Permanent link to MTA daily media news

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.

Media Narrative Vaults Obama into Frontrunner Slot: February 11 – 17, 2008 (Project for Excellence in Journalism)
After weeks of focusing on the prospect of a deadlocked race with no end in sight, the media narrative for the Democratic presidential race shifted dramatically last week, anointing a definite frontrunner and an underdog.

Clinton: Obama ‘change you can Xerox’
AUSTIN, Texas – Hillary Rodham Clinton accused presidential rival Barack Obama of political plagiarism Thursday night, but drew boos from a Democratic debate audience when she ridiculed him as the candidate of “change you can Xerox.”
Except it’s true that Obama’s supposedly sincere words about hope and change are focus group tested PR.  But immediately, the argument became whether or not his borrowing of words was “plagiarism”, a Rovian tactic if I ever saw one.  It completely defused the possibility of insincerity.  And isn’t it interesting that the AP pushed that aspect of last night’s debate, rather than this, below.

Describe the moment in your life when you were tested the most (video)
Clinton received a standing ovation.  BuzzFlash, which has generally been critical of Clinton, had this to say: “A Civil Debate in Texas That Ended With Clinton’s Finest Campaign Moment”.  Are we starting the unity part, now?

GOP fires back at … Obama (Top of the Ticket, Los Angeles Times)
Just as it’s become increasingly clear that John McCain expects he’ll be running against Barack Obama in the general election, so it is with the folks at the Republican National Committee. Danny Diaz, one of the hard-working members of the RNC’s communications staff, has been peppering the media with e-mails casting all sorts of aspersions at answers Obama has been giving during the debate [Thursday night]. Here are some sample headers:  “Obama’s Stance On Cuba Is Completely Inconsistent & Incoherent.” “Obama’s Reckless Economic Policies Would Hurt The Economy.” “Obama Is Wrong On Key Immigration Issue.” These missives stacked up, without a single one targeting Hillary Clinton’s answers. Finally, as the debate wound down, this one arrived: “Clinton’s Pork-Barrel Hypocrisy.” Still, who would have ever thought an important arm of the GOP would treat her as largely irrelevant?
Or perhaps the GOP wants to help Clinton at this point.  It’s in their best interest to keep the Democratic primary going as long as possible.

The Persian Gulf Primary (by Joe Klein, Time Magazine)
In an effort to escape the thrilling claustrophobia of the presidential campaign, I took a busman’s holiday and spent Presidents’ Day weekend at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha… The final speaker, a charismatic religious leader from Egypt, didn’t want to talk about the next President at all. He wanted to talk about the problems of Islamic youth. But, I pressed, what do you want from the next President? “Change,” he said, innocently, “and hope … for the future.” The Americans in the audience smiled at that: clearly an Obama voter… [A]s a Libyan said to me, employing an Obamism, “I think everyone is ready to turn the page.”
So the Obama PR has even been propagated throughout the Middle East?  I think we see also who has won the Joe Klein primary.  Of course, as he showed in his novel, Primary Colors, he hates the Clintons.

Planet Shit Dispatch: All Cunt, No Cattle (My Left Wing)
The losing streak in primaries officially hit eleven today for The Queen… Barring an amazing and brutal scorched earth two weeks worthy of the alternate ending of Apocalypse Now… Hillary Rodham-Clinton now risks going down in history as not only a colossal failure of hype right up there with New Coke but also as becoming the Joan of Arc of the dry pussy demographic because let’s just face it, everybody else hates her. But this is a woman with an axe to grind, a burning sense of entitlement and a relentlessness that would put Matty Walker to shame.
As if there were no relentlessness on the other side.  No sense of entitlement.  But this kind of filth is what has been spewed against Senator Clinton on supposedly progressive websites for months.  I’m sorry to add that the My Left Wing website is owned and operated by a woman.  Oh, and the children at Democratic Underground are certain that Obama can beat John McCain because, well, McCain is all old and wrinkly and everything.

Delusional Hope: The Obama Rapture (by Joel S. Hirschhorn at The Smirking Chimp)
Never have so many hoped for so much because of rollicking rhetoric and pulsating platitudes. A tsunami of hope has plunged America into electoral euphoria. In its path is the wreckage of critical thinking about what ails the US and what bold, revolutionary actions are needed. Barry Obama has accomplished semantic alchemy, turning justified but grim distrust and outrage with government and politics into hallelujah hope. But most hope never materializes and is a terrible predictor of reality… What is the audacity of hope? The confidence that most Americans will eat the political narcotic – hook, line and sinker. Welcome to the Obama rapture.

News Networks Bump Clinton Out of Picture (by Howard Kurtz, Washington Post)
Clinton was seven minutes into her speech Tuesday night, shortly after being projected to lose the Wisconsin primary, when Obama bounded onto a stage and all the cable news networks — after a brief split-screen moment — cut away from her to him… Obama spokesman Bill Burton denied any Machiavellian plotting, noting that Clinton had been scheduled to speak an hour earlier… Hillary Clinton spokeswoman, Lisa Caputo [called] Obama’s maneuver “smart political tactics.” Could it also be smart television? Could Obama, an accomplished orator who has generated plenty of excitement while wresting the front-runner’s mantle from a former first lady, be good for ratings?

Police concerned about order to stop screening (Dallas Star-Telegram)
DALLAS — Security details at Barack Obama’s rally Wednesday stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena… Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department’s homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order — apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service — was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena’s vacant seats before Obama came on… The Secret Service did not return a call from the Star-Telegram seeking comment.
Not a good idea, Secret Service.  What on earth could have possessed them?

McCausation (by Clint Hendler, Columbia Journalism Review)
One of the chief complaints about The New York Times’ story on the relationship between [John] McCain and lobbyist Vicki Iseman is that the paper is implying more than it has proven… Few balk when the Times, or any other paper, does that sort of investigative grunt work, about the dry world of political influence: cataloging checks and votes, suggesting with words and backslapping photos, and leaving readers to draw a conclusion about cause and effect. But this time, there’s a whiff of sex, and everyone’s all distracted that the paper implied what it didn’t prove. Presumably the Times went as far as it could go in showing us the truth. And now readers are drawing their own conclusions on the character of the relationship, from less than complete—but quite suggestive—facts. And why, exactly, is that such a scandal?

McCain camp promises war against NYT over lobbyist story
John McCain’s communications director says the Times “has lowered its standards to engage in a hit and run smear campaign” with its story about the candidate and a female lobbyist. “He has never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists, and he will not allow a smear campaign to distract from the issues at stake in this election.”

About Bill Keller’s Defense Of McCain Story (by Greg Sargent at TPM Horse’s Mouth)
Times exec editor Bill Keller has a statement out defending the story about John McCain’s relationship with a lobbyist… The notion that “no one has challenged” what was “actually reported” is worth a look, since it’s the sort of defense you hear often. It’s basically a dodge… [I]f you can’t present some kind of solid evidence, one way or the other, as to whether such a thing happened, than you should be reluctant to suggest the possibility at all.

McCain Torture Endorsement Lost Amid Media Sex Scandal Frenzy (by Liliana Segura, AlterNet)
The media missed a damning story that has actual implications for American democracy.

We can’t go back to the era of Walter Cronkite, but…
Political commentators can try to keep things from getting even worse, writes Adam Reilly in column about pundits’ the reliance on a junior-high vernacular. The texture of today’s media landscape is part of the problem, he says. “We are, after all, witnessing the twilight of the media gods, in which the New York Timeses and CBS Newses of the world have to scratch and claw to pull us away from Gawker, Sean Hannity, and countless other news-ish entities that are frequently more entertaining (in a junk-food-for-the-brain kind of way) than their old-media rivals.”

Horton, Me and others to be attacked… (by Larisa Alexandrovna at at-Largely)
Folks, I have gotten yet another heads up – a third in a two day period – which is why I am now taking this seriously, that some sort of attack piece is coming against me, Scott Horton, and anyone else writing about Siegelman and the Riley camp… My understanding is that the whistle-blower, Dana Jill Simpson, Scott Horton of Harper’s, Glyn Wilson of Locust Fork, and possibly (this I have only heard from one person) 60 Minutes are going to be smeared from here to eternity.  I don’t  know the exact form the slander will take, but what I do know is that this will constitute an act of political war using an Alabama publication, possibly two – willingly I might add – to attack reporters.
Don Siegelman is the Alabama governor who, it’s alleged, was railroaded into prison as part of the politicization of the Justice Department.  TPM Muckraker has a recap.

Rove wanted dirty details on Siegelman. (Think Progress)
On Sunday, CBS’s 60 Minutes will air its long-awaited report on the Bush administration’s political persecution of Alabama’s incarcerated former governor Don Siegelman. In the piece, former GOP operative Jill Simpson alleges that Karl Rove personally told her to find evidence that Siegelman was cheating on his wife.

Do Reporters Realize that House Prices Can Fall? (by Dean Baker)
[T]he government is likely to take large write-downs on mortgages that it purchases based on current market prices. If we put up $90 billion to buy up loans ( a number suggested in a WSJ article earlier this week), the losses could easily be in the $20 billion to $30 billion range. These losses would be equal to 0.6 percent to 0.9 percent of the budget. This is not a devastating cost, but it’s a thousand times as large as many of the earmarks that prompt front page outrage at the Washington Post. Who benefits from this money? Oh yeah, bank CEOs and shareholders would be the main beneficiaries.

Media Matters for America

O’Reilly on his Michelle Obama remarks: “I’m sorry if my statement offended anybody”

CBS’ Smith failed to challenge claim by McCain’s campaign manager — a former lobbyist — that McCain “is probably most feared by every lobbyist”

Reporting McCain attack on Obama, CNN’s Bash did not note McCain loan agreement using future public campaign funding as “additional collateral”

Quoting Kincaid, Limbaugh falsely asserted Obama bill “would commit the United States to spending 0.7 percent of GDP on foreign aid”

Blitzer did not challenge Matalin’s assertion that global warming is “a largely unscientific hoax” and a “political concoction”

O’Reilly attacked as “far-left loon” caller who asked if he would apologize for “lynching party” comment [See above for the apology.]

NY Times highlighted suggested question for Democratic debate that echoed smears about Obama’s church

Tucker Carlson echoed Kaus, VDARE contributor on Michelle Obama: “I think she’s got a chip on her shoulder”

Buchanan claimed McCain’s FCC letters were “in the normal course of business of a congressman” — not according to then-FCC chairman

Chicago Sun-Times uncritically reported McCain attack on Obama over liberal rating, but not McCain’s non-rating because of missed votes

USA Today’s Page repeated McCain’s false assertion that Obama “suggested bombing our ally, Pakistan”

Wash. Post’s Robinson on O’Reilly remark: “There’s certainly nothing at all funny or remotely appropriate about the use of a lynching reference”

WITNESS: In Kenya, watching as tribalism takes over
David Lewis has reported for Reuters from Africa since 2004, originally as correspondent in the Democratic Republic of Congo and as a freelance journalist since 2007. Born in Kenya but British by nationality, he grew up in several African countries and has worked as a journalist in Africa since 2001. In [this] story he recounts his experiences traveling around Kenya’s Rift Valley during the post-election violence.
Click through to read this reporter’s view of what is happening in Kenya.

Media Risks Encouraging People to Commit Suicide by Robert Booth, The Guardian)
Specialists from Oxford University’s department of psychiatry said there was “compelling evidence of increases in suicidal behaviour after the appearance of news reports, fictional drama presentations on television and suicide manuals”. “There is clear evidence that reports in the media that give descriptions of the method of suicide and romanticise the deceased by giving descriptions of the attention they receive in the form of condolences and online obituaries give rise to other suicides,” said Sue Simkin, coordinator of the centre for suicide research at Oxford.

Group plans to offer $10,000 for Albuquerque Tribune
Scripps says it’s closing the Albuquerque Tribune on Saturday, but a recently formed group called Friends of the Albuquerque Tribune wants to save the 86-year-old paper with a $10,000 offer. “Neither the Justice Department nor the seller has told us what they regard as a qualified offer,” says a group member. “We figure we’ll start at the bottom since they claim the paper is worthless.”

Worrying Trend? Many Newspaper Web Sites Losing Eyeballs
Online newspapers are not attracting people fast enough suggests a new report from Outsell Research. Outsell found an alarming trend: “We see that many news Web sites actually lost ground year-over-year, welcoming fewer unique visitors,” Ken Doctor wrote.

Time editor: I don’t get why newspapers endorse candidates
“At a time when newspapers are trying to ensure their survival by attracting younger readers, the idea of endorsements is both counterproductive and an anachronism,” says Time managing editor Rick Stengel. When papers take sides in presidential elections, he argues, they undermine the very basis for their business, which is impartiality. “It’s a recipe for having less influence, not more.”

WSJ likes the understatedness of its new mag’s name: WSJ.
WSJ. “suits the personality of the Journal and avoids the pretense and artifice of many bad magazine names,” says a spokesman for the paper. “The three letters happen to be typographically quite pleasing. And its simplicity gives us enormous flexibility visually and semantically.”

Reed Elsevier to sell Variety, Publishers Weekly, other mags
Reed Elsevier is selling Reed Business Information, the magazine publishing division that includes Variety and Daily Variety, Broadcasting and Cable, Multichannel News, Publishers Weekly and New Scientist. The move is aimed at “reducing exposure to advertising markets and cyclicality,” enabling the Anglo-Dutch group to focus on its core business of “subscription-based information and workflow solutions.”

Magazines Sites Add Video, but Not Much Expertise
Media Reviews for Media People: Dobrow Judges Title’s Video Efforts

With Strike’s End, Oscars Regain Marketing Allure
The end of the strike has alleviated the fears of more than a dozen blue-chip advertisers, worried that their marketing plans centered on the Oscars would be disrupted.

Where Are All the Girl Ninjas? Sexist Stereotypes Pervade Children’s Media (by Sara Voorhees, Women’s Media Center)
Females characters are sexualized, put down, or just plain absent in the shows your kids are watching.

Chinese youth push political expression online
BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s online community is ballooning and could soon overtake the United States in size, a survey showed, with the Internet boom changing the way young Chinese express political dissent.

‘Saboteurs’ may have cut undersea internet cables, says UN agency
The specialist team investigating the damage to several undersea internet cables that caused web and telecoms outages across the Middle East and Asia said it could have been an act of [US] sabotage.

At Last: FCC Set To Approve News Corp.-Liberty DirecTV Swap: Reports (Paid Content)
More than a year after it was first announced, the FCC is set approve a deal between Liberty Media  in News Corp that has the former relinquishing its 16.3 percent stake in the latter for a controlling interest in DirecTV. With the swap, Liberty also gets cash and three regional sports nets. Dow Jones Newswires reports that the three Republican members of the FCC have voted for its approval, giving the needed majority.

Platforms Make a Difference for Interactive Ads
Study Finds Quality of Involvement Different for Web, TV; ‘Social Contract’ Also Plays Role

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