Media
11-Feb-08
Media
Permanent link to MTA daily media news
Hate Springs Eternal (by Paul Krugman)
What’s particularly saddening is the way many Obama supporters seem happy with the application of “Clinton rules” — the term a number of observers use for the way pundits and some news organizations treat any action or statement by the Clintons, no matter how innocuous, as proof of evil intent… For now, Clinton rules are working in Mr. Obama’s favor. But his supporters should not take comfort in that fact. For one thing, Mrs. Clinton may yet be the nominee — and if Obama supporters care about anything beyond hero worship, they should want to see her win in November. For another, if history is any guide, if Mr. Obama wins the nomination, he will quickly find himself being subjected to Clinton rules. Democrats always do.
I have lost a few readers due to my insistence that people look at the reality that is Barack Obama, but I’ve gained more. Make Them Accountable is a reality-based website, and when I see folks falling in love with a candidate, instead of being willing to face facts, I start pushing back. It’s just in my nature. And I think that choosing the leader of the free world is too important an activity to be done while in a state of euphoria. If you’re willing to look at your candidate, warts and all, and still want to vote for him, fine. But do it with your eyes wide open.
Clinton Online Supporters Step Up
No you didn’t. Um, yes you did and then some. “$10,000,000 Online since Super Tuesday - 100,000+ NEW DONORS” Matt Stoller: “Clinton hit $10M from over 100,000 donors since February 5th. That is nothing less than stunning.”
Did you see this touted all through the media? No? I didn’t, either. If you’re as sick of the Clinton rules as I am, join me in contributing $10.44 (or more, if you can afford it) to Hillary Clinton’s campaign tomorrow, February 12. (The 44 is indicative of making her the 44th president, and can help the campaign identify our contributions.) The only way to unify the country is to defeat the right wing that created and continues to promote this unfair treatment of Democrats. In my humble opinion, Hillary Clinton is the better candidate to do that.
Hillary’s Women (by Matt Stoller at Open Left)
[T]he Obama campaign has had a strategy of cultivating online donors and activists, they know how to do it, and they are very good at it. The Clinton campaign has not done any of this particularly well because it hasn’t been their strategy. And somehow, they are at rough parity over the last [few days]. There is probably something of an earthquake inside the Clinton campaign when these tired Clinton operatives, cynical for 20 years, actually feel, really feel, her supporters reach out and lift them up for the first time.
To the Extent that People Feel That He Was Being Pejorative (by Todd Gitlin, writing at TPM Café)
“Doesn’t it seem like Chelsea’s sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?” mused David Shuster on MSNBC last night, opining about Chelsea Clinton calling celebrities in behalf of her mother. “To the extent that people feel that I was being pejorative about the actions of Chelsea Clinton making these phone calls, to the extent that people feel that I was being pejorative, I apologize for that,” Shuster added [Friday]. Don’t you think that the General Electric network is unlikely to feature anybody referring to Cindy McCain’s campaign appearances as pimp-out sessions? Don’t you think that women wig these guys out in some weird sort of way?
Singled Out“Singled Out” as Fair Game (by SusanUnPC at No Quarter)
I have friends — otherwise bright, analytical people — who simply dislike the Clintons and have NO conscious awareness of the ORIGINS of their dislike, and how much their dislike has been shaped by the years and years and years of attacks from the rightwing noise machine, and has seeped through the mainstream media. Those friends of mine have no idea how, in 1992, the socialite snob of Washington, D.C. — Sally Quinn — declared the Clintons to be just not the right kind of people for Washington, D.C., and how the venom of her and other Washington insiders’ attacks have filtered throughout the press corps who, most of all, want to feel like they “belong.” These days, Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd continue the smirking, sniffing, looking-down-upon — burying the Clintons up to their necks in sand and lobbing hard rocks of verbal attacks upon them. (I’m certain that a good part of Shuster’s nastiness to the Clinton’s emanates from that pressure to fit in to the elite media.)
I have similar friends. And just to let you know, most of the people who have asked to be removed from my media news mailing list because I refuse to support their Obama habit are white males.
Hillary’s Curious Campaign Loan (by Nat Parry at Consortiumnews.com)
By giving her campaign a $5 million loan, Hillary Clinton opened herself to questions not only about the financial health of her presidential bid but also about how she and her husband amassed a fortune over the past seven years. A window opened on “Clinton Inc.”
The article raises a question that I haven’t seen elsewhere, which is whether Clinton is lending to her campaign joint assets of her and her husband, which might then be seen as an illegal contribution because it doesn’t belong to her exclusively. Was that question raised about the tens of millions of dollars Mitt Romney spent on his campaign? Nope. I presume he was primarily responsible for building his fortune, but most states consider the spouse entitled to half of what is earned by the other. And presumably he was giving joint assets to his campaign.
Peace Offering? (by Josh Marshall)
MSNBC preempted something called “Deadly Encounter” to run a “Headliners and Legends” mini-doc on Hillary Clinton hosted by Matt Lauer, scheduled to run just before their coverage of Saturday evening’s election results. As far as we know there was no companion Obama doc running with the Hillary one. And given how fluffy these “Headliners and Legends” episodes are, it’s hard not to think that this wasn’t some effort on the NBC execs part to curry favor with the campaign. So we asked an NBC spokesperson how it was a Hillary documentary came to preempt a regularly scheduled program and run just before the evening’s election coverage, and we got back this reply … “Yes that program aired. We changed our program schedule earlier in the week when we decided to have 3 hours of election coverage on Saturday night.” This could bear some more digging.
This is the first time I’ve EVER heard anyone raise the possibility of the mainstream media giving any break whatsoever to either one of the Clintons.
Bush: If Candidates Are ‘Talking About Me,’ Republicans ‘Have A Better Chance Of Winning’
In an interview with Fox News, President Bush argued that if his agenda and record are made central issues in the upcoming presidential election, then the Republican nominee stands “a better chance of winning” because the election won’t be about him: “My attitude is, so long as they’re talking about me, we have a better chance of winning because our candidate will — what’s going to matter is not the past but the future when it comes to campaigns. If the Democrat Party feels like they can win an election by focusing on me, I think they’d be making a huge tactical mistake. But I hope they do that then because our candidate will be able to talk about the future.”
Click through to watch the video.
This Week Tom Delay Says He Doesn’t Want McCain To Change, He Just Wants Him To Change (by Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars)
Why is the media asking Tom Delay on TV to give his opinions about anything? Didn’t he resign in disgrace? Even still, the corruption indicted former House Speaker, who rallied his power by gerrymandering Texas to death has a few words of advice for the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain: You don’t need to change, but if you want my base, well, you need to change.
Click through to watch the video.
Meet The Press: Huckabee Defends Wealthy Televangelist Fundraiser (by Logan Murphy at Crooks and Liars)
[Mike] Huckabee claims to be a man of god - a man of the people, but when it comes right down to it, if it means money in his pocket, he sides with a wealthy charlatan who preys on the elderly, the sick and the poor to amass immense wealth and influence. That’s not a very Christian thing to do, now is it, Mr. Huckabee? To further deflect from his disgraceful defense of Copeland, Mike takes a cheap shot at MoveOn and says they need to be investigated as well as all non-profit organizations.
Click through to watch the video.
Romney’s Fearmongering Speech Ignores Bush’s History Of Retreats In War On Terror (Think Progress)
Announcing the suspension of his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney suggested he was bowing out to help strengthen Republican chances at winning in November. He said that mattered, in part, because, “Barack and Hillary have made their intentions clear regarding Iraq and the war on terror. They would retreat, declare defeat.” Romney’s remarks ignored the conservative record of retreats in the fight against global terrorism. The decision not to pursue Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora in 2002 is the most well-known retreat.
Click through for more examples.
George Bush On Waterboarding: there’s a difference between what happened in the past and today–is there’s new law (by John Amato at Crooks and Liars)
Bush wears a smile on his face as he tries to justify waterboarding with Chris Wallace on his other home (FOX News) by saying that since they didn’t have any laws in place against waterboarding at the time—it was perfectly fine and dandy and legal to apply it. Did he just admit torture was illegal then? What’s done is done and all that. It’s Sunday after all—let bygones be bygones…It must be nice to have a Justice Department like the one that Cheney co-opted with his buddy David Addington which approved every measure BushCo. wanted. And we can’t forget those pesky signing statements Bush loves to use as a fail-safe.
Click through to watch the video.
Media Matters for America headlines
Wash. Post repeated McCain’s false claim that he called for Rumsfeld’s resignation
Abandoned anchor cut Gulf Internet cable
CAIRO, Egypt - An abandoned anchor was responsible for cutting one of the undersea Internet cables severed last week, causing disruptions across the Middle East and parts of Asia, the cable’s owner said Friday.
HarperCollins (Finally) Offers Free Books Online (by Kristen Nicole at Mashable)
Book publisher HarperCollins has been inching towards an improved web strategy for well over a year now, with widgets and promotional profiles on popular social networks like MySpace. But HarperCollins’ most recent move may finally help the company change the game. In what appears to be the online version of a bricks and mortar Borders book store, HarperCollins will be offering free electronic editions of some its book on its website. In an effort to increase book sales, HarperCollins is adopting a web-based “try before you buy” approach to book promotion, both for online and on the iPhone.
Publisher Tests Selling by the Chapter
Taking a cue from the music business, a major publisher today will begin selling the individual chapters of a popular book to gauge reader demand for bite-size portions of digital texts. Random House Publishing Group’s experiment appears to be the first time a major consumer publisher has offered a title on a chapter-by-chapter basis. It will sell the six chapters and epilogue of “Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die” for $2.99 each.
Record Label, Claiming Losses To P2P, Closes; Uploads Music Library To Pirate Bay (by Sean P. Aune at Mashable)
[I]t seems that a German record label called Dependent Records is closing up shop. Normally this would mean that their catalog of titles, unless purchased by another label, would go eventually out of print and be difficult for existing and potential fans to find. So, as a parting gift to the music community, the CEO of the company, Stefan Herwig, decided to upload the entire catalog to The Pirate Bay.
WGA Leaders Vote Unanimously For Producers Agreement (by Paul Glazowski at Mashable)
[Sunday,] leaders of both the WGA-West and WGA-East blocs of the American writers guild voted unanimously for a deal brought to light Saturday… Furthermore, the WGA, after having approved the draft of the deal…, has set the so-call “strike-ending” vote for Tuesday. If the vote is to grant the deal final passage (complete ratification would take an estimated 10 days), as some are expecting, many of the writers of the union can look to get back to work as early as Wednesday.
CBSSports.com Changes March Madness Game Plan: All Games Through Final Four, No Blackouts; Facebook (Paid Content)
In a switch from its previous policy, CBSSports.com and NCAA.com will show all 63 of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship games from the March 20th kickoff through the Final Four on its ad-supported March Madness On Demand — no blackouts. (That doesn’t include the play-in game.) Until now, the network has protected its affiliates by maintaining roughly the same blackout rules online as it has on air and in its DirectTV out-of-market package, essentially keeping the “local” games TV only. It also has stopped coverage after the first 56 games. Both decisions were meant to protect the TV franchise.
Yahoo board to reject Microsoft bid
Yahoo’s board will reject Microsoft’s takeover bid after concluding the unsolicited offer undervalues the slumping Internet pioneer, a person familiar with the situation said.
Yahoo seeks to restart merger talks with AOL: paper
LONDON (Reuters) - Yahoo is seeking to restart merger talks with AOL as a means of defending itself against an unsolicited bid approach from Microsoft, the Times newspaper said on Monday.
comScore: Social Networks Still Growing Strong, Engagement Leveling Off (by Adam Ostrow at Mashable)
Stats to be released [Monday] by comScore show that traffic to most of the top social networking sites is continuing to increase in the US, although the amount of time users spend on such sites is leveling off.
TheStreet.com Launches Its TMZ-ish Personal Finance Site MainStreet (Paid Content)
TheStreet.com has gone Fox Business on us: it has launched its MainStreet.com site, aimed at what it says: the general public outside its core financial audience, aimed at personal finance. Its tag line is: “Where Life and Money Intersect”. The intention to launch was announced a while ago, and the company has high hopes from it, both in terms of audience and ad revenues. It has a deal with AOL, which will help promote it to a wider audience… Speaking of AOL, think of the tone of MainStreet as a cross between [The Street] and TMZ.
Business news as entertainment? Well, why not? The rest of the news is presented as entertainment, too.
Reuters To Sell Guardian’s Online Inventory in U.S. (Paid Content)
Guardian, which has a big chunk of its website traffic coming from U.S. but has always had a hard time building out a sales infrastructure here and monitizing it, has done the inevitable: outsourced it. Reuters, its UK brethren, will now sell all online advertising that targets the UK newspaper’s US audience… Under the agreement, Guardian.co.uk will be sold with Reuters.com and recently launched Reuters Affiliate Network (RAN), a collection of “editorially independent” news sites and blogs that Reuters is now syndicating and repping. RAN launched in December last year, and now has about 12 blogs in its network.
TI to demonstrate prototype Google Android phone
BARCELONA (Reuters) - Texas Instruments Inc said on Monday it would demonstrate a prototype cell phone based on Android, the highly anticipated mobile phone operating system being built by Web search leader Google Inc.
Microsoft, Sony Ericsson Enter Alliance
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) - Sony Ericsson on Sunday announced a new premium handset aimed at capturing the Web convergence market, blending multimedia with mobile Web communication in its first product using Microsoft Corp.’s operating system.
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