Starts Today and tomorrow. H/T Rick Moran, who is organizing this blogburst, and to Stop the ACLU for jumping on it today. 

 

Details here.

The media are always trying to find a way to report the bad side of economic news, so it's shouldn't come as a terrible surprise to anyone that they managed to make positive holiday sales growth a bad thing.

According to MasterCard SpendingPulse, retail sales were up 3.6 percent during the holiday season - 2.4 percent excluding gas prices. But because it's not as big an increase as recent years have produced, the media reported it as bad news.

On NBC's "Nightly News," reporter Savannah Guthrie announced a "dramatic" 2.4 percent decrease in women's clothing sales. She didn't think the same percentage increase was "dramatic," however. Instead, she referred to the overall sales increase as "disappointing."

Other media labeled the figures "dismal," "small," "weak," "bleak" and "a clear sign that the economy is slowing down." Most made sure to point out, like "Good Morning America's" Ryan Owens, that the increase is "the smallest in four years."

The use of child pornography to sell newspapers was defended this week when New York Times Magazine Editor Gerald Marzorati sent an email defending a photo used in the fashion insert "T", which shows a 17 year old model, topless, with her left breast partially showing.

Now in case you're not versed in New York Times values or the proper use of kiddie porn, this is why it's okay; it's kind of blurry, it was shot by a "legendary fashion photographer", she's got a $4000 coat around her waist, and the section makes about $5 million in advertising revenue which was responsible from moving NYT stock rating to a "buy".

I hope this doesn't throw you out of your chair, but the LA Times was wrong in an article. The difference between this day and every other day is that this time they admit it. The story in question was one that ran 18 months ago about baseball players on steroids named in court documents which by now you've probably heard plenty about. The LA Times, using anonymous sources of course, (do you see a pattern here?) named Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Jay Gibbons, and Miguel Tejada as steroid abusers. Fast forward to the actual affidavit being unsealed, and those players are in fact not among those listed.

Times spokesman Stephan Pechdimaldji said "We regret our report was inaccurate and will run a correction." which I'm pretty sure will be also be known as 'exhibit A' in the libel suits to come. U.S. District Court Judge Edward C. Voss referred to the Times this way: "At best, the article is an example of irresponsible reporting. At worst, the 'facts' reported were simply manufactured." Judge, I believe this makes you an honorary Newsbuster.

Does the New York Times let bias creep into its post-Christmas reports on the shopping season just completed?

Smart-aleck answer: Is Maureen Dowd obsessed with Dick Cheney? (His name appears in 295 of her columns, all but four appearing during the last seven-plus years. That would be almost 40 Cheney inclusions per year, probably close to half the number of columns she has written during that time.)

After reviewing 17 years of those reports, the answer is a definitive "Yes."

For each year from 1991 through 2007, I went back to the Times's first or near-first post-Christmas report on the shopping season. I expected to find blue sky and sunshine during the Clinton years, and gloom as far as the eye can see during Bush 41 and Bush 43. While it wasn't quite that bad, the bias is there, and it's more obvious in recent years.

(Summary and detail begin after the jump.)

Any man who is under 30 and is not a liberal has no heart; and any man who is over 30 and not a conservative has no brains. - Winston Churchill

I guess we know what old Winston would think of Chris Matthews, then. Appearing on Morning Joe today, the Hardball host turned the Churchillian maxim upside down, claiming his gut leans right but his head pulls him left.

Chris was conversing with MJ panelist Mika Brzezinski. After calling her "a cutie pie and "very smart," he continued.

View video here.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, issued a press release announcing that their cost study on immigration will be released tomorrow during a news conference at Iowa's 2007 Talk Radio Row.  

FAIR's press release states that “previous state and private studies over-estimated tax receipts and under-estimated costs.”

The details of this study are sure to be controversial, and the Des Moines Register reported last week that “immigrant-rights groups” are already critical and calling for the upcoming radio event to be scuttled.

Here is part of FAIR's press release promoting the event (bold mine throughout):

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: Russia tests new ICBM Christmas day:

The RS-24 missile was launched from the Plesetsk launch facility in northern Russia and its test warheads successfully hit designated targets on the Kura testing range on the Kamchatka Peninsula some 4,340 miles east, Strategic Missile Forces spokesman Alexander Vovk told The Associated Press.

Vovk said that the missile carried multiple test warheads, but refused to say how many. The Interfax news agency said the RS-24 is capable of carrying at least three warheads.

What does this mean for U.S. - Russia relations? How soon before media blame it on Bush foreign policies?

Chris Matthews was in full flight on today's Morning Joe, vividly expressing himself on everything from the historic shockwaves that an Obama Iowa victory would send, to Media Matters's role as a Hillary front, to the attitude of NewsBusters. But the Hardball host was especially animated in describing the way the Clintons use intimidation to keep people in line.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: In the world, in the universe, the biggest American political story of modern times if Obama wins the Iowa caucuses. It will be all over the world; it will sweep the headlines in every newspaper in the world: friend, foe or neutral. It will be the Third World story of the century, of the last century [Barack's Time Machine?], the biggest story of modern Third World history, really, if Obama wins the American presidential caucus in Iowa.

View video here.

Conservative radio host and political pundit, Jed Babbin, did a great job of smacking the Associated Press around in an editorial in Human Events, today. Calling the AP "one of the most politically activist media outlets" out there and pointing out that the wire service is often "caught Hillary-handed," Babbin does a great job of handing the AP its hat. And Babbin warns that every candidate "who exudes a whiff of conservatism" will see the APs guns leveled upon them.

To prove his case, Babbin uses the example of how the AP is doing it's level best to destroy the candidacy of Fred Thompson because, in Babbin's view, he is one of the most conservative candidates in the field as well as how often the AP rides to Hillary Clinton's rescue quite despite the facts.

Business & Media Institute Director Dan Gainor appeared on the Fox Business Network December 21, 2007, to discuss the media's coverage of the economy. Full of Christmas spirit, Gainor had kind words for two mainstream reporters.

"Even in the mainstream media there are people who get it. Looking back this year one of the big stars whose improvement was surprising is CNN's Ali Velshi who delivers a much calmer look," Gainor said.

"It's nice to see somebody out there saying, ‘Oh, actually the markets aren't really doing that bad," he said, praising ABC's Bianna Golodryga. The "Good Morning America" reporter received high marks for balanced coverage of the stock market.

If you wanted to get depressed on the day after Christmas, you could always read Washington Post foreign correspondent Ellen Knickmeyer’s account of her deep guilt about escaping Iraq for a new posting in Egypt and trying to get her dog out of country ahead of poor Iraqi refugees whose lives were ruined by American occupation. Every Westerner in the story seems to be an Ugly American, and even as Knickmeyer recalled her return to Baghdad in October, the much quieter streets weren’t grounds for optimism: "our bureau seemed more than ever a medium-security prison....It seemed the silence of a dead city."

This is nothing new for Knickmeyer, who has a talent for talking down good news.

See Update at Foot: Matthews suggests MSM pushing Mike because he's a sure loser.

Should we call him Mike "Huck-a-unbeatable"?

As noted here, on Monday David Shuster predicted that Mike Huckabee would win the White House if matched up against Hillary Clinton. Appearing on Morning Joe today at 6:05 AM ET, the MSNBC correspondent took his optimism about Huckabee's prospects a quantum leap further, saying the former Arkansas governor would defeat any Dem opponent.

View video here.

How thoughtful of the AP to give NewsBusters a Christmas contestant for “Name That Party.” Consider this post our thank you note for the timely gift!

In this December 25 article, the AP buried the party affiliation of Democratic Philadelphia mayor John F. Street in the very last sentence of a ten-paragraph article about the mayor taking an extra $111,000 in pay raises that he rejected while in office. He now wants to take the money through a program he he once vetoed, claiming the city couldn't afford it. He then played the race card and asked as a politician elected mainly by "poor black people" "what will I do" without the extra money.

Not only did the AP bury Street's party, it didn't label him a Dem outright, instead indirectly referred to a “fellow Democrat” as the only party identification. (Thnx to NBer DaBird)

Also missing are references to Street's financial troubles, some relating to his office, and several corruption scandals, earning him a 2005 Time magazine award as one of the worst top-three big city mayors. Note the many spots for a label: