"The National Tracing Center database is an essential resource for law enforcement. Beyond enabling law enforcement to trace the history of a gun linked to a crime, it helps identify patterns of gun theft and trafficking. And that information can help local law enforcement — like the NYPD — in stopping illegal guns before they're used to commit crimes.

Yet the NYPD — along with every other branch of law enforcement in the nation — is being denied the information needed to get illegal guns off our streets: There is no requirement that stolen guns or guns used to commit crimes be reported to the National Tracing Center database.

Former CNN anchor Aaron Brown gave a speech at Palm Beach, Florida’s Society of the Four Arts on Tuesday, and according to the Palm Beach Daily News, he didn’t have very nice things to say about the news industry including, “‘Truth no longer matters in the context of politics and, sadly, in the context of cable news.’" 

According to the article: “Brown said he tried to give viewers a balanced diet of light and serious news with NewsNight. ‘But I always knew when I got to the Brussels sprouts, I was on thin ice,’ he said.”

Furthermore:

Catching up with a distorted story from early in the week: On Monday's Nightline, ABC ran a silly story by Brian Ross impugning the integrity of the two most conservative Supreme Court justices, for a "judicial junket" in Colorado where at a Federalist Society conference Antonin Scalia played tennis and the acceptance by Clarence Thomas of a NASCAR jacket. Over hidden-camera video of Scalia on a tennis court, Ross stressed how Scalia missed the swearing-in of Chief Justice Roberts and featured law professor Stephen Gillers, "a recognized scholar on legal ethics," as his expert, running seven soundbites from him (compared to just two from a Scalia-defender). But Ross failed to note how Gillers is a left-winger who in The Nation in 1999 fretted about the "nightmare" of more conservative Supreme Court justices. Ross, however, tagged the Federalist Society as "a conservative activist group" as he buried a brief mention of how the group "says this was no junket at all but a legal seminar, in which Justice Scalia taught a ten-hour course." Ross even tried to smear Scalia with a link to scandal: "Scalia also attended the scheduled cocktail receptions, one of which was sponsored in part by the same lobbying and law firm where convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff once worked."

Ross acknowledged, after his taped story aired, that "it isn't just Justice Scalia. Justices at all ends of the political spectrum take plenty of these trips to lots of nice places, all paid for by somebody else." But Ross didn't go beyond Scalia and Thomas and the Tuesday Good Morning America version plastered on screen, over video of Scalia playing tennis, "ABC NEWS EXCLUSIVE: SCALIA CAUGHT ON TAPE.” (Full transcript, and more on Gillers, follows.)

Liberals twirl in circles of frustration that conservatives get a chance to speak their nonsense in news stories, that "objectivity" is merely a blend of sense and nonsense, information and misinformation. But on Hamas, liberal media outlets are routinely practicing senseless "objectivity," using distancing language that it is a group "described by U. S. authorities as a terrorist group." I suppose you could argue that "terrorism" is a very emotional word, but it also means something: the use of violence against innocent people to provoke political action through fear. That has been a trademark of Hamas, not a little problem on the fringes of the group. (If they blew up your children in a rocket attack, you might call them terrorists, too.)

Journalists ought to read through the 1988 Hamas charter and learn that these people believe that "jihad," or war on unbelievers (especially the Jews) is required by their religion. It can be argued that foregoing the T-word is edging into journalistic cowardice and inaccuracy. It's amazing that Jimmy Carter and Kofi Annan and the other acclaimed "peacemakers" can't seem to read from Article 13: “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with.” But it gets stranger.

Today's Oprah Winfrey program featured her interviewing James Frey, author of "A Million Little Pieces." The book has come under fire for being much less than accurate. Greatly due to Ms. Winfrey's endorsement of the book, even after its inaccuracies and fictions had been detailed, "A Million Little Pieces" enjoyed incredible success.

This morning Ms. Winfrey told Frey, "I really feel duped." Reuters reports: "In 19 years in television 'I've never been in this position before,' said Winfrey. . ."

The talk show host was being disingenuous She's been duped before. Journalist Michael Fumento notes one example from 1987, when the talk-show host asserted:

Ok. I admit that the title of the article is certainly a play on words and might imply more than should be taken. Actually, I am intrigued. by the bit of news (HT to Verum Serum). Naomi Wolf has been an advocate of feminism and progressive politics. She also received some decent money from helping President Bill Clinton and VP Al Gore. Probably fed up with the intrigues of the former President she appears to stop holding back on inappropriate male behavior. In 2004 she alleged sexual harrassement by eminent academic Harold Bloom at no other school than Yale though a number of years had passed since the 'alleged' event. What appears to be a mid-life writer's block, she sought help and in the midst of this she had a 'holographic' vision of Jesus Christ.

Just two and a half years ago -- after the September 11 attacks had supposedly made the U.S. a bit more sensitive to the plight of Israelis under constant pressure from terrorist groups -- ABC's World News Tonight benignly described the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas as “a political and social welfare organization with a military wing that has launched terror attacks against Israel.”

Now that Hamas has apparently won the Palestinian elections, will reporters stress their history of killing innocent civilians? On last night' World News Tonight, anchor Bob Woodruff wouldn't go so far as to brand Hamas as a terrorist group, calling them a "militant" group "which the U.S. calls a terrorist organization."

Eric Lipton’s New York Times article on the congressional investigation into the White House’s initial response to Hurricane Katrina suggests that President Bush was foolhardy in thinking New Orleans had dodged the Katrina bullet on Monday, August 29, a day before the levees broke and plunged the city underwater.

Lipton writes on Thursday:

“That night, after the storm passed, a report sent to the White House warned of a quarter-mile breach ‘in the levee near the 17th Street Canal’ and that ‘an estimated 2/3 to 75 percent of the city is underwater.’ Yet Mr. Bush and the homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, in interviews after the storm hit, said they never expected the levees to be breached. They said that after the storm had passed Monday, they were convinced that the city had survived without catastrophic damage.

(This is an op-ed version of a previous NewsBusters post.)

There’s an old rule of thumb in marketing – stick to what sells. Lately, America’s media have been doing just that.

Since the significant rebound in the President’s poll numbers from their October lows, coincident with a lack of outrage by the public concerning the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and domestic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency, the media have been downplaying current events, and, instead, focusing attention on last year’s big story that was largely responsible for Bush’s favorability decline in the first place.

Interviewing Howard Dean this morning, you could almost hear Katie Couric thinking: "sure, he's a fellow member of our great Democratic family. But darn it, this guy is killing us!" And thus it was that Couric gave Dean the crazy uncle treatment, hitting him with tough questions almost as if to speak over him to the rest of us out here, apologizing for the untoward antics of this unwelcome but unavoidable visitor.

Suggested Katie regarding the NSA surveillance: "If this potentially stops another terrorist attack like 9/11, why not give the White House some latitude?" Dean riffed in reply about a president who "has a habit of putting himself above the law." But Katie was dubious when Dean complained that the program "poking around into people's private lives."

For those who are not well-acquainted with Los Angeles Times columnist Joel Stein, the "humorist" who wants "no parades" for the troops, there is a bit of an MRC dossier on him going back to his days as a quirky Time writer:

– December 11, 2000 Time: Stein interviewed Bill O’Reilly and asked: "Does Fox News get money directly from the GOP or does it have to launder it first for the sake of the FCC?"

– July 29, 2002 Time: Stein’s fantasy of dancing with Janet Reno, unfulfilled: Stein recounted his attendance at Reno’s dance party in Miami, a self-deprecating fundraiser based on Will Ferrell's "Saturday Night Live" skit brought to real life for the Democratic Florida gubernatorial candidate in her failed attempt to turn out Gov. Jeb Bush. Stein rued: "I leave my friends behind and rush the stage to try to dance with Reno, only to find myself in a small crowd of men living the same fantasy. When I finally push my way past them, she is gone."

Some time yesterday morning, the Gallup Organization released the results of a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll that, judging from its shocking results, many Americans might never hear about. Now, at this point, this is idle speculation. However, through 9:50AM EST Thursday, this has received very little attention.

From what I can tell, CNN reported this on its “American Morning” program which aired at 7AM EST. Oddly, according to a LexisNexis search, that’s the only time yesterday that CNN referenced this poll. Rush Limbaugh reported about this during his program yesterday, which means that he had this information in the AM Wednesday. As the Drudge Report posted the story at 10:52 AM EST (assuming I'm doing a good job of converting from GMT!), this makes sense. An hour later, both NewsMax and World Net Daily reported it. Moreover, the AP reported this at 3:58PM yesterday in an article about Sen. Clinton’s disagreements with the president’s recently iterated views on terrorist surveillance. And, Jonah Goldberg addressed this in a Los Angeles Times op-ed this morning.

Yet, a Google news search done at 9:50AM EST Thursday indicated that, to this point, no other major news organizations published these results. In fact, from what I can tell, this hasn’t been reported by USA Today, and has yet to be posted at CNN’s website.

What’s so shocking about this poll that the press appear frightened to share with the public:

On ABC's World News Tonight on Wednesday January 25, anchor Bob Woodruff showed some reluctance to label Hamas as a terrorist organization outright, but instead qualified the label by calling it a "militant" group "which the U.S. calls a terrorist organization." Woodruff also referred to Hamas once as a "radical group" and once simply as a "group."

During the opening teaser, while previewing a story on the Palestinian elections, Woodruff announced: "It's been an historic day in the Middle East. Palestinians voting for their future. The radical group Hamas gains strength and gets a warning from the Bush administration."

Introducing a story on the elections, in which Hamas won a substantial number of seats in the parliament, Woodruff asked: "Would Palestinians vote to keep the long-ruling Fatah movement in power or would the militant challenger, Hamas, which the U.S. calls a terrorist organization, prevail?"

When John Roberts wrapped up his report Wednesday night, about President Bush's visit to the National Security Administration (NSA) in Maryland, by relaying how “one Republican Senator told CBS News tonight she might consider loosening the standards for approving the wiretap and allowing more officials at the Justice Department, not just the Attorney General, to authorize eavesdropping, so that it could begin just as soon as the NSA needed it,” CBS Evening News anchor Bob Schieffer seemed astounded: "Now, just a second, John. Are you telling me there's a feeling amongst Republicans up in the Congress that they're going to give more people in the government the authority to eavesdrop without warrants? Is that what you're saying here?" Roberts confirmed how “that's what one Republican Senator is suggesting.” Schieffer remained astonished: "Well, what do you think the mood is up there? Do you think anything like that could pass?" Roberts passed along how “it's certainty being considered by Republicans. They've got the majority in the Senate and in the House, and if they want it they'll probably get it.” To which Schieffer shot back: "Well, we'll sure see about that.” (Transcript follows.)

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