Editorial page editor Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal Constitution was asked why letters that are "factually inaccurate" are allowed into the newspaper. I had long assumed it was the same reason stories that are factually inaccurate are used in the newspaper, but not-so says Tucker: "We live in such a politically polarized age that not everybody agrees on the facts. My letters policy tends to be a bit looser than those of some other editorial page editors."

This includes "Readers who still believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that they were taking to Syria are allowed to express that view even though it is clearly not true." As you may recall, I addressed this "inaccuracy" once before for ACLU president turned journalist, Robyn Blumner.

George Ou reports that Dateline NBC investigative "journalist" Michelle Madigan was run out on a rail when she tried to infiltrate DEFCON in Las Vegas, the convention for hackers and security specialists, hoping to catch someone admitting to a crime. This is the same group of people who play "spot the spook" at their yearly conventions, so Michelle never had a chance. This all came after DEFCON organizers gave her four chances to register as press. Instead, Madigan made reference to how "people in Kansas" would be interested in what the hackers were up to (Kansas being the reference to the fly-over area between LA and NY) and then made a trip to the restroom to get her pinhole camera running.

A pronounced example of how bad news is news and good news is much less newsworthy: On Friday night, ABC and NBC teased full stories on the 281 point plunge that day in the Dow Jones average, but on Monday, after the Dow rebounded by five points greater than Friday's loss in the biggest one-day gain in five years, the networks limited coverage to a few seconds. “The stock market stumbles again today exposing fault lines in the nation's housing market,” ABC's Charles Gibson teased a full story Friday night on the stock market and troubles in the mortgage industry which he introduced by emphasizing how “the gains of the past couple of days were more than wiped out by a dramatic late-day sell-off.” But on Monday night, Gibson didn't tease the rebound news and held coverage to barely 20 seconds.

Brian Williams teased Friday's NBC Nightly News: “Stocks slide again on Wall Street. What is spooking the market tonight as we head into the weekend?” Williams spent a minute-and-half with CNBC's Jim Cramer discussing reasons for the plunge, but on Monday fill-in anchor Ann Curry gave the good news just 20 seconds, not counting time for more bad news: The bankruptcy filing by American Home Mortgage. CBS's Katie Couric on Friday only devoted 25 seconds to how “investors headed for the exits, and the Dow plunged 281 points. So, since hitting a record high 14,000 two weeks ago, the Dow has now given up more than 800 points.” On Monday, however, she squeezed in a piddling eight seconds on the rebound, not counting unemployment news and a note about American Home Mortgage.

Four firefighters who say there were forced to participate in San Diego's "Gay Pride" parade and subjected to "vile sexual taunts" have filed a complaint and plan to sue the city.

According to the Thomas More Law Center, four firefighters were forced to participate in the parade against their will and were "subjected to vile sexual taunts from homosexuals lining the parade route." According to the complaint filed with the city, the firemen of Engine 5 told their chief they did not want to appear in the parade but were told the morning of the parade that they were under orders to participate.

Diane Sawyer kicked "Good Morning America" off this morning with economic worries about Wall Street, the "credit crunch" and "record" foreclosures.

“We do begin with the week on Wall Street, where the Dow took another huge hit, plunging 280 points in just two hours. The cause of the worst credit crunch in almost quarter a century and you’ve seen it in the neighborhoods – a record number of foreclosures,” said Sawyer.

But according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBAA), foreclosures are not at a record when viewed by percentage. GMA’s one-sided talk of a “record number of foreclosures” misled viewers. Foreclosures are up compared to 2006, but so are the number of home loans.

Well, sports fans, the list of folks challenging soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore to put up or shut up continues to grow, of course, with little notice from an adoring media.

Next up wanting to take shots at the Global Warmingist-in-Chief is best-selling author Dennis Avery.

As reported by PR Newswire Monday (emphasis added throughout):

On Monday’s "Good Morning America," guest host George Stephanopoulos pressed 2008 Republican candidate Mitt Romney over whether he will "do more to address" the issue of his Mormon faith.

This is the same ABC program that has repeatedly raised questions about whether the former Massachusetts governor’s religion could damage his ‘08 chances. In June, reporter Dan Harris speculated on how "uncomfortable questions" about Mormonism could harm the campaign.

In contrast, GMA gushed over a CNN sponsored event in June where Democratic candidates discussed their faith. An onscreen graphic wondered, "Are evangelicals embracing Democrats? New party of God?" For that segment, co-host Robin Roberts marveled, "...Senator Obama out on the campaign trail has, has freely talked about his faith." She also played an extended clip of Hillary Clinton discussing the important role faith played in her life.

The lesson from this post isn't bias as much as it is making sure not to get taken in by Old Media overreactions.

Jim Cramer of CNBC's "Mad Money" went mad on Friday, declaring Armageddon in this video rant on Friday (watch the whole thing to see just how out-of-control he was; his declaration is at 1:40 in the vid -- "in the fixed-income markets, we have Armageddon.").

The first trading day after Cramer's declaration of Aramageddon went thusly (from a CNN e-mail after the markets' 4PM close):

Liberals can rest easier knowing that despite her outspoken views on newsworthiness and ethics, MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski can still be counted on to go to bat for the Democrats. The reporter and "Morning Joe" regular showed off her famous sense of journalistic integrity while filling in for host Joe Scarborough on Monday morning. In the first half hour, Brzezinski played a video of a journalist trying desperately to get an interview with Antonio Villaraigosa, the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles. Villaraigosa has been surrounded by controversy since revelations that he had engaged in an extramarital affair with Spanish language reporter Mirthala Salinas.

The video clip showed one female reporter and at least two cameramen chasing the embattled mayor hoping for an interview. Before she could reach the mayor however, one of Villaraigosa’s hired thugs intercepted the reporter, sending the much smaller woman barreling into what appears to be a dumpster.

New York Times political blogger Kate Phillips (who tried to wish away news coverage of John Kerry's "botched joke" on the eve of the 2006 congressional election) posted on the Times' "Caucus" blog Saturday from Chicago, the site of the YearlyKos convention put on by the liberal activist campaign blog The Daily Kos.

Phillips pushed Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the founder of the politically active blog, into the center:

Slate magazine found out that Rudy Giuliani's daughter Caroline has a crush on Obama.

Well, maybe not a crush, but she had joined a pro-Obama Facebook group and describes herself as "liberal" (but then that's also how many Republican voters would describe Caroline's father).

The article, complete with evidentiary screen grab, was written this morning by Lucy Morrow Caldwell, like Caroline Giuliani also a student at Harvard University. Caldwell has a profile on Facebook in the Harvard and Washington, DC networks, and has poor taste in sunglasses, as the screencap below shows:

Republicans held a debate on Sunday, but CBS’s Hannah Storm seemed more interested in Rudy Giuliani’s personal life and then Mitt Romney’s crankiness. On the August 6 edition of "The Early Show," at 7:19 AM, Storm kicked off the segment noting there was a Republican debate the previous day but, "they did not talk about an issue hanging over front-runner Rudy Giuliani and that is his wife, Judith, who has become a controversial topic in his campaign."

I wanted to go to the YearlyKos event but circumstances did not permit. Thankfully, at least one sane person did go. Rick Moran gives this account:

I can assure you that they are at least as similar to us as chimpanzees – except chimps are cuter and don’t constantly interrupt you when you’re speaking and trying to make a point. However, all that aside, liberals are pretty normal. They have a different sense of humor of course. And they may not laugh as much as conservatives although I wonder who will be doing the chuckling on election day 2008? [...]

One observation I would never have dared put in a piece for PJ Media or anywhere else I write is that for a movement and party that prides itself on inclusion, the gathering appeared very white. There were definitely more people of color than there would be at a conservative or Republican event. But as I scanned the faces of attendees to the Presidential Leadership Forum where almost all YKos was gathered, my rough estimate was 75% white – perhaps larger.

The nation’s top newspaper men think only an unsophisticated rube sees liberal bias as a persistent, intentional application of media muscle. In his book Cheney: The Untold Story of America’s Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President, Stephen Hayes of Weekly Standard fame reprints an E-mail that New York Times executive editor Bill Keller sent to Cheney spokesman Kevin Kellems in 2004 in which he denied that his paper has an agenda, and there are “even a few people who think the news coverage and editorial page operate in lockstep as part of a liberal cabal. The vice president is much too experienced and sophisticated, I suspect, to really believe that.”

Keller admitted stories occasionally show “liberal assumptions,” but “I think those instances are relatively rare, and I fight to filter them our [sic] and deplore them when they get into the paper.” He also claimed in his own paper’s defense that Team Clinton “also had a lot of Times-haters at the top.”

The Washington Post's Jose Antonio Vargas reported in the August 6 paper about worries in the Yearly Kos crowd that the liberal blogosphere is too white and too male. Critiquing that August 6 article, Jack Turner of "Jack & Jill Politics" disagreed with Vargas' assessment that every attendee at YearlyKos was wringing his or her hands about how to "diversify" the attendance.:

This is NOT from The Onion. It's from the Associated Press via USA Today ("Bloggers consider forming labor union"):

CHICAGO — Do bloggers need their own Norma Rae?

In a move that might make some people scratch their heads, a loosely formed coalition of left-leaning bloggers are trying to band together to form a labor union they hope will help them receive health insurance, conduct collective bargaining or even set professional standards.

Recently Oklahoma officials announced a deadline extension to order special license plates dedicated to the global war on terrorism. Oklahoma is not the only state that has one. Virginia has had one for years that reads "Fight Terrorism" and features a Pentagon, the Twin Towers, and an American flag.

In other words, this is nothing new and its an unremarkable story. Except for MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, whose staff ran the item in his blog "The NewsHole" with no comment, letting his left-wing loyalists provide the yuks. The August 2 headline, however, was a snarky, dismissive phrase: "Ridin' In Style."

While some commenters found the new plate non-controversial and wondered what the big deal was, others took the chance to mock the design.

One "T. Brooks" from Oklahoma even pulled a Natalie Maines, all while referencing a classic country hit:

Here's a side of global warming the shills at Newsweek and alarmists such as Al Gore don't want to address: there are actually countries and peoples on the planet who would welcome a less frigid climate.