Ken Shepherd's blog

From a post of mine at BusinessandMedia.org.

“Food marketing to children is a $10-billion-a-year industry, and some parents’ advocates and lawyers are saying it’s out of control,” noted NBC reporter Stone Phillips as he opened his August 18 story.

To lend scientific authority to these claims, Phillips turned to Harvard psychologist Susan Linn, whom he merely described as “the author of ‘Consuming Kids.’ She says brand names are among toddlers’ first words and logos among the first images they recognize.”

“Kids are requesting brands as soon as they can talk,” Linn told Phillips.

As odd as it sounds that children would say “Cocoa Puffs” before “mommy,” Phillips didn’t question Linn’s assertion. Instead, Phillips went on to show clips of NBC’s Hoda Kotb conducting an experiment with a group of preschoolers and toddlers as she asked them to identify corporate logos.

Even then, Phillips conceded, “they didn’t get” every logo right, even though they “came pretty close.”

But Linn is a dispassionate researcher and neutral scientist, right?

Wrong.

When I was in college (1997-2001), I recall new textbooks ringing up at $75, $80, or even $90. That was pretty steep then, but The Washington Post's Nell Henderson sees similar prices now as a symptom of worrisominflation in her August 17 article:

After poring over reams of data, the Labor Department reported yesterday that inflation rose last month, eating into people's paychecks and savings at a quickening clip.

Emerging from the Georgetown University bookstore in a rush, Linda Dodd didn't need a government report to tell her that. "I just spent $85 and $90 on two books," she said with a shrug.

Textbooks, whose prices have risen at a brisk 6.2 percent pace in the past year, are among the many goods and services that are becoming more expensive as inflation persists at some of the highest levels in 15 years.

There are two problems here. One is Henderson's illustration is misleading. Sure, new textbooks bought fresh off the shelf at a college bookstore are pricey, but millions of students save money everyday either by ordering cheaper new or used books online or by snatching up used textbooks at college or chain bookstores, or even at the media' least favorite superstore, Wal-Mart. As I wrote in my article at BusinessandMedia.org:

UPDATE: There's now audio up at Washington Post Radio of Greenwell talking about this "growing trend." See below the jump for more on that.

In today's Metro section of The Washington Post, staff writer Megan Greenwell took a sympathetic look at liberal suburban dumpster divers who call themselves "freegans.":

Prince Frederick, Md teen Bryan Meadows “considers himself a ‘freegan,’” Greenwell wrote, describing the term as “a melding of the words ‘free’ and ‘vegan’” because Meadows “tries not to contribute to what he sees as the exploitation of land, resources and animals wrought by commercial production.”

Summer lovin', had me a blast

Summer lovin', happened so fast.

The opening lyrics to the signature song in the musical Grease are apt to describe the media's summer fling with global warming alarmist Al Gore.

A new study by Rachel Waters and Dan Gainor of the MRC's Business & Media Institute (BMI) documents the love affair.

Even with the extensive media coverage – more than one network story per day on average – Gore’s film spent only one week in the top ten. The film only made it to the number nine position.

By comparison “X-Men III – The Last Stand” had only had 25 appearances on the networks in the same three-month period. The third installment in the X-Men series raked in more than $233 million in the U.S. Gore’s documentary has brought in less than $22 million. That means X-Men pulled in 10 times the money with one-third the TV appearances.

Posted this a few days ago at the MRC's BusinessandMedia.org and thought it worth syndicating here simply because it's so outrageous and yet demonstrative of the insufferable sanctimony of The New York Times.:

What did a Happy Meal ever do to Melanie Warner? In March the Business & Media Institute showed you how The New York Times advertising reporter found nothing funny in humorous beer ads. Now she’s at it again, pooh-poohing the toys that come with the child-sized meals sold at McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD)

On August 11, a state judge struck down an early voter law passed by the liberal Democratic legislature over Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich's veto. In his August 12 story covering the decision, Washington Post staff writer Matthew Mosk relayed fiery, class warfare-centered talking points from liberal Democrats incensed at the ruling.

Yet Mosk curiously omitted an early voting option that costs Marylanders $0.78 (two first-class postage stamps): an absentee ballot.

"Sheet metal workers and crane operators and people who have to leave the house at 5 in the morning to get to their jobs at the Pentagon, they're the ones who are helped by this," Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) said earlier this year.

Looks like NBC's David Gregory is ready to hit the club.

Check out this video clipped from the August 11 Today show. NBC's chief White House correspondent was caught on camera chair-dancing to the music of R&B artist Chris Brown.

It's good to see Gregory in a good mood.

I hear he was pretty depressed when his re-design for the White House briefing room was rejected.

 

 

Video clip (44 seconds): Real (1.2 MB) or Windows Media (1.4 MB), plus MP3 audio (217 KB)

A new study out by the liberal Pew Hispanic Center says immigration has no negative impact on Americans' job prospects.

Naturally, The Washington Post jumped on it. But while reporter Kim Hart included the study's detractors in her story, she suggested Pew was a gold standard of neutrality in policy research.

It's not.

Here's an excerpt of my article available at the MRC's BusinessandMedia.org.:

Hart added that Pew “has published respected polls and reports on the role of Hispanics in the United States.”

But Pew doesn’t merely study the Hispanic population in the U.S., it advocates policy, including more federal spending on immigrant children and a large guest worker program.

It's not just Samuel L. Jackson. Hollywood really does love snakes on the silver screen.

The MRC's Business & Media Institute today released the second installment of our Bad Company trilogy today.

The three-part special report series examines the television entertainment, cinematic, and network news media's biases against the American businessman.

In our first study we found, among other things that boob tube businessmen "committed crimes five times more often than terrorists and four times more often than gangs."

With a bigger budget comes bigger bias. Here's what we found when we went to the movies:

Here's an excerpt from an excellent editorial by Gary Witzenburg, a former auto engineer who helped design the GM EV1, the early '90s electric car that left-wing conspiracy theorists think the big ol' meanies at Big Oil killed. Suffice it to say, Witzenburg was nowhere to be found on the taxpayer-funded infomercial for "Who Killed the Electric Car" on the June 9 edition of "Now with David Brancaccio."

Here's an excerpt of his August 8 "Another View" editorial in "USA Today":

Widespread acceptance of battery-powered EVs will not happen until someone develops battery technology competitive with a tank of gas (or diesel) in every way. It must be absolutely safe, long-term durable, capable of operating reliably in extreme weather and temperatures, mass-producible at low cost, able to carry comparable energy in a package of comparable size and weight, and able to be quickly recharged. None comes remotely close.

On the one year anniversary of the death of Peter Jennings, the August 7 "World News with Charles Gibson" turned to medical editor Timothy Johnson for advice on how to quit smoking.

After listing some advice for what individuals can do, Johnson turned to a prescription for big government:

At the government level there are three proven techniques. One is to raise prices by increasing taxes, the second is to limit access by minors, and the third is to conduct mass media campaigns.

Of course there are plenty of critics who say those policies are utter failures, but Gibson did not seek a second opinion.

Here's what he might have found if he had:

Canadian-born Morley Safer worries that American "McMansions" are an "alien weed" choking suburban America.

But the liberal "60 Minutes" veteran should have talked to an expert or two. The National Association of Realtors says the market for so-called McMansions is tiny, and that the more significant market is for starter-houses which enable homeowners to build equity and trade up after a few years.

Here's an excerpt from my article available at the MRC's BusinessandMedia.org Web page:

No, this is not the aftermath of Katrina, it is the prelude to a monster,” griped Safer. “Across the country, perfectly sound and cozy houses are being torn down. The empty lots then get filled up” with larger houses.

From an article I posted a few moments ago at BusinessandMedia.org, an MRC Web site:

Has CNN’s reporting on food gone to the dogs?

The audience of the August 5 edition of “In the Money” might suspect as much. On that program business contributor Andy Serwer narrated a “Brainstorm” segment looking at the “latest trends and innovations the food industry has in store for you” such as “foods you can eat along with your pet.”

Foods you can scarf down with Skippy while channel-surfing past CNN on your way to Animal Planet? Tell me more.

“For a look at some hot new products appearing on a store shelf near you, we recently headed to a food trade show in New York City,” the Fortune magazine editor explained as he opened his segment.

I venture to say I'm not alone in thinking that the new "Bold moves" series of car ads by Ford Motor Company quickly replaced the Dodge ones with the HEMI-obsessed schlub as the dumbest auto ads on the tube lately.

But that's not deep enough for The Washington Post's David Montgomery. He sees one particular ad as a window to America's psyche on immigration of all things. Here's how he opened his story.

So this hunky, swarthy, full-lipped guy in a white cowboy hat is tooling down a country road in a red pickup truck. He comes upon a big tree fallen across both lanes. No problem. He off-roads around the obstacle and cruises on.

On yesterday's "Evening News," CBS reporter Bob Orr's story on a global warming link to the heat wave was cut short due to an overheated satellite truck.

“Just to underline how hot it is, the remote truck that Bob Orr was broadcasting from just overheated and we had to shut it down,” anchor Bob Schieffer explained as the story ended abruptly.

Were I a conspiracy theorist I'd think it was just a gimmick to highlight CBS's slanted coverage of global warming as settled science. While Orr possibly could have included a dissenting view somewhere later in his half-aired report, I somehow doubt it.

Before his report cut off, Orr cited Pew Center climatologist Jay Gulledge, who he said argues there "no longer any serious debate" on global warming.Gulledge also argues that it was pollution that staved off global warming in the 1970s.

A sample of my latest article available at MRC's BusinessandMedia.org. For the full article, click here.:

It’s not every day a politician calls for a 100-percent tax rate on national TV. Even the most liberal-friendly of journalists would be inclined to question such a punitive idea. But when former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich called for such a tax on the “windfall profits” of oil on the July 28 “Early Show,” CBS’s Hannah Storm didn’t even bat an eyelash.

Opening an interview segment with the liberal Rep. Kucinich (D-Ohio) and the libertarian Cato Institute’s Jerry Taylor on the so-called windfall profits tax, Storm asked Kucinich how such a tax would “translate to consumers and help the people who are paying at the pump.”

I dont' know about you, but when I think petroleum industry expert, I think Comedy Central's Jon Stewart.

Okay, I don't, and The Washington Post's Tomoeh Murakami Tse probably doesn't either. But that didn't stop the Post reporter from tossing the liberal comedian into her story on oil profits:

The big numbers have become a popular target of politicians in an election year and fodder for late-night comedians.

On Wednesday, Jon Stewart told his "Daily Show" audience that BP PLC's $7.27 billion profit meant that the British oil giant made $55,000 a minute during the quarter.

"How did they do it? It's not just unmitigated greed. BP's secret is they drill into banks," Stewart said, as the image of a drill boring through a ceiling into a vault popped up on the screen.

Over at the MRC's BusinessandMedia.org today I wrote about ABC's Lisa Stark picking up a Kaiser Fmily Foundation study of how food companies mix advertisements in with kid-friendly online games as marketing gimmicks on their Web sites.

Here's a taste:

...rather than presenting the development as a safer Internet pastime for children then chatting with complete strangers or looking up pornographic Web sites, Stark suggested the advertising development is a danger to children that needs to be regulated.

"On television, there are regulations on marketing to kids, a limit on the amount of ad time on a children’s show for example, but online, it’s wide open,” complained Stark, who went on to conclude her story lamenting the trend was “only likely to get worse.”

I couldn't help but think of the "squeaky voiced teen" recurring character on The Simpsons when I read this story on global warming in today's Los Angeles Times:

Whatever the ultimate scientific truth, this month's weather has been for many Southern Californians a perceptual tipping point that brought home the possibility of global warming, just as the fury of Hurricane Katrina did for the people of New Orleans.

Inside the air-conditioned darkness of the Majestic Crest Theatre in Westwood, Max Furstenau, 18, was cleaning up after Tuesday's 3 p.m. showing of "An Inconvenient Truth," in which former Vice President Al Gore made the case for global warming.

Someone get Lou Dobbs a dictionary. He certainly needs one.

Interviewing the anti-free trade liberal Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) on his July 24 program, Dobbs told viewers his guest was "no protectionist."

Below is an excerpt. You can find the full article of my story at the MRC's BusinessandMedia.org:

“Senator Byron Dorgan is no protectionist. In point of fact, he is calling for expanded markets for U.S. exports,” Dobbs insisted, praising Dorgan for his “critical examination of what this country is doing to itself,” with tax and trade policy.

But Dobbs is confusing his viewers, if not outright insulting their intelligence by insisting Dorgan isn’t for protectionist policies. Dorgan supports various tariffs, including one on foreign sources of ethanol, a fuel additive mandated for gasoline by the EPA.

The Washington Post's Jeff Birnbaum devoted his K Street Confidential column today to liberal Senator Ron Wyden's (D-Ore.) call for a "FairFlat" tax. Birnbaum failed to tell his readers that Wyden's soak-the-rich plan for "reform" co-opts language from two conservative schools of thought on tax reform: the flat tax championed by Steve Forbes and the national sales "Fair Tax" advocated by Rep. John Linder (R-Ga.).

But as the MRC's Business & Media Institute director Dan Gainor also noticed, the Fox News contributor missed Wyden's unfortunate allusion to an infamous Marxist class warrior.

A story in The Washington Post yesterday contained some survey data that bolster an argument the Media Research Center's Business & Media Institute (BMI) has made for years now: the media's negativism on the economy has a strong influence on the public:

Here's what I posted over at BusinessandMedia.org:

The paper sponsored “a survey-based experiment” of “more than 2,500 online respondents” who were “shown a brief news clip before being asked to reply to a series of questions.” The views of respondents on their personal economic well-being were wildly different between survey-takers shown a story on gas prices and respondents shown a story on job growth.

When you're a White House correspondent so far out in left field even Dana "I'm not a hunter but I play one on TV" Milbank fires off a warning shot about your biases, you know you've lost all credibility.

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank today reviewed Hearst columnist Helen Thomas's latest book and found it a "rather unpleasant rehashing of the liberal criticism of the press's performance before the Iraq war."

Far from a right wing armor-bearer -- as numerous NewsBuster posts can attest -- Milbank at least retains a measure of intellectual honesty in reminding Post readers that the Washington press corps was not uncritical of the Bush administration's defense of the war in the lead-up to the March 2003 invasion.

Now look what we've done! The global warming we've caused will ruin Napa Valley wine!

That's what CBS would have you believe as it picked up on a new study arguing pretty much that global warming will wipe out 80 percent of America's vineyards. But other global warming believers doubt the study's conclusions and vintners argue they can keep producing wine in warmer climes with improved technology.

For my full article, click here. Below is an excerpt:

Global warming may doom the Napa Valley, CBS News warned its July 12 “Evening News” audience. Yet correspondent John Blackstone excluded any scientists, including those who otherwise believe in man-made global warming, who warn that new computer models are conclusive or don’t match up against recorded climate patterns.

The media usually leaves Hollywood out of the class warfare it engenders, but NBC's Michael Okwu found a sore spot among union members angry at Hollywood hot shots like George Clooney: Top dollar celebrities pulling down millions to voice over commercial spots.

“Let’s put it this way, there are some people that are making a million dollars an hour,” announcer Tom Kane griped. Okwu told viewers Kane is paid “a lot less.”

“Just go make your movies. Let us do our commercials and no one gets hurt,” Kane told Okwu.

But Kane is far more successful than the average union dues-paying announcer and he himself has starred in a few animated movies.

A look at Kane’s professional Web site and his profile at the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com), tell of a career voicing over television shows, video games, and trailers to movies such as “Booty Call,” “Ice Age 2,” and “Jimmy Neutron.”

Over the past few years, the media have consistently given a vote of no confidence to the U.S. economy, my colleague Amy Menefee wrote over at BusinessandMedia.org yesterday.

Her article shows how disconnected from reality the media are. Her points hit home even harder in light of today's announcement by the Bureau of Economic Analysis that GDP grew at 5.6 percent in the first three months of 2006.

TV journalists have been warning of “stagflation,” a bursting housing bubble, and even “recession,” but consumers are far more confident about the economy than journalists.

The MRC Business & Media Institute's latest study is getting notice in the media.

The Washington Post's Frank Ahrens did a write-up below-the-fold in the business section today.

"Bad Company," the first of a three-part study series on media coverage of the American businessman is available here.

Here's a bit of what Ahrens wrote:

On the heels of last month's conviction of top Enron Corp. executives comes this nugget from the Media Research Center, a conservative television watchdog group that examines programming to determine how certain groups are portrayed. In this study, the group claims that Hollywood unfairly and overwhelmingly casts businessmen and women as "criminal CEOs and murdering MBAs."

Mark Twain once said, "It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress."

Today's Hollywood TV executives would beg to differ. To them there's no distinctly native criminal class except American businessmen.

The Media Research Center's Business & Media Institute is out with our latest study, the first of a three-part series looking at the media's bias against businessmen.

Almost 10 years ago, the Media Research Center’s Business & Media Institute published “Businessmen Behaving Badly,” which found that businessmen on TV committed more crimes than any other demographic. In this new study, BMI looked at 129 episodes from 12 top-rated dramas on the four networks: ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC. These broadcasts were picked from two “sweeps” months in 2005 – May and November – when networks try to attract the largest audiences to maximize ad dollars.

In this look at primetime, BMI found:

• TV Overwhelmingly Negative toward Business: Negative plots about business and businessmen outnumbered positive ones by almost 4-to-1. Of the 39 episodes that included business-related plots or characters, 30 (77 percent) cast businessmen and commerce in a negative light.