Gannett

USA Today's Web site features an Associated Press report with the headline "Housing starts, jobless claims in good shape."  For the many readers who just scan headlines, that sounds encouraging.  Yet by the second paragraph the article notes "that construction of single-family homes and apartments dipped 1.1% in July compared with June. . ."  And by the third paragraph:

Housing has been making a modest comeback this year. But even with the gains, the rate of construction and the level of permits remain only about half the 1.5 million annual rate considered healthy.

How pathetic is this?

It was reported Saturday that 25 Gannett Wisconsin Media journalists have been reprimanded for signing petitions to recall Republican Governor Scott Walker:

"Is it safe?"

That famous line from the movie "Marathon Man" comes to mind when considering the attitude of Ohio Congressman Zack Space about ObamaCare. Back in January, after Space caught heat for voting for the House version  of ObamaCare in November, he decided it was safe to "boldly" express his opposition to the Senate bill on the heels of Nancy Pelosi declaring it DOA at the time. Here is what Space had to say in January as recorded in your humble correspondent's NewsBusters blog:

U.S. Rep. Zack Space said Thursday he plans to oppose the health care bill passed by the U.S. Senate.

He made the announcement shortly after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the national media she didn't think she had the votes to pass the bill.

It is a strange paradigm among much of the mainstream  media that plummeting poll numbers are of far greater import for Republicans than  they are for Democrats. That, at least, is the logical conclusion of the relative silence of major media outlets on the steep decline in President Obama's poll numbers compared with the decline in President Bush's.

According to an Allstate/National Journal poll released Wednesday, 50 percent of Americans would vote against President Obama if the presidential elections were held today. Only 39 percent say they would vote to re-elect the president.

But so far, this stunning development--given the President's sky-high approval ratings upon entering office--has gone seemingly unnoticed by the major television networks and most prominent print publications. Aside from some prominent blogs (whose coverage is by no means substandard), the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the Washington Examiner are so far the only major outlets to report on the poll, according to a google news search (as of 2:00 PM).

The USA Weekend supplement in many Sunday newspapers across the country carried a tiny report from academe this weekend on the question "Are you easily disgusted?" Vi-An Nguyen explained that if you are, then you’re probably a conservative:

Imagine taking a sip from your drink, only to realize that it belongs to a stranger. Grossed out? If so, then you may be a conservative thinker.

High "disgust sensitivity," or a tendency to react strongly to things you think are gross, can predict political conservatism, researchers say. Less turned off? That could indicate more liberal views.

Two recent studies link disgust sensitivity with conservative attitudes on gay marriage and abortion. In one, 181 participants were tested for how they'd react to unpleasant situations, such as finding an unflushed toilet in a public restroom. Then they were asked about their political leanings. Researchers found a correlation between being easily disgusted and politically conservative.

The news that the Gannett Company--the nation’s largest newspaper publisher, flagship USA Today--is forcing thousands of its employees to take unpaid leave is the latest, shocking, evidence of the ill health of the old media.

But for present purposes, let's focus on this odd nugget: Gannett has informed its employees that pursuant to federal and state law, they [emphasis added]:

must not work while on an unpaid leave. That includes reading or responding to e-mails, calling or responding to calls from colleagues and being on site at your location at any time during your furlough days.

Can't you just imagine the scenario?  A conscientious furloughed Gannett employee is at home trying to stay current by reading some emails, when suddenly comes a battering at the door: "FBI!  Put down the mouse and step slowly away from your computer!"

In yet another example of post-election continuing BDS (that's, er, "Bush Derangement Syndrome," natch) the Detroit Free Press's Rochelle Riley has called upon Speaker Nancy Pelosi to begin impeachment proceedings against George Bush "for [the] economy's sake."

Pelosi wouldn’t have to start from scratch: Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the bravest member of Congress, introduced legislation 11 months ago to impeach the president and vice president. Last January, the House gave a first reading of one of those articles of impeachment. Our own Rep. John Conyers, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, joined 38 other representatives to sponsor HR 635, which would form a committee to look into whether there are grounds for impeachment. Revive that effort!

Last week, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-New York, submitted a resolution demanding that Bush stop issuing “pre-emptive pardons of senior officials in his administration during the final 90 days of office.”

On PBS's Web site today, ombudsman Michael Getler writes of complaints over an incident during last Sunday's pledge drive.  He describes the cheap shot taken by actor Mike Farrell against vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin:

According to Joseph Campbell, vice president of fundraising programs, here's what happened:

On The Situation Room today, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer made a surprising admission to, of all people, real estate entrepreneur Donald Trump:

BLITZER: What do you think of his (Obama's) decision to pick Joe Biden as his running mate?

TRUMP: I really don't know Senator Biden but I know one thing. He's run a number of times for president. He's gotten less than 1 percent of the vote each time. And that's a pretty tough thing. You know, he's also been involved in pretty big controversy like plagiarism in college and various other things. That's a pretty big statement. So perhaps you change over a period of time. But when you plagiarize, that's a very bad statement. That hasn't been brought up yet, but I'm sure at some point it will. I'm sure that Sarah Palin will bring it up in a debate or somebody's going to bring it up.

BLITZER: Are you talking about plagiarism when he was running for president?

TRUMP: No, I'm talking about when he was a college student as I understand it, and this was a big issue originally but he supposedly plagiarized as a college student. That's a pretty serious charge.

BLITZER: I don't remember that. We'll check it out. But maybe you obviously have a better memory about that.

 On CNN's American Morning today, White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux reported on Barack Obama's campaigning in Virginia.  Afterwards, anchor Kiran Chetry had a question:

CHETRY: All right. And Suzanne, what's on tap for the campaign today? And please tell me it's not lipstick again.

MALVEAUX: Let's hope not. He's going to be in Norfolk, Virginia. That is in southeast Virginia, and it's home to the world's largest Naval base. It's one of the most competitive areas that the Democrats and Republicans are fighting over. It's a critical piece of property, piece of land there with folks in Virginia, and they want those voters.

Rarely do the media put their institutional political bias on public display, but this past weekend, America's news industry titans left no doubt that they're fully behind one of the nation's most radical cultural and political movements. 

ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, Fox, NBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the corporate owners of USA Today, the Miami Herald, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Sacramento Bee, The Dallas Morning News and many other newspapers, all spent thousands of dollars sponsoring the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association convention in Washington, D.C.  Many journalists from these Big Media mainstays attended or spoke at the convention. 

In the name of "diversity," all the organizations listed above ran recruiting booths, as did NPR.  Thus, the nation's major news providers demonstrated that they have bought into the central proposition of homosexual activists: that people engaging in homosexuality or bisexuality, along with transsexuals, are a historically oppressed minority group deserving the same preferential treatment and legal protections that society provides to ethnic minorities and women.

In an article that is otherwise fairly balanced, Delaware's biggest daily, the Wilmington News Journal, proclaims in a headline today that senior Senator Joe Biden has a "Tangled tongue, but a civil record," with the sub-header "Biden's bloopers don't jibe with his votes."

Sen. Joe Biden sees black supporters as his base and maintains a stellar voting record with the NAACP.

But he's also gotten in trouble for comments involving race or ethnicity.

Biden's supporters say the apparent gaffes are merely examples of his unscripted style, which they admire. Others say he should be more aware of how his words come across.

Most recently, Biden drew a comparison between the nation's capital and Iowa that suggested to some he was blaming Washington's large minority population for its low-performing schools.

A Nashville blogger thinks he's spotted clear evidence of conservative editorial bias on the part of the Tennessean, Nashville's Gannett-owned daily. The evidence: the paper balances a slate of syndicated national conservative columnists with some local liberal columnists.

Every day, the paper runs a column by such stalwart, nationally syndicated conservative pundits as Charles Krauthammer, Cal Thomas, Mona Charen, Michelle Malkin, or Thomas Sowell. Nearly every one of these right-leaning columns sounds like something right out of Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly. There is a relentless, liberal-bashing bias to all of these columns. ... And how does the Tennessean balance these conservative screeds? What nationally syndicated columnists of equal stature does our sole remaining daily newspaper offer?