceeding all previous debates shown on cable.

CNN’s Undecided Voters: Edwards Won Debate – Some will Vote Obama (by Logan Murphy at Crooks and Liars)
CNN’s post-debate coverage from last night’s Democratic presidential debate included a focus group of undecided South Carolina voters. The group was asked to rate the candidates throughout the debate and gauge what worked and what didn’t work, and who was the group’s favorite. In the final analysis, the undecideds thought John Edwards did the best job of the three candidates — but that some 50% said that if they voted with their heads instead of their hearts, they would vote for Obama because they felt he has the best chance to win.
How is that using your head?  I think it’s pretty stupid to vote for someone (or donate to someone) just because you think he or she can win, rather than because the person has the best policies.

What Did They Talk About? (Political Wire)
Sen. Hillary Clinton and John Edwards “met privately backstage following a very contentious Democratic presidential debate in this coastal city,” sources with both campaigns confirm to CNN. “The meeting took place in the Edwards campaign green room.”

Big Question Of The Day (by Greg Sargent at TPM Horse’s Mouth)
How many of the same pundits who had been predicting that Bill Clinton’s out-of-control outbursts of rage would damage Hillary’s candidacy will start saying — now that Hillary is winning again — that his displays of anger are faked and purely calculated to help her? Worth keeping an eye on.

No Questions On Global Warming Asked At CNN’s Coal Industry-Sponsored Presidential Debates (Think Progress)
In Democratic presidential debate [Monday] night, CNN once again failed to ask any questions about global warming. Perhaps not surprisingly, last night’s debate was sponsored by the coal front group Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC)… ABEC also co-sponsored November’s CNN/YouTube debates in Nevada and Florida, at which no questions about global warming were asked. These debate sponsorships are part of the coal industry’s aggressive “$35 million campaign in primary and caucus states to rally public support for coal-fired electricity and to fuel opposition to legislation that Congress is crafting to slow climate change.”

Romney Compares Diplomacy In The Middle East To The ‘Accommodation’ Of Hitler (Think Progress)
In a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition of Florida this morning, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney compared individuals who consider the Israeli-Palestinian conflict central to the challenges in the Middle East to appeasers of Hitler in the 1930s. In his remarks, Romney dismissed those who counsel diplomacy in the region — specifically the Baker-Hamilton Commission — as naively thinking “everything would be fine in the Middle East” if “we could just settle things between the Palestinians and the Israelis”:

Memo To Pundits And News Orgs: New Poll Suggests That American People Don’t Crave Independent Third Party Run (by Greg Sargent at TPM Horse’s Mouth)
[T]he big news orgs have been lavishing tons of coverage on Michael Bloomberg’s flirtation with an independent run for president. Reporters have given a great deal of ink to Bloomberg’s argument that the major candidates in both parties aren’t offering real solutions to our problems. And pundits such as David Broder have repeatedly argued that the public shares such sentiments and would be receptive to an independent run… [But according to a new Gallup poll,] “The American public does not appear to believe it is important or necessary for an independent candidate outside of the traditional two major parties to step into the race in order to save the nation.”

Conservative Talker Michael Medved: Hate Radio Is The ‘Big Loser’ (Think Progress)
While right-wing talkers like [Rush] Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and Melanie Morgan continue to spew inflammatory rhetoric to incite their base, there are increasing signs that their influence in the conservative movement is temporarily evaporating. Conservative radio host Michael Medved — who got his start guest-hosting Limbaugh’s show — wrote this recently: “The big loser in South Carolina was, in fact, talk radio: a medium that has unmistakably collapsed in terms of impact, influence and credibility because of its hysterical and one-dimensional involvement in the GOP nomination fight.”
Let us pray.

The Situation Room: Pushing White House Memes On Social Security (by Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars)
CNN clearly is gunning for FOXNews’ spot as the propaganda department for the White House and Wall Street. Why else would they need to introduce a segment on the various candidates’ stances on Social Security thusly?: “Voters know that Social Security is a financial time bomb that needs fixing. The latest government calculation is that the system will go bust—be out of money– in 2041. So voters paying in want something done.” Um, no. For the record, Social Security is not a time bomb… But giving the general populace (and more importantly in this election year, the electorate) the real facts so that they can make decisions that will be in their best interests, well, that just wouldn’t be newsworthy, would it, CNN?
Click through to watch the video.

Painful Investment Advice (by Dean Baker)
On its late night news show, the local Fox affiliate had “experts” telling people not to panic and to hold onto their stock. They gave the same advice back in November, when the market first began to plummet. Investors would be almost 20 percent richer if they had done the opposite of what the experts had recommended back then. It’s too bad that people can’t sue Fox for their losses, then maybe Fox would try to find experts who had some idea what they were talking about.

Media Matters for America headlines

Matthews falsely suggested that health care wasn’t discussed at Dem debate

O’Reilly ignored Obama’s disavowal of award granted to Farrakhan by daughter of Obama’s pastor

CBS’ Cordes reported on Giuliani’s and Romney’s “Spanish-language” ads without noting their campaign rhetoric

Drudge headline baselessly implicated Clinton in closure of Niagara Falls children’s psychiatric unit

Imus and Carlson invoke Chavez to smear Dem presidential candidates

Matthews to Shuster on Morning Joe: “I’ll getcha Christie Brinkley! Ha!”

Limbaugh: Clinton “the only one sitting there who could not cross her legs”

MSNBC cropped Vogue editor quote about Clinton’s canceled photo shoot, omitting editor’s criticism of the media

CNN’s Blitzer, Cafferty, and King rewrite history to claim that Giuliani skipped Iowa and New Hampshire

Rep. Tubbs Jones to Carlson: “Get a life”

On Morning Joe, Matthews falsely suggested McCain has “stood his ground” on immigration

And the Oscar nominees are … going to be overshadowed by strike-fueled uncertainty
BEVERLY HILLS – “No Country for Old Men,” “There Will Be Blood” led with eight nominations each. Daniel Day-Lewis, Javier Bardem get nods.
Michael Moore’s “Sicko” is nominated for best documentary feature.

Writers Drop Demand and a Picket Plan
Striking writers dropped their demand for extended jurisdiction over reality and animation work and said they won’t picket the Grammy Awards telecast.

I don’t care what journalists are reading; I care what they’re writing (Ryan Sholin, thanks to Poynter Online)
“I want to see trends develop on a large scale across the country (and yes, world) by tracking what stories journalists are working on. And then I want the people formerly known as the audience to have a space to vote for what they wish journalists were working on. Picture it as a mashup of Twitter and Digg, where reporters are constantly answering the question ‘What are you working on?’ in a broad way so as not to tip off their competition — or editors.”

To Cut Costs, NBC Universal Ends Pilots
NBC Universal said it was moving to save as much as $50 million a year by reducing its reliance on expensive pilots of new series for NBC television.

Times Company in Group Investing in Blog Publisher
Automattic, the commercial arm of the WordPress blog platform, has received $29.5 million in financing from four companies, including The New York Times Company.

Haywire FCC Spectrum Auction (Center for American Progress)
U.S. Needs National Broadband Strategy: The FCC sale weakens national security and emergency preparedness, warns Mark Lloyd. There’s another way.

Google and Ad Conglomerate Teaming Up
Publicis Groupe, the advertising conglomerate, and Google, the Internet giant, said they would jointly develop an innovative approach to digital advertising.

Reuters partners with Adify for vertical ad networks (Brand Republic, thanks to Poynter Online)
I haven’t been able to verify this yet, but it sounds interesting: “News service Reuters is to aggregate content from small- and medium-sized publishers on its site, and sell the ad space around it using vertical advertising created by Adify Corporation.”

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