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I will be a guest on Head-On with Bob Kincaid today at 6:00 PM ET. Listen to Bob from 6:00 to 9:00 PM ET every weekday on the Head-On Radio Network.
Poll: Huge Majority Thinks Internet Is Having “Positive Impact” On Journalism (by Greg Sargent at TPM Horse’s Mouth)
John Zogby has a very interesting new poll out that probes public attitudes towards the Internet and its relationship to the traditional news media. Check out these numbers: * Web sites are seen as a “more important source of news and information than traditional media outlets.”… [And] three in four, or 75%, think the Internet has “had a positive impact on the overall quality of journalism.”… It’s worth noting that this is an online poll, but the numbers are still significant. They suggest a real and growing base of support for the idea that the Internet and blogs are having a salutary effect on journalism and are as credible or more so than traditional media.
SNL’s Take on the Election Is Better Than Most News Coverage (by Carol Jenkins, Women’s Media Center. Posted at AlterNet)
As Tim Russert showed in Tuesday’s debate, the mainstream media seems to think it’s the third candidate in the Democratic presidential race.
Pew survey: Obama up but potholes ahead (Hot on the Trail, McClatchy Washington Bureau)
A survey released [Thursday] by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press shows… Democratic primary voters … prefer Obama to Hillary Clinton 49 percent to 40 percent… But if Obama were to emerge as the Democratic nominee, some trends could undercut his edge even though polls show him more popular than McCain right now. One in five white Democratic voters said they would cross party lines to vote for McCain over Obama; that’s twice as many as if Clinton were the nominee. Meanwhile, 56 percent of voters think Obama’s promises are too vague. Another 43 percent worry he isn’t tough enough on foreign affairs.
The press will torment Obama, too (by Eric Boehlert at Media Matters)
With Sen. Barack Obama now emerging as the Democratic front-runner, clear signs suggest that his press treatment will soon change and that the media will fall back into their routine of viewing — and critiquing — leading Democrats through the eyes of Republican spin. Just last week, we saw how a single line from a Michelle Obama speech was seized upon by conservative partisans, led by Fox News, to suggest she is not patriotic, and how that attack was given a wider airing in the mainstream press… Meanwhile, in Sunday’s New York Times, Obama was twice described as being overly effeminate… Writing at Slate.com, John Dickerson announced he’s had enough of the Obama euphoria: “Isn’t there a natural limit to our enthusiasm for to this kind of sweeping phenomenon?”… I’m not sure this foreshadows a full-fledged media backlash against Obama, but it certainly suggests a fundamental shift is on the horizon. The pendulum is swinging.
Fox News Falsely Claims That Weatherman Bill Ayers Was Obama’s “Mentor” (by Greg Sargent at TPM Horse’s Mouth)
The germ of the story — that Obama has some sort of relationship with [unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers] — is true. But look at how creatively [John] Batchelor embellishes the whole tale… You see, in Fox’s telling, now Ayers is Obama’s “mentor” and he and fellow Weather Underground member Bernadine Dohrn were “principals” on his first campaign for state senate. Also note how [John] Batchelor slyly slips in the reference to September 11th, an obvious effort to connect the bombing by Obama’s “mentor” to the terrorism that brought down the towers. [G]et ready for eight months of this sort of garbage. It’s going to get a lot uglier than this.
IT’S TIME FOR THEM TO GROW: (by Bob Somerby at The Daily Howler)
[Wednesday] night, in Hardball’s opening segment, a panel of pundits discussed two events: Bill Cunningham’s anti-Obama rant, and the scurrilous, moronic press release from the Tennessee Republican party. All these pundits understand what is involved in these events. They all understand that the Tennessee press release is 1) an attempt to play racial/ethnic politics, and 2) an attempt to reinforce the crackpot claims that Obama’s a scary Muslim. But to our eye, the pundits seemed weirdly constrained in their comments. Hence a question, one which has presented quite early in the current campaign: Do these pundits intend to speak clearly about what is occurring this year?… Americans of all political stripes should hound these people to the gates of hell if they spend the next nine months pretending they can’t see what’s before them.
WHY THE MUSLIM SMEAR IS BIGGER THAN ISLAM… (by Ari Berman at Campaign Matters, The Nation)
So far, the Obama Campaign has effectively battled the multi-pronged smear [that he is secretly a Muslim] with several tacks…. Yet [Naomi] Klein believes Obama must go further. “What he has never done,” she writes, is “denounce the attacks themselves as racist propaganda, in this case against Muslims.”… [T]he larger imperative [of right-wing attacks] is to undermine the character, credibility and honesty of the candidate, developing a resilient narrative to poison media coverage and stoke fundamental doubts about anything the candidate says.
And that is what few in the Democratic leadership seem to have understood, that it’s not enough to point out that these attacks are false, and simply present the truth. These kinds of smears go deep into the psyche of people willing to believe them. Democrats need to attack the sources of the smears and expose them for who and what they are. I’ve been saying it for eight years. Look what 16 years of filth promotion has done to the other Democratic candidate still in contention for the nomination. Even a lot of Democrats have been poisoned against her.
Reba Shimansky update:
I have always thought that the media has given Obama a free ride regarding his membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ which just gave Farrakhan an award and his relationship with Jermiah Wright who said that the United States had it coming for 09/11… [Wednesday night] I attended a lecture given by Pat Robertson. I asked him if he thought the GOP would make Obama`s church and minister an issue in the 2008 campaign. He said that McCain will not make it an issue but under the radar organizations connected to the GOP will.
D’oh! (by Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo)
Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) has always been one of my favorite buffoons in Congress. No one trick pony, he’s been putting in long moron hours for years up on the Hill and on the chat shows. But it was a particular tour de force even for Jack when he showed up last night on MSNBC to bash Barack Obama for not wearing a flag lapel … without remembering to wear one himself …
Click through to watch the Dan Abrams show video.
Obama staffer gave warning of NAFTA rhetoric (Canadian TV)
Barack Obama has ratcheted up his attacks on NAFTA, but a senior member of his campaign team told a Canadian official not to take his criticisms seriously, CTV News has learned. Within the last month, a top staff member for Obama’s campaign telephoned Michael Wilson, Canada’s ambassador to the United States, and warned him that Obama would speak out against NAFTA, according to Canadian sources. The staff member reassured Wilson that the criticisms would only be campaign rhetoric, and should not be taken at face value.
CTV Re-confirms Obama NAFTA Story (Taylor Marsh)
Obama’s campaign issued a statement declaring “inaccuracies,” while Obama himself said during a plane press gaggle … that the Canadian government had denied it happened… [I spoke] personally to Greg McIsaac of CTV to get a statement: “The facts of our story are accurate.” [Thursday night], we get [a video], featuring CTV’s Tom Clark who reconfirms their original story, which they stood by in their statement to me.
Think about it. What possible reason could CTV have for making up a story like that? Why and how would they even think of it? Do they have fiction writers on their staffs the way our networks do? And it’s not as though it’s the first time Obama has displayed his dog whistling capabilities. Click through to watch the video.
Obama and the Media Invoke Senator Clinton’s Pre-war Position By Way of Selective Memory (by David Fiderer at The Huffington Post, thanks to No Quarter)
Clinton’s position was substantially similar to that of Hans Blix, who believed that Saddam would never allow intrusive WMD inspections without the threat of force. But once the inspections were under way, neither Clinton nor Blix saw any basis or pursuing military action. McCain’s position was like Dick Cheney’s. He didn’t care about inspectors or evidence of WMD. He just wanted war, period… Obama and the media prefer to suggest some equivalency between the pre-war positions of Senators Clinton and McCain, conflating the October 2002 vote with the decision to invade in March 2003. As I’ve explained before on HuffPost, this is less than entirely honest. Republicans and their lapdogs have been pulling this same stunt since 2004.
The Iraq resolution required President Bush to get UN backing. He didn’t get the backing, but he invaded Iraq anyway. I hate the fact that so many Democrats fell for Bush’s dishonesty, but you don’t fight gullibility for dishonesty by being dishonest yourself.
Clinton raises $35 million in 1 month
WASHINGTON – Rebounding from weak fundraising in January, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to raise $35 million in February, a figure rival Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign said it would surpass, a campaign official said Thursday.
Of course, he will surpass her. He ALWAYS has to surpass her. Every little scrap of good news for Clinton has to be surpassed. She can’t have ONE. TINY. MOMENT. in the sun.
To the Editor [of the New York Times]:
Re “Begrudging His Bedazzling,” by Maureen Dowd (column, Feb. 27): Ms. Dowd says Hillary Rodham Clinton is lame for accusing journalists of treating her campaign differently than they treat Barack Obama’s, and applauds the “open-mindedness of the press” in its treatment of Senator Clinton. Here are the words she uses in association with Senator Clinton: “desperate,” “primal scream,” “clanging,” “churlish,” “discombobulated,” “gloomy,” “flipping,” “begrudging,” “whining,” “experience,” “pea green with envy,” “Sybil,” “cascading,” “dizzying,” “unsettling,” “struggling,” “tartly,” “peevishly,” “pointlessly,” “sarcasm.” And here are the words she uses for Senator Obama: “golden child,” “sunny,” “consistency,” “bedazzling,” “confidence,” “excitement,” “exceptionally easy in his skin.” If Ms. Dowd wants to make the point that she doesn’t like Senator Clinton, then she’s made it. If she wants to make the point that the press treats Mrs. Clinton fairly, contrary to what the senator may believe, then this column, alas, has made Senator Clinton’s point.
Is the media biased against Hillary Clinton?
Are media outlets biased against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton due to her gender? It’s an open question and one I’m not prepared to answer. But Tuesday night’s debate in Cleveland certainly blew open some angles for examination. First, there’s the time question: Who got more of it? According to The New York Times Web site’s Democratic debate analysis page, Clinton spoke for 30:43 while Sen. Barack Obama spoke for 38:17 (the moderators spoke for 16 minutes). So Obama was allowed some 25 percent more critical time on-camera.
Sklar: Why are pundits suggesting Hillary drop out now?
That seems a tad dire, says Rachel Sklar, “so it’s surprising that it’s become such a media meme.” She adds: “I’ve watched the same debates, the same coverage, and don’t agree that ‘a referee would stop the fight,’ as Bob Herbert says, nor that ‘Hillary Clinton is exhausted, and her supporters are becoming increasingly demoralized.’”
Daily Show: Anti-Hillary Conspiracy (video)
The Daily Show’s Samantha Bee, in the Anti-Hillary war room of the Paula Jones Conference Center, admits that the press has been out to get Hillary for years.
What The Times Didn’t Tell About McCain (By Robert Scheer, Truth Dig)
As John McCain twisted briefly in the wind kicked up by that New York Times story suggesting he had swapped political favors for the personal favors of an attractive lobbyist for the telecommunications industry, I kept waiting for the media policy punch line. Surely the Times would spell out just what it was that McCain had delivered to big media beyond what the paper originally reported: an all-too-typical congressional request that the FCC speed up its review of a broadcast licensing dispute.
McCain Resurrected (by Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone)
John McCain, defying the expectations of almost everyone who watched him last summer — myself included — has risen from the political dead to wrap up the GOP nomination. He’s survived because Onward to Victory is the last great illusion the Republican Party has left to sell in this country, even to its own followers. They can’t sell fiscal responsibility, they can’t sell “values,” they can’t sell competence, they can’t sell small government, they can’t even sell the economy. All they have left to offer is this sad, dwindling, knee-jerk patriotism, a promise to keep selling world politics as a McHale’s Navy rerun to a Middle America that wants nothing to do with realizing the world has changed since 1946. The lesson of the McCain campaign is that one should never underestimate America’s capacity for self-delusion.
The Surge Goes on Forever (Think Again by Eric Alterman, Center for American Progress)
Almost every one of the 18 benchmarks laid out by the Bush administration have failed, yet the spinning never ends.
Ben Bernanke’s Theories on the Economy and Rent (by Dean Baker)
Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress yesterday that he didn’t think that the economy would experience a recession. He also claimed that the collapse of the housing market could fuel inflation by pushing up rents. It would have been useful if the media had provided some background for these assertions. As far as Mr. Bernanke’s assessment of the risk of a recession due to the collapse of the housing bubble, it is worth reminding readers that Mr. Bernanke consistently denied that there was a housing bubble… [T]he switch from owning to renting is being matched by the number of ownership units being converted to rental units, leaving little net change in the demand for rental units.
Media Matters for America headlines
Will MSNBC devote as much coverage to McCain’s embrace of Hagee’s support as it did to Obama’s rejection of Farrakhan?
Limbaugh defended Cunningham’s use of Obama’s middle name
Scarborough, Brzezinski defended MSNBC from charges of “sexism” in political coverage
NY Times again ignored its own reporting on McCain public funds waffling
Wash. Times falsely claimed Obama “urg[ed] the Bush administration to conduct air strikes against terrorist targets in Pakistan without its approval”
Media reporting on McCain-Obama dispute over Iraq ignore previous McCain statements on Iraq as a potential “base for Al Qaeda”
Misrepresenting debate question, Wash. Post said Obama “did not directly answer” a question about his pastor and Farrakhan
Wash. Post’s Milloy mischaracterized Bill Clinton’s “fairy tale” comment
CNN’s John King again failed to note that Cunningham has a history of referring to Obama as “Barack Hussein Obama”
Fox News’ Powers asserted, “I would have just immediately denounced” Farrakhan — but Obama did
WSJ uncritically reported McCain attack on Obama over public financing, ignored his loan
Russert continues pattern of misrepresenting facts in debate questions for Clinton
O’Reilly: “I don’t see any difference between Huffington and the Nazis,” KKK
Iraq journalist union head dies after gun attack
The head of Iraq’s biggest journalist organization died on Wednesday, colleagues said, four days after being seriously wounded by gunmen who opened fire on his car in Baghdad.
Journalist for CTV labelled ‘unlawful enemy combatant’ by U.S. military
The U.S. military has designated a journalist employed by CTV in Afghanistan as an unlawful enemy combatant. A military spokesman told the Associated Press that a review board has determined Jawed Ahmad, an Afghan national, is a danger to foreign troops and the Afghan government.
Missing: Minorities in Media (by Laura S. Washington, In These Times. Posted at AlterNet)
In the wake of racial upheaval, the 1968 “Riot Report” concluded the media had to improve its coverage of Black America. Has it?
Prince’s cover in Afghanistan blown by Drudge Report
An American website, the Drudge Report, broke a news blackout yesterday by revealing that Prince Harry has been serving in Afghanistan for more than two months. To the fury of the Ministry of Defence and condemnation from the head of the British Army, General Sir Richard Dannatt, the website announced a “world exclusive” and proclaimed: “They’re calling him ‘Harry the Hero!”. The article brought to an end an agreement with the media that the Prince’s deployment to Helmand be kept quiet in the interests of his safety and that of the soldiers with him.
Supermarket tabloid ran controversial Obama photo last May
The AP photo of Barack Obama in a turban and robe ran in the Globe supermarket tabloid last year. “I’m shocked no one made a big deal out of this months ago,” says editor Tony Frost. “Here you have a man whose middle name is Hussein dressed as a Muslim. I thought it was a great news photo.”
It’s just more proof of the power of the right-wing media machine.
Small Towns, Big Profits: How Many Papers Survive Slump
What industry declines? While Wall Street analysts predict a future for newspapers in ever more apocalyptic terms, the fact is: Many small-market papers are not just surviving, but thriving. How do they do it?
Sun-Times’ #2 investor is hiring a bank to find buyers
K Capital Partners says it doesn’t have confidence in Sun-Times Media Group’s board to negotiate a sale that will be beneficial to shareholders.
NYT to meet with dissident shareholder’s board candidates
The New York Times Co. has confirmed reports that it will meet with the four directors being proposed by Harbinger Capital, which now owns 19% of the Times’ public stock.
Some good news!: WP staffers are getting a game room
There will be Wii, air hockey, and foosball. “Word is that the nod to dot-com-style workplace recreation is coming from the paper’s new publisher, Katharine Weymouth,” writes Erik Wemple.
How long will Murdoch tolerate WSJ’s global warming stance?
While other global waming denialists voice their opinions fairly carefully these days, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page remains vociferous and unrelenting, says David Sassoon, who notes that Rupert Murdoch believes climate change poses clear catastrophic threats. “The Journal likes to call people who voice such opinions ‘global warmists’ and ‘alarmists,’” writes Sassoon. “None of its editorial writers has yet been imprudent enough to slap the label on Father Murdoch, and so far he has been tolerant of the wayward behavior of his most recently adopted children.”
Conservatives don’t like Washington Times’ style changes
Tim Graham of the Media Research Center says the changes — “we will use illegal immigrants, not illegal aliens,” and other style tweaks — suggest that Washington Times executive editor John Solomon “has his eyes on impressing the national media elite, and not just impressing the inside-the-Beltway readership of the Times.”
Film prompted first humane slaughter law
WASHINGTON – A film showing slaughterhouse workers abusing animals spurs demands for the federal government to put a stop to the behavior. That happened this year — and also a half-century ago, when a Seattle animal rights activist filmed hogs being mistreated at a Washington state slaughterhouse.
This shows how much good media can do for the world. Sadly, we also know how much bad they can do.
Viacom Profit Rises 16% on Strong Ad Revenue
The chief executive said that the company benefited from a shift of ad dollars to cable from broadcast during the writers’ strike.
Liberty Media gets DirecTV as News Corp deal completed
NEW YORK, Feb 27, 2008 (AFP) – Liberty Media, the holding company of tycoon John Malone, completed a deal Wednesday that takes control of satellite broadcaster DirecTV from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
Beijing Olympics: Chinese State Broadcaster Makes Online Plans With MySpace China, Tudou.com (Paid Content)
An intriguing move by China Central Television … the Wall Street Journal reports that the state-run broadcaster is tying up with MySpace China and online-video site Tudou.com for an interactive Olympics site. As is customary with IOC rights deals, the site’s streaming video will be—well, should be—available only in China. Users also will be able to contact Olympic athletes through the site.
What a Choice! Sex with a Sleaze for $100,000 or Writing for Peanuts
Sites like SugarDaddy.com lure young women by offering them far more money than they could get in most professions. What’s wrong with this picture?
Gives a whole new meaning to the term social media.
Yahoo battling 7 shareholder suits
SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Yahoo Inc. is facing seven shareholder lawsuits alleging the slumping Internet pioneer bungled its response to Microsoft Corp.’s unsolicited takeover bid.
Bill Gates links up with LinkedIn
SAN FRANCISCO – Microsoft Corp.’s big bet on Facebook’s online social network isn’t stopping Chairman Bill Gates from promoting other popular Internet hangouts.
Group sues Justice for Google contacts
WASHINGTON – An online privacy group is asking a federal court to order the release of all communications between Google Inc. and a former Justice Department official who now works for the Internet search company.
Your Wordpress Blog Can be a Forum? (by Kristen Nicole at Mashable)
The developer community for Wordpress and Wordpress themes is getting to be a pretty big and dedicated group, and Jeffro has come across an interesting Wordpress theme from The_dead_one (TDO), that essentially turns your blog into a forum. If you head over to TDO’s Demo Forum, you can see exactly how this works. You’ll notice that post comments are in a forum reply format, giving site visitors an opportunity to create their own “entry” in response to the original blog post. From there, blog posts are then listed by the date of the last comment, instead of the original blog’s publish date.
Net company sued for holding domain names
A company that sells Internet addresses is being sued for its controversial practice of holding a domain name in reserve if someone checks for its availability but does not buy it right away.
Google joins $300m Unity cable project
Google has confirmed its long-expected participation in the Asian bandwidth business with a stake in a new multi-terabit cable between Japan and the US.
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