New Yorker

Excusing Wright, Part I: AIDS Conspiracy Theory a Media 'Red Herring'

By Tim Graham | May 4, 2008 - 08:57 ET

PBS talk show host Charlie Rose turned to the Reverend Wright issue on Wednesday night. Former New York Times music critic Kelefa Sanneh insisted the fuss over Wright comments like the government inventing AIDS for black genocide were a "red herring," that when you look at Wright’s old speeches and books, "there’s not much in there that’s hugely controversial," and even when he gets political, "he’s not making wildly controversial statements by and large." Sanneh also seemed to insist blacks couldn’t be racists.

Sanneh began by insisting that the Wright issue is being overblown, because there were radical things that Martin Luther King said that "would generate enormous controversy today." (Brent Bozell touched on that, the 1967 King speech at Riverside Church alleging both white and black American soldiers were brutalizing Vietnamese civilians.) But Rose was tough enough to respond: "But I want to know what that [King speech] was that’s equivalent to saying AIDS is a government conspiracy to kill black children?"

'Not Easy Being Green,' Seattle P-I Blogger Complains

By Ken Shepherd | February 29, 2008 - 13:46 ET

"It's not easy being green" isn't just the lament of Kermit the Frog, it's the dilemma of carbon-crunching greeniacs everywhere.

At least that's the sanctimonious cri de coeur of Seattle Post-Intelligencer blogger Curt Milton:

What's your carbon footprint? How much carbon does your lifestyle emit every year? Can you reduce your carbon footprint?

Thanks to Al Gore (and a lot of other forward-thinking people), carbon is on everyone's mind. The more carbon we emit, the more the Earth's atmosphere heats up. And that, as we all know, is a bad thing.

But, as Michael Specter writes in the Feb. 25 New Yorker, reducing your carbon footprint isn't that easy. And what seem like simple solutions (eating food that is grown close to home) aren't always the best ideas when the whole carbon equation is considered.

Author That Dubbed Clinton ‘First Black President’ Endorses Obama

By Noel Sheppard | January 28, 2008 - 11:40 ET

The fun in the Obama camp continues.

On Monday, the author who in the middle of the Monica Lewinsky scandal back in 1998 actually dubbed Bill Clinton as "our first black president"  endorsed Barack Obama.

Honestly, you really can't make this stuff up.

As deliciously reported by the Associated Press moments ago:

ABC Story Covers NB, Media Matters: Guess Which It Fails to Interview?

By Mark Finkelstein | August 22, 2007 - 05:29 ET

Update with video posted below fold.

File this one under the rubric "Unintentionally Revealing Moments of MSM Bias." ABC publishes an article about media watchdog groups and singles out two for mention: NewsBusters and Media Matters. But the article goes on to cite the work of and publish comments by a representative of only one of those groups. Which one do you think it was?

Yesterday, ABC posted an article by its Samantha Wenders entitled The Camera Is Always Watching: The Internet Has Helped Citizens Play 'Gotcha' With the Press; Is That a Good Thing?"

Wrote Wenders: "Media watchdog groups like the conservative Newsbusters and the liberal Media Matters regularly post examples of what they see as bias in the media."

New Yorker Tagged for 'Falsehoods,' 'Mis-readings,' and 'Errors' in Pope Article

By Dave Pierre | April 29, 2007 - 20:42 ET

The New Yorker is "a magazine that is not seriously edited," writes George Weigel in his latest column ("The New Yorker spins the pope"). Weigel reached his stinging conclusion after examining a recent article ("The Pope and Islam") from Jane Kramer, who pens a "Letter From Europe" feature for the magazine. In addition to citing the piece for falsehoods, mis-readings and errors, Weigel zaps Kramer's article as a "lengthy tantrum" and "a wailing wall for left-leaning Vaticanisti, disgruntled Curial bureaucrats, and Italian Catholic activists unhappy with Benedict XVI's challenge to Islam."