Media Business

Yesterday afternoon, the Bloomberg financial news service picked up on a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers showing that U.S. companies pay the sixth highest effective corporate tax rates in the world.

"The tax rate for the largest U.S. companies between 2006 and 2009 was 27.7 percent, compared with a non-U.S. average of 19.5 percent, according to the study," reporter Richard Rubin noted. "Excluding the U.S., companies based in industrialized countries had an average rate of 22.6 percent."

But when the Washington Post picked up the story, it condensed the 15-paragraph Bloomberg story to a two-sentence squib on the Economy & Business page on A17 (see screencap of print edition PDF below):

On Monday evening, the AP reported that a suspicious package destined for Rep. Peter King's (R-N.Y.) Washington congressional office was intercepted at an off-site mail facility and "contained a pig's foot and a note laced with several anti-Semitic references, according to a person with knowledge of the incident who requested anonymity because of the ongoing police investigation."

King, the AP noted, is "[t]he Republican congressman [who] chairs the House Homeland Security panel which held hearings last month on Islamic radicalization."

But a search of Nexis reveals that major newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post failed to report the story. The same appears to be true of the three broadcast networks: ABC, CBS, and NBC. ABCNews.com's "The Note" blog, however, did report the story Monday evening.

Old media is nothing, if not oblivious to its consistently declining popularity among the public at large. This tired, but time-tested pattern of misplacing causes of failure was borne out once again via the recent musings of none other than the soon-to-be-former CBS "Evening News" anchor Katie Couric.

In a Q & A published Monday in the New York Times, interviewer Adam Goldman questioned Couric about why the show she has hosted since September 2006 remains in third place, despite effusive initial plaudits and wall-to-wall marketing. Couric replied (emphasis mine):

I believe we were in third place for 13 years before I got here, and I think habits, particularly with an evening news broadcast, move at a glacial pace. And I think that local news stations have something to do with it.

Apparently, megalomaniacs need schedulers.

Just ask George Soros. The left-wing billionaire is helping fund two major conferences that start on the same day, in two different locations just a three hours apart by car. Two liberal events packed into one long weekend. God created the world in six days. Apparently, Soros, who sees himself as “some kind of god,”needs just a long weekend to start remaking today's world in his image.

The emphasis of both conferences is a familiar one to American voters – change. Soros wants to begin changing the global economy in one event. In the other, his flunkies want to “Change the world. Change the media.”

Now that is change you can believe in. Sadly, those who actually report the news must believe in it because they sure as heck aren’t reporting on Soros or either event. And that’s even though staffers or even executives from Reuters, the Financial Times, NPR, PBS, The Washington Post and other major media outlets are speaking at one event or the other.

The first gathering in Bretton Woods, N.H., is an economic conference Soros once described as “a grand bargain that rearranges the entire financial order.” In October 2009, Soros committed $50 million to the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET). A week later, the glib lefty investor wrote a column calling for a new Bretton Woods event, to recreate the one that helped design the post-WWII economy. Only he wants this one to knock America down a peg or three.

While President Obama has been withdrawn from press scrutiny over his handling of Libya, he's managed to sit down to no less than six local TV interviews this month, with a view to a friendly format focused on issues of concern to his liberal base in swing states.

Washington Post's Peter Wallsten has the story on today's print edition front page (emphases mine):

The liberally-biased mainstream media didn't let a catastrophe go to waste, using the Japanese tsunami as an opportunity to suggest, falsely, that Republicans would like to cut the budget for NOAA in such a way that would threaten the Pacific tsunami warning system.

NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told the audience of last night's "Hannity":

The secular mainstream media often do a shoddy job of accurately reporting on religious news, but this takes the cake.

Writing about how the Rev. James St. George was terminated earlier this month from his post as part-time professor at Chestnut Hill College, the Associated Press insisted the openly gay man "belong[s] to a branch of Catholicism not associated with the Vatican that has different views on gay issues."

The church where St. George is a pastor is "affiliated with the Old Catholic Apostolic Church of America, which vows no discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and performs commitment ceremonies for gays and lesbians," the Associated Press reported.

University of Virginia media professor Siva Vaidhyanathan on Sunday said the Huffington Post is a bigger threat to journalism than Google.

Such occurred during a discussion about the internet behemoth on CNN's "Reliable Sources" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Being consistently pro-union puts one in an awkward position when unions start making some very inconvenient demands. The Huffington Post is learning that lesson the hard way.

On the heels of AOL's $315 million HuffPo buyout - the largest such acquisition in the blogosphere's short history - the Newspaper Guild said the following in a letter to Arianna Huffington (h/t Joe Pompeo):

As we look to the future, we look to you, Arianna Huffington, as a leader in web-based news coverage, to demonstrate your commitment to the value of journalism, and to help prevent independent journalists from having to settle for third-world wages.

In Tuesday's Kansas City Star, reporter Aaron Barnhart revealed that Current TV, the cable channel launched in 2005 by Al Gore, would be the least missed, only managing to be viewed by 18,000 households in the fourth quarter of 2010. Also on the list of "Cable's Least Wanted" were the DIY network, ESPN Classic, Fox Soccer Channel, Logo, and Sleuth.

Despite such abysmal ratings for Current, Barnhart argued that the addition of former MSNBC Countdown host Keith Olbermann to the channel would turn things around: "The good news for Current is that it won’t be counting its audience in the high five figures, at least not when Olbermann is on the air." He later remarked: "Unlike Current, the rest of Cable’s Least Wanted don’t have a ratings savior waiting in the wings."

On Friday's "Fox & Friends," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell and Fox News host Steve Doocy discussed the recent sale of the liberal Huffington Post blog to AOL.

"I'm going to buy popcorn, I'm going to watch this meltdown," a gleeful Bozell told Doocy.

Huffington, who will be editor-in-chief for the new AOL venture, is "not going to get along with anybody," perpetually clashing with AOL executives, Bozell predicted. "It's going to be a complete meltdown, just you watch."

For the full segment, click on the video embed below. For MP3 audio, click here.

"AOL giving control to Arianna Huffington. How the mighty have fallen!" NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell quipped on the February 10 edition of FNC's "Hannity."

"Ten years ago, AOL had 30 million members, they were joining forces with the Time-Warner colossus," the Media Research Center founder noted. Now "they're down to 4 million members and they're at Motel 6 getting into bed with Arianna."

"It's a mess of an organization and they're going to make an even greater mess of it with Arianna. I promise you that," Bozell told Hannity during the program's "Media Mash" segment.

[Video, link to MP3 audio follow page break]

Arianna Huffington's crazy left-wing, pro-Democrat website gets bought out by AOL for $315 million. Professional Angry Man Keith Olbermann follows up by joining Al Gore's deservedly unknown Current TV effort. Before that, decrepit Newsweek was absorbed by one of the lesser liberal lights of the blogosphere - Tina Brown's Daily Beast.

To journalists desperate for a direction - any direction - turning left seems an easy way to go. Forget MSNBC's brief propaganda attempt to "lean forward." That is going nowhere.

Old-style, supposedly neutral journalism is collapsing. Out of the rubble, we are seeing more and more journalists declare themselves to be what we've always known they were - liberal, left-wing, progressive or even "socialist," as MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell admitted late last year.

Faster than a congressman can take off his shirt, journalists have proven every complaint about media bias conservatives have leveled for decades. Yes, journalists are liberal. Yes, they blatantly spin stories to benefit both liberals and Democrats. Yes, hosts like Chris Matthews play "Hardball" with conservatives and play a thrill-ing game of slo-pitch softball with their Democrat buddies.

While both CBS's Early Show and ABC's Good Morning America identified The Huffington Post as a liberal blog when discussing AOL purchasing the web site for $315 million, on NBC's Today, news reader Ann Curry simply described it as an "online news site" co-founded by "pundit" Arianna Huffington.

On Good Morning America, news reader JuJu Chang referred to The Huffington Post as a "top-ten news site" but accurately described it as being "co-founded by liberal commentator Arianna Huffington." The Early Show's Jeff Glor did not label the blog a news site at all and was the most direct in pointing out its ideological slant: "Huffington Post, a left-leaning site, was founded in 2005."

Editor's Note: Following news reports today that AOL News would pay $315 million to acquire The Huffington Post, NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center president Brent Bozell issued the following statement:

This proves AOL News has lost its mind. They must be in such dire straits that they’ve been blinded by the millions and think an acquisition of The Huffington Post is worth sacrificing credibility and objectivity. AOL News is fooling only itself in thinking there is no journalistic conflict in merging with a hate-filled, vicious, radically left-wing rag.

A pair of updates below the fold.

AOL News announced Monday that it has chugged the Kool Aid and put Arianna Huffington in charge of the new Huffington Post Media Group. AOL will pay $315 million for the site, making it the blogosphere's largest ever acquisition.

Decisions to name Huffington president and editor in chief and to brand the new company with the Huffington Post name suggest that AOL has fully embraced a leftist spin on the news.

Elections have consequences. In the realm of media regulation, the 2008 election meant increased influence for proponents of so-called media "localism." The increased influence of localism at the FCC bore itself out in the recently-approved Comcast/NBC merger.

As a hypothetical, "localism" is relatively innocent. But in practice, it essentially amounts to a back-door mechanism for media regulation, which is why the FCC's most left-wing member, Michael Copps, has been an outspoken advocate of localism as part of his proposed "public value test."

Yesterday the pro-life activists at Live Action released a video of a sting operation they conducted at a Planned Parenthood office in New Jersey. The video clearly shows the office manager giving counsel to a couple posing as pimp and prostitute who claimed to have minors employed as prostitutes, some from out of the country.

The edited video presentation can be found here and the unedited footage can be found here.

Yet despite the shocking content of the video, neither ABC, NBC, nor CBS covered the story in their February 1 evening news programs. Likewise the February 2 "Good Morning America," "Today," and "CBS Early Show" also failed to cover the story.

Editor's Note: The following is a brief statement released by NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center (MRC) president Brent Bozell earlier today regarding MSNBC firing Keith Olbermann.

It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. Olbermann was a failure because he was vicious, insulting and off-the-charts liberal. And they replaced him with Lawrence O'Donnell, who is Olbermann but without talent. It is absolutely guaranteed that MSNBC will sink even lower. This network is clueless.

Links to related content follow the page break:

Managing Editor's Note: Media Research Center President Brent Bozell issued the following statement after a thorough, two-day review of how the media have covered the tragic shooting in Arizona.

Implicating a conservative tie to this heinous act of violence or to Jared Lee Loughner, who is no conservative, is nothing short of a naked campaign to criminalize conservative thought.

Sadly, those who point their finger are at the nexus of hypocrisy. Take the unidentified “veteran Democratic strategist” who told Politico that, ‘they need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers … Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people.’

In his January 4 article, "Why Journalists Aren't Standing Up for WikiLeaks," Newsweek's Ben Adler offers three reasons, the first of which is quite risible given the media's persistent advocacy for ObamaCare in the year past:

So why are American journalists hesitant to speak up for Assange? There are essentially three reasons.

 

1. Refusal to engage in advocacy: American journalists, unlike many of their foreign counterparts, have a strong commitment to objectivity and nonpartisanship...

A major staff shakeup has occurred on the CBS Early Show. Starting January 3, current co-hosts Harry Smith and Maggie Rodriguez, along with weatherman Dave Price, will all be replaced. Saturday Early Show co-host Chris Wragge and the broadcast's current news reader Erica Hill will take over for Smith and Rodriguez, while former ABC weather person Marysol Castro will take the place of Price.

Associated Press television writer David Bauder reported the changes on Tuesday, noting: "CBS News is completely overhauling 'The Early Show' to give the broadcast team a fresh look." The network morning show has long trailed in the ratings, consistently coming in a distant third compared to NBC's Today and ABC's Good Morning America.