Permanent link to MTA daily media news

THE NEW HAMPSHIRE RECOUNT…. (by Kevin Drum at Political Animal, the Washington Monthly)
There were … several reports shortly after the election suggesting that Hillary did unaccountably better in precincts that used Diebold optical scanners vs. precincts that did hand counting, but so far I haven’t seen any evidence that, on average, the optical precincts have turned out to have an error rate any greater than the hand precincts. If that changes, I’ll let you know. Needless to say, none of this would have been a big problem in the first place if states routinely performed spot checks of ballots cast both by machine and by hand.

Clinton And Obama Lead Pack Again In Tight Battle For Media Attention (by Mark Jurkowitz, PEJ)
The two leading Democrats once again attracted more coverage than any of their GOP rivals in the race for media exposure last week. But the GOP overall tipped the scales in what became a big boost for Mitt Romney, both in Michigan and in the media.

Party of what? (by Paul Krugman)
I thought everyone knew that the “party of ideas” line came from [Daniel Patrick] Moynihan. The weirdness of Obama’s use of the phrase came in the fact that he applied it to the Republican Party of the “last 10 or 15 years,” and suggested that the party of Tom DeLay and George W. Bush — a party that had nothing much to say except tax cuts good, terrorists bad — was “challenging conventional wisdom”… I don’t know what’s going on here; but anyway, the fact that Moynihan used the line a long time ago is not helpful to Obama’s case.
I know what’s going on here, Prof. Krugman.  Obama is using purposely vague phrases so that people can read their own hopes and desires into what he says, and to give himself deniability when he’s called on it.  It’s a most Rove-ian tactic.

Obama talks to CNBC and Jack Welch (by Chris in Paris at AMERICAblog
It’s an interesting exchange to watch because Welch, who has financially supported countless Republican presidential candidates including Bush II twice, responds well to Obama. Others on the program who are also obvious Republicans are also responding positively towards Obama. For me it’s very interesting to see such a warm response to a Democrat because after the interview, they go on to bash Hillary and Edwards.
I’m telling you, Obama is a DLC clone in progressive clothing.

Dance Off! (by Katherine Q. Seelye at The Caucus, The New York Times)
GREENVILLE — Former President Bill Clinton said [Tuesday] that he would take Senator Barack Obama up on his challenge last night to prove himself as the first black president by entering a dance competition — against Mr. Obama… Mr. Clinton said, “I would be willing to engage in a dancing competition with him, even though he’s much thinner and younger than I am, but only if I got an age allowance.”

Clinton accepts challenge (by Mark Hoback at The Aristocrats, thanks to bluegal at Crooks and Liars)
Obama’s handlers were nearly ready to meet with Clinton to discuss the possibility of bonus points when Clinton was spotted practicing at Le Pied Chaud Studio in Charleston. “My God, the man was on fire,” said June Renault, an instructor at the studio. “He said he wanted to learn a few new steps, but truth be told, he already knew more than I did, so I said he should just work with what he has. I mean, I put on ‘Funky Cold Medina’ and he just mopped the floor with me.” Obama released a statement this afternoon saying that he was far too busy to dance, and besides “it wouldn’t be fair to take advantage of an old man.”
Note to the French impaired: “le pied chaud” means “the hot foot”.  And, uh, do I really have to tell you that this is a satire?  Not the one above, just this one.

Bill Clinton to CNN reporter: ‘Shame on you’
Former president Bill Clinton had a “fiery” exchange with a CNN reporter [Wednesday] in South Carolina when she told him a former state Democratic chairman there had likened his tactics to those of the late Lee Atwater, a Republican master of hardball politics. The former official, Dick Harpootlian, supports Barack Obama for president. In an interview with reporter Jessica Yellin, Harpootlian said Clinton’s comments were meant to “suppress the vote, demoralize voters, and distort the record,” and said they were “reminiscent of Lee Atwater.” Clinton defended his wife and himself, said he “never heard a word of public complaint” when Obama attacked his wife, took off after the media and twice said “shame on you” to the reporter.
Click through for a link to the video.

“Legendary” GOP Strategist Launches Hillary Namecalling Effort (by Paul Kiel at TPM Muckraker)
A couple of days ago, a group called Citizens United Not Timid filed papers with the IRS as a “527″ organization. Then we saw that Roger Stone had signed on as the group’s “assistant treasurer.” Uh oh. Stone, regular TPM readers know, is a Republican operative who prides himself as something of an elder statesman of GOP dirty tricks… So what’s Stone up to? Fortunately, he laid the whole scheme out to The Weekly Standard. It’s this simple: it’s all about the group’s acronym, which, used in conjunction with Hillary Clinton, is supposed to be irresistibly humorous. That is the beginning and the end of it. The group will not be running ads in any form and will not be making any robocalls. They’ll be making T-shirts. That’s it. You can buy them for $25 on their website.

Hillary Hater Not Alone? (by David Kurtz  at Talking Points Memo)
Judging from the emails we’ve been getting today [Wednesday] from readers in South Carolina, those anti-Hillary phone calls we reported on yesterday are widespread down there. At first the calls appeared to be the work of a lone Hillary hater named Robert Morrow, who drags up all the worst of the old right-wing smears of the Clintons. How many calls can one guy make, right? But he wouldn’t tell us how much the calls had cost or who had done them for him and unless he has somehow figured out how to target TPM readers (there is no such list, believe me), this guy isn’t working alone.

BuzzFlash Media Putz of the Week: Dick Morris
Media Matters noted in a January 21 posting: “In his January 20 column, nationally syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak wrote that ‘Former Clinton Adviser’ Dick Morris is ‘asking for a contribution between $25 and $100 or more to finance a critical film documentary of Sen. Hillary Clinton.’”… After a couple of crass, vitriolic books that treated Hillary Clinton as if she were a vampire, it’s not surprising that Dick Morris would be into Jerry Falwell style Clinton slime videos.
When I still had hope that Al Gore would enter this year’s race, I thought it was important for him to help us get closure for the years of abuse Democrats have suffered at the hands of right wingers.  I’m starting to think, though, that a Hillary Clinton candidacy might provide the same sense of closure.  The Democratic power structure has to understand that the bipartisanship and the kumbaya singing can only happen when the right-wing crazies have been thoroughly squashed.

Now or Never for Obama (FAIR)
The dean of the political press corps declares: “South Carolina has become a must-win state for Barack Obama.” Of course, this is the same columnist who announced (”A Last Hurdle for Obama?,” Washington Post, 1/5/08): “New Hampshire is poised to close down the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.” …because it looked like Obama was about to win two contests in a row.

Breaking: Obama Says He’s Not A Muslim!
[I]n Newsmax’s telling, it’s “breaking” news that Obama says he’s not a Muslim. I know this is only Newsmax, but this somehow captures a sad larger truth about where we are — and about what Obama will face should he become the nominee. After all, the fact that Obama says he’s not a Muslim — let alone the fact that he isn’t actually one — probably is news for far more people than we’d care to imagine.

ABC News Badly Mischaracterizes Obama’s Alleged “Testy Exchange” With Reporter (by Greg Sargent at TPM Horse’s Mouth)
Okay, this is really a bad one. Late [Tuesday], ABC News posted a story called: “Is Bill Clinton getting in Obama’s head?” The piece reported that Obama had had a “testy exchange” with New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny on a South Carolina ropeline, after Obama had been asked whether Bill Clinton was getting “in his head.”… If the ABC piece initially linked to any video of the moment, I didn’t see it — I’m pretty certain it didn’t. Subsequently ABC and Fox News posted video. If you watch it, you can’t escape the conclusion that ABC badly mischaracterized what actually happened:

FCC Rejects Kucinich Complaint About CNN Debate (by Ira Teinowitz, TV Week)
The FCC is rejecting candidate U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s contention that CNN unfairly excluded him from the Democratic presidential candidates’ debate in South Carolina.

FAIR Action Alert: White Supremacist Spin at USA Today
USA Today twice … allowed racist spin to go unchallenged when it identified a white supremacist group that organized a small anti-civil rights rally on Martin Luther King Day only as a “white ‘pro-majority’ group.” The Nationalist Movement mustered about 30-50 people in Jena to protest both King Day and the 20,000-strong protest held in September in support of civil rights. Other news organizations that reported on the Nationalist Movement’s January 21 demonstration accurately identified the Nationalist Movement as a white supremacist group.

Advertisers drop Michael Savage.
Less than a week after Brave New Films launched a campaign against hate-radio host Michael Savage, four advertisers have pulled their ads from his radio show. The United Service Organizations (USO), however, is refusing to drop Savage and has demanded that Brave New Films “take the necessary steps to remove USO from [its] website entirely.”
The USO ads are public service announcements, though.  They don’t pay for the time.

Perino: ‘math is not my strong suit.’ (Think Progress)
In [Wednesday] press briefing, a reporter asked White House Press Secretary Dana Perino about the new CBO estimate on the skyrocketing deficit. Perino didn’t have much of an answer, however, and simply replied, “Well, I don’t know how they come to all of their numbers at CBO. It’s a little bit — math is not my strong suit.”
She don’t know much about history, either.  Click through to watch the video.

Bill Gates Wants “Kind Capitalism”: How About Ending Copyright and Patent Monopolies? (by Dean Baker)
A free market in software, recoded music and video material, and most importantly prescription drugs, would likely make capitalism considerably kinder and reduce inequality. Perhaps no one is allowed at the World Economic Forum, at Davos, who would have made this point when Bill Gates made his plea, but presumably nothing prevents the Wall Street Journal, or other news outlets from pointing out this obvious fact.

Media Matters for America headlines

Matthews decried CNN debate’s focus on “black/white issues,” ignored MSNBC debate’s focus on race

Media outlets uncritically reported McCain’s dubious defense of vote against Bush tax cuts

Wash. Times article misquoted Clinton comment it claimed “seemed to diminish the accomplishments” of King

On CNN, Jeffrey said “it looked like, if someone had splashed water on Hillary, she would have melted like the Wicked Witch of the West”

On Hannity & Colmes, Rev. Peterson compared Obama’s church to KKK

AP debate “Analysis” ignored Obama’s response to allegations he refused to support sexual abuse bill

LA Times purported to reveal Obama/Rezko ties that Obama already acknowledged

MSNBC’s Carlson mocked Clinton for her comments about gender discrimination

Beck on guest who favored tax cuts for lower-income Americans: “Nice of you to join us, Stalin”

All-male Morning Joe panel laughed as Barnicle compared Clinton to “everyone’s first wife standing outside a probate court”

CNN’s Chernoff falsely claimed Social Security will “be out of money in 2041″

Death sentence for Afghan reporter
A three-judge panel in northern Afghanistan has sentenced a student journalist to death for distributing a paper he printed off the Internet that allegedly blasphemed Islam, according to international media groups. But media groups in the country say the journalist is in fact being punished for investigative pieces his brother wrote.

Don’t Even Think About It  (by James Ridgeway and Jean Casella, Mother Jones)
Last October, a piece of legislation called the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 sailed through the House with near-universal bipartisan support; it is likely to reach the floor of the Senate early this year and appears certain to be signed into law… The National Commission it creates will have broad power to conduct investigations; one commentator dubbed it the “Son of HUAC”—the House Un-American Activities Committee—because it is supposed to travel around the country, holding hearings and questioning people under oath about their ideological beliefs.

China Shuts Down Pornographic Web Sites
BEIJING (AP) - China shut down 44,000 Web sites and arrested 868 people for Internet pornography last year, state media said Wednesday. China’s Public Security Ministry launched a crackdown on Internet pornography last year, saying it had “perverted China’s young minds.”

EU Official Says IP Address Is Personal
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - IP addresses, a string of numbers that identifies a computer, should generally be regarded as personal information, the head of the European Union’s group of data privacy regulators said Monday.

Robert McChesney’s “Communication Revolution” (by Stephen Lendman)
McChesney’s premise is we have “an unprecendented (rare window of opportunity in the next decade or two) to create a communication system that will be a powerful impetus (for) a more egalitarian, humane, sustainable, and creative (self-governing) society.”… [He] believes “the corporate stranglehold over our media system is very much in jeopardy”.

Byrne: “The Wire” creator is right, his many critics are wrong
Richard Byrne says of “The Wire”: “It is an ugly portrait because what’s happened to America’s newsrooms is ugly. Ugly enough to make anyone angry. And it’s predictable that [creator David] Simon’s media critics would indulge in fits of self-justification and messenger-killing. But if they really don’t like his snapshot of America’s depleted and dispirited newsrooms, maybe they should get angry enough to help change those newsrooms - and not the channel.

Zell: Tribune shouldn’t filter Internet content for employees
Sam Zell has ordered that Tribune’s Internet content filters be removed. “I do not see how a member of the Fourth Estate, dedicated to protecting the First Amendment, can censor what its own employees and partners can see,” he writes. “You are now exposed to the dangers of You Tube and Facebook. Please use your best judgment.”

Getting Smart About News Podcasts (by Amy Gahran at Poynter Online)
Like many net users, I get a lot of my news via podcasts. I’ve sampled several news podcasts and have settled on a few favorites as my current primary daily heads-up on the top stories… I listen to them while I’m doing other things (cleaning, cooking, e-mail, exercising, etc.). It’s actually pretty efficient… There is a problem, though: None of my favorite news podcasts exercise their full potential for engagement. But used wisely, a good headlines podcast can support any news org’s bottom line.
Click through to read Gahran’s recommendations for creating more engaging podcasts.

SPECIAL REPORT: The New Math — Building Web Traffic Through ‘Search Engine Optimization’ (Editor & Publisher)
There are many ways to goose the numbers, including the addition of video, podcasts, and blogs, not to mention breaking stories and providing intelligent commentary. But publishers are also quietly tweaking content — under the hood, that is — to make stories place higher in search-engine results. Here’s how.

Progressive Film at the Oscars (Center for American Progress)
Five out of 12 films screened in 2007 by Reel Progress, CAP’s progressive film series, have been nominated for Academy Awards. See what they are.

Oliver Stone votes for ‘Bush’ project (Variety)
Oliver Stone has set his sights on his next directing project, “Bush,” a film focusing on the life and presidency of George W. Bush, and attached Josh Brolin to play the title role. The director has begun quietly shopping a script by his “Wall Street” co-writer Stanley Weiser… [T]he director said he’s not looking to make an anti-Bush polemic. His goal is to use seminal events in Bush’s life to explain how he came to power, using a structure comparable to “The Queen.”

Starz Expands Multi-Platform Movie, TV Offerings; Extends Deals (Paid Content)
Eventually multi-platform movie and TV deals will be routine, not something to fuss over. We aren’t there yet, which is why Starz Entertainment’s announcement today about movie agreements with five major studios is worth mentioning here… Starz will have a 15- to 18-month first window on each title, followed by a second window after the basic cable and broadcast premieres.

Websites make it easy to catch a missed TV show
Even as their supply of new programs dwindles during the months-long writers’ strike, major TV networks continue to try to capture online viewers. Streaming free full-length episodes on their own websites was just the beginning.

MySpaceTV Will Distribute BBC Worldwide Globally; Promotes Berman To EVP, Content (Paid Content)
MySpace and BBC Worldwide are partnering to deliver new and archived short-form BBC content through MySpaceTV. The deal is described as the first global agreement between MySpace and a major broadcaster.

YouTube expands mobile video service
SAN FRANCISCO - YouTube is expanding its mobile service to include virtually all of the videos available on its Web site, hoping to widen its sway on pop culture.

Global music sales fell around 10 pct in 2007
LONDON (Reuters) - Sales of music fell at a faster rate in 2007 than 2006 despite digital sales soaring, and the gatekeepers of the Web must act if the industry is to beat piracy, the international trade body said on Thursday.

CBS to Make Internet Music Unit More Like Radio
Last.fm will allow users to select any of 3.5 million songs to listen to on their computers, up to three times for free.

Yahoo in early talks over possible music service
Yahoo Inc., is in early discussions with major record labels over offering unprotected MP3s either for sale or for free as part of an ad-supported service, two record company executives familiar with the talks said Wednesday.

Target Google AdWords Based on Demographics (by Kristen Nicole at Mashable)
Google has just unveiled a new feature for AdWords, called demographic bidding. This lets you target your ads in a more specific manner, and see the results of the targeting… For those that run contextually targeted or placement-targeted campaigns, the demographic bidding will work based on Google’s relationship with participating publishers… These sites will … have to make it clear in their own Terms of Service that the users’ registration data may be used for these reasons.

Product Placement on Reality TV Seems Somehow More Realistic
It is typically easier to weave a product into an episode of a reality show like “American Idol” than into a scripted series like “Grey’s Anatomy” or “Two and a Half Men.”

Google could cause a stir in FCC’s airwaves auction
A federal airwaves auction starting today is expected to bring consumers improved wireless broadband services and will likely provide the last opportunity to create a nationwide challenger to the big cellphone companies.

Former FCC Chairs Push Digital-Education Effort
Former Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell has a new job: digital hygienist. On the eve of the FCC’s auction of spectrum reclaimed in the switch to digital TV, Common Sense Media is teaming up with Powell and two other former FCC chairmen to push for government and industry funding of a broad-based digital-media-education initiative.
And what kind of education might that be, Mr. Telecom Lobbyist?

AT&T may begin monitoring online traffic
AT&T Inc. may begin monitoring traffic over its online network in an effort to stamp out theft of copyrighted material, its chief executive said Wednesday.

AT&T expanding free Wi-Fi offer
SAN ANTONIO - AT&T Inc. said Wednesday it will make its 10,000 Wi-Fi hotspots free to nearly all of its broadband Internet customers starting early next week.