Archives

Miami Herald's Phone Finger Apparently Broken

By Mithridate Ombud | June 17, 2006 - 23:01

There's a loose rule in journalism about not running every rumor you hear as hard news without at least making some attempt at checking it out. From the Miami Herald:

Team owners Micky Arison (Heat) and Mark Cuban (Mavs) didn't arrive by limo, helicopter or Range Rover. The millionaires both came by boat and docked on opposite sides of the arena. Cuban's Utopia II is nice enough -- if a bit modest, at 60 feet. Arison's Sirona III is a Shaq-sized monster, well more than 100 feet long. 'I think there's a little bit of boat envy goin' on,'' said Brad Morris, director of operations at the arena. ''I mean, compared to Arison's, Cuban's boat is pretty piddly.'' Morris said he heard Cuban had draped a ''Go Mavs'' banner across the boat earlier in the day and caused such a stir that the police were summoned. Oops. It wasn't there at game time.

From Mark Cuban:

How difficult is it to see what is or isnt right in front you ? Well guess what guys. I dont own a boat. Never have. Never will. I rented one once. Rowed one a couple times. Thats it. My apologies to the real owner of that boat who is getting pestered with helicopters and people trying to corner them.

Oops indeed.

Smart Marketing Heralds Great Iraq Article From Fumento

By Warner Todd Huston | June 17, 2006 - 21:27

Well, we complain enough about when someone in the “media” does something wrong, so I thought I would place in a little bit about someone doing something good…

But first, for those of you interested in the growth and development of the Internet or new trends thereon, I just got something that seems somewhat new as a way to advertise a journalist's latest article. Well, it may not be entirely "new" but it is something not seen to date from the higher profile journalists to my knowledge.

Michael Fumento, writer for the Weekly Standard, has written a rip-roaring piece on his experience in Ramadi, Iraq. This is an article not to be missed. Fumento was in the thick of it and saw some intense action during his visit with the 101st Airborne, the unit famously dubbed "the Band of Brothers" by historian Stephen Ambrose for its service in WWII.

Gabler Brands Bush Statement on Iraq 'Sub-Moronic'

By Mark Finkelstein | June 17, 2006 - 19:35

Neal Gabler might have hit a new low when it comes to the coarseness of his criticism. On this evening's Fox News Watch, he branded as 'sub-moronic' a statement President Bush made during his recent Iraq trip. And, furious that the media has been insufficiently critical in its coverage of Iraq for his taste, Gabler repeatedly labelled the MSM 'brain dead.'

Gabler began his assault by pouring cold water on the president's recent uptick in the polls: "the boost is very small. . . If you want to look at his numbers, his numbers are very, very low."

Even so, Gabler was galled that the press hasn't given sufficient attention to the bad news from Iraq. "The most positive media development for the president has been the fact that on the very day that he visited Baghdad, 24 Iraqis were killed in Kirkuk of all places and 50 were killed around Iraq, but it got no coverage. It was page 15 of the New York Times."

No "CCCP" Shirts At Washington National Games!

By Tim Graham | June 17, 2006 - 19:28

It was a fantastic day at RFK Stadium today watching the Nationals come from a 9-2 deficit to an 11-9 victory. Amazing game. We went with the church youth group, and the house was packed with Yankees fans (including some in our party), so as a fan of the sad salary-deprived Milwaukee Brewers, it was fun to see the Yanks and Mariano Rivera take a powder.

The only real sour note of the day was some chowderhead wearing his Nationals hat -- and a red T-shirt with bold white "CCCP" letters and a little hammer and sickle on it. I wanted to heckle this sad shill for the Soviet Union, but we were ten rows up, and my 16-year-old son would have spent the rest of the game in another section. Soviet Guy was quite a bit thicker than little Johnny Weir. At least some baseball fans came in pro-life religious T-shirts as well.

Chicago Tribune: "How Do You Spell Futility? FEMA"

By Michael M. Bates | June 17, 2006 - 10:59

Today's Chicago Tribune editorial, "How do you spell futility? FEMA," rightly condemns the estimated $1.4 billion in Hurricane Katrina relief funds that were wasted on items such as "jewelry, Caribbean vacations, pro football tickets, pornographic videos, divorce lawyer fees and a sex-change operation." It points out that Government Accountability Office auditors say that almost one in every six dollars targeted for aid ended up in the hands of swindlers.

The Tribune fails to mention that one possible reason for fraud was harsh criticism that FEMA wasn't dishing out the bucks fast enough.

An example of that was a September 8, 2005 Tribune editorial titled "When governments fail citizens." The editorial noted: "The initial federal response, through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was a tangle of red tape." Moreover, it stated that help was delayed "while FEMA bureaucrats dither(ed) over paperwork."

Dan Rather May Team Up With Cuban (No, Not Castro)

By Tom Johnson | June 17, 2006 - 10:44

Here's one of those stories that sounds weird but may make perfect sense. According to Saturday's New York Times, Dan Rather is "seriously mulling" an offer to "develop and be the host of a weekly interview program on a high-definition television channel known as HDNet." 

The Times' Jacques Steinberg also reports that "in addition to the one-hour interview program, which could eventually include '60 Minutes'-style investigative reports that he would prepare, Mr. Rather said he had been asked to commit to deliver at least two documentaries a year to HDNet."

Rather told Steinberg that the offer to join HDNet came from none other than the channel's co-founder Mark Cuban, who's been on TV quite a bit himself lately during ABC's coverage of the NBA finals between the Cuban-owned Dallas Mavericks and the Miami Heat.

Keith and the Cover

By Tim Graham | June 17, 2006 - 07:08

Staring hard at the forthcoming cover of Olbermann's book "The Worst Person in the World," doesn't it appear, oh so poetically, that the cover seems to be applying that honor to Olbermann himself?

LA Times Gone Wild: 'Wrong to Blame Katrina Victims for Spending Irresponsibly'

By Mark Finkelstein | June 17, 2006 - 06:13

What do you call someone who rips off the American taxpayer by spending Katrina relief funds on champagne, "Girls Gone Wild" videos or gambling sprees? Why, a "victim," of course. At least, you do if you're an editorial writer at the Los Angeles Times.

The sub-headline in the editorial in today's LA Times reads like a parody of liberal paternalism gone wild: "It's Wrong to Blame Victims for Spending Irresponsibly." No, that's not a misprint.

While acknowledging that the 16% of improper expenditures 'is indeed high', the Times doesn't want us to get all worked up about it: "some misuse of the FEMA-issued debit cards is hardly shocking."

MSNBC: Murtha Is 'Personal Attack' Victim, As Murtha Insults Rove's 'Fat Backside'

By Brad Wilmouth | June 17, 2006 - 05:06

On MSNBC's Countdown show on Friday, substitute host Brian Unger featured a softball interview with Democratic Congressman John Murtha during which Unger queued up Murtha to attack the Bush administration's Iraq policy and Republican critics. The Countdown host bolstered Murtha's credibility by referring to his war record and labelling him a "traditional hawk" while he discredited White House advisor Karl Rove by negatively labelling him as a "partisan attacker trying to squash discussion about Iraq," and proclaimed "the Swift-Boating of the 2006 election has begun." Unger also saw no irony in fretting about "personal attacks" on Murtha even as Murtha referred to Rove "sitting on his fat backside in an air-conditioned office." (Transcript follows)

Media Matters Criticism on Global Warming Unjustified

By Amy Ridenour | June 17, 2006 - 01:08

Media Matters is criticizing the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Chris Horner for saying, on the Fox News Channel's Your World with Neil Cavuto, that ratification of the Kyoto global warming treaty was not a high profile issue for President Bill Clinton during the Clinton Administration. The Media Matters headline reads: "On Fox's Your World, CEI's Horner Misled on Kyoto, Global Warming."

Media Matters says, in part:

On the June 13 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto, Chris Horner, counsel for the oil industry-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), claimed falsely that the Clinton administration chose not to submit the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate for ratification because it did not consider global warming a "high-profile issue." In fact, Senate Republicans made clear at the time that Clinton would not be able to garner enough votes in the Senate to ratify the treaty...

Objecting to former President Bill Clinton taking credit for efforts to curb global warming during his presidency, Horner claimed that Clinton "set the U.S. policy, which was [that] for the final three years of his presidency, the U.S. would not seek participation in -- that is ratification of -- Kyoto." Horner made the claim to advance his suggestion that the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty mandating that countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, "was not a high-profile issue or a priority issue for the Clinton administration, like, say, school uniforms. It was not even a low-priority issue, like, say, finding Osama bin Laden."