Magazines

While sitting in the dentist office Wednesday afternoon I could not escape liberal media bias as I picked up the June edition of Scientific American Magazine and found that President Obama was honored as being one of ten people "who have recently demonstrated outstanding commitment to assuring that the benefits of new technologies and knowledge will accrue to humanity."

The ‘Scientific American 10' list that featured the President included an article by Sally Lehrman, who praised Obama’s commitment to science: "After eight long years in exile, scientists have been enthusiastically welcomed back into the White House. In the first few months of his administration, President Barack Obama acted with remarkable speed to place science at the center of policymaking on climate change, energy, health care and research funding. He wiped away science-averse policies."

Lehrman later explained the consideration that went into placing Obama on the list:

For all the bluster from the Left during the Bush administration about the doctrine of preemptive warfare, it seems at least one journalist favors the doctrine adapted for use within the U.S. justice system to prevent lone-wolf terroristic violence.

U.S. News & World Report contributor and PBS "To the Contrary" host Bonnie Erbe on June 11 sounded a decidedly authoritarian note in a Thomas Jefferson Street blog post in which she called for "rounding up" hatemongers like James von Brunn or Scott Roeder before they turn violent.

Oddly enough, Erbe -- who has always favored Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama  -- seems to suggest that the president's former pastor might be such a killer-in-waiting:

The June issue of Glamour magazine has an article on women’s "racy fantasies" and it wouldn’t be complete without Barack Obama sex dreams. (The same trend was highlighted in the media about Bill Clinton in the early years.) One woman offered her Obama dream, complete with punchline:

I have this fantasy where I’m with Barack Obama at my parents’ house. We’re both naked, and he’s giving me a full-body massage. Suddenly my father appears and says "How could you do that?" And no kidding: In my dream, Obama replies, "I’m serving my constituents." -- Nicki, 34

Glamour’s Serena Kim then counsels Nicki on why she could be having this fantasy:

"A lot women have told me they dream about our President," says [psychologist Michelle] Callahan. "He’s a star, and people fantasize about celebs whether they’re married or not."

You know the saying, "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging"? It seems liberal journalist Bonnie Erbe either never heard it, or just doesn't care.

Yesterday I noted how the PBS "To the Contrary" host denounced Playboy writer Guy Cimbalo's list of 10 conservative women he's like to "hate-f***," only to hint that she thought syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin deserved to be degraded by the nudie mag writer.

Today, the U.S. News & World Report contributing editor took to her Thomas Jefferson Street blog to take on conservative blogger Gateway Pundit for supposedly distorting her argument. You see, Erbe insists, she never said she thinks Malkin would have it coming to be raped, only that she has it coming to be viciously and obscenely degraded by some loser writing for a softcore porn mag:

Updated below

It was wrong of Playboy to publish a top ten list of conservative women its writer Guy Cimbalo would like to "hate-f***" but, c'mon, we all know Michelle Malkin had it coming. That's the gist of PBS "To the Contrary" host and U.S. News contributing editor Bonnie Erbe's June 3 blog post, "Playboy Mix of Sex, Hate, and Politics Demeans Conservative Women" (emphasis mine):

Yesterday, I was contacted by the executive director of SmartGirlPolitics.org, a conservative women's website, to stand up for conservative women treated despicably by the media. Here I am, doing just that.... A couple of caveats are in order. First, I probably disagree politically with much of SmartGirlPolitics.org's agenda--I know I disagree completely with the group's position on abortion rights. But as a nonpartisan, I'm also a firm believer in supporting all members of my gender when attacked due to their gender. I am supporting these women herewith.

This isn’t your father’s business and financial weekly.

Looking for ten successful companies? Then look no further than the main story of the June 1 edition of “Barron’s.” With Michelle Obama splashed on the front cover, “Barron’s” created the “The Michelle Index,” a list of ten companies that “offer superior value.” The list is named in honor of Obama, “whose championing of brands that offer good value reflects a nationwide trend.”

It should come as no surprise that a business publication would display business sense get it’s share of the Michelle Obama love-fest. From the time her husband took office in January to March 10, she appeared on seven magazine covers, and there have been more since then. This was the same person, after all, who became the first person to share a cover on Oprah Winfrey’s magazine, “O”.

UPDATED below: Politico removes item, writer explains/apologizes decision to highlight the list.

Yesterday, Playboy writer Guy Cimbalo published a top ten list of conservative women against whom he would like to commit vulgar and violent sexual acts. His piece, which has since been removed by the skin mag's Web site, was actually promoted to conservative sites like NewsBusters by Playboy's PR people (see editor's note at bottom of the post). Cimbalo's hate-filled and misogynistic write-up drew the condemnation of many conservatives and even some liberals.

Yet Anne Schroeder Mullins of Politico.com remains unimpressed and disturbingly amused by Playboy's sick hit list. She was so amused in fact that she playfully white-washed Cimbalo's violent sexual rhetoric as the "lighter side of politics." But what if the tables where turned in this story?

Ira who?

The establishment media is saying almost nothing about the man who co-founded Earth Day, and who also happens to be in jail for life for murder. Arlen Specter's involvement with the Ira Einhorn case is an important event in the party-switching Senator's career that curious readers would want to know about -- if the establishment media cared to note it.

You know they would be bringing out similar stories quite prominently if they existed about a Democratic senator switching parties. Look at what the Associated Press and the Democratic Party (but I repeat myself) laid on Joe Lieberman in 2006 ("AP Labels Joe Lieberman 'Democrats' Public Enemy No. 1'") -- and he's still considered a reliable Democratic vote.

Time Magazine recounted the sordid case history in 1997; it's a read the whole awful thing piece if there ever was one.

But before excerpting Time, let's look at two of the earlier paragraphs at John J. Miller's related National Review piece in April 2004, written days before Specter barely withstood an aggressive GOP primary challenge from then-Congressman Pat Toomey:

A few days ago Noel Sheppard brought to us the story of yet another example of how the star struck media is fawning over President Obama. But, when the story first broke of the photo of that lean, swimsuit wearing Obama gracing the cover of the next issue of Washingtonian Magazine, it wasn't immediately realized that the photo itself was a photoshoppped image of the president and not in its original form.

But not soon after the image of the cover was released folks began to realize what had happened. It turns out that Washingtonian Magazine made several photoshop alterations to the Obama image to enhance it to make it more pleasing to look upon. So, the main question centers on whether it's ethical to photoshop the image of the president for a news story?

I suppose, though, if you want your Obammessiah to look his best, why not use all the tools at your disposal... even if they are a tad unethical.

"Dr. Laura Schlessinger is an Elitist, a Hypocrite, and Flat Out Wrong," reads abortion monger Bonnie Erbe's April 10 blog headline.

The PBS "To the Contrary" host and contributing editor to U.S. News & World Report launched into a four-paragraph attack on the author and conservative radio host, and as usual, she not only breathed left-wing fire at a conservative target, she was factually inaccurate (paragraph breaks removed, emphasis mine):

I said earlier this year (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) that there was reason to believe that 2009 might be the year of the newspaper bailout.

Now one of Maryland's two Democratic US senators thinks he has come up with a way to subsidize and save them -- while simultaneously turning them into house organs for his party.

Ben Cardin (picture at right is from his Senate web site) has introduced "The Newspaper Revitalization Act," would accomplish the just-described goals by allowing papers to convert themselves into not-for-profit entities, providing them tax breaks, and .... prohibiting editorials.

Those who know establishment media reporting know that editorial commentary will then become the sole province of left-leaning beat reporters pretending to be strictly fact-based in their supposedly straight news stories and "analyses," while traditional newspaper editorials, which against all odds still seem to lean barely to the right when averaged out nationwide, will disappear.

Here's how Thomas Ferraro of Reuters describes what Cardin has cooked up:

A leading HIV researcher -- and self-described liberal -- defends what the pope has said recently about condoms and AIDS.

I won't hold my breath for the secular mainstream media to notice, but that's what Christianity Today magazine reported on March 20 with its publication of an e-mail interview between deputy managing editor Tim Morgan and the director of Harvard's AIDS Prevention Research Project, Edward C. Green:

[Morgan]: Is Pope Benedict being criticized unfairly for his comments about HIV and condoms?

[Dr. Green]: This is hard for a liberal like me to admit, but yes, it's unfair because in fact, the best evidence we have supports his comments — at least his major comments, the ones I have seen.

Green went on to say that, at least as far as African countries are concerned, Pope Benedict is correct that condom promotion doesn't lessen the AIDS problem (emphases mine):

Perhaps it was her attack on his NBC "Football Night In America" colleague Keith Olbermann that spurred this reaction. But, for whatever reason, Sports Illustrated columnist Peter King dedicated a paragraph to conservative heroine Ann Coulter in the unlikeliest of places.

King, without citing the specific instance, aimed his attack at Coulter in his March 16 "Monday Morning QB" Sports Illustrated.com column. It made No. 10, Section b in the article headline "Ten Things I Think I Think."

Notes: This first appeared in today's Human Events.   We first reported this on March 11th.

A Gust of Hot Air (America)

It's official -- what we the sentient public, doctor and dentist patients in waiting rooms across America and the eight diehards still subscribing have long known: Newsweek is a horrendously biased left-wing rag. 

Newsweek announced on Tuesday that they are partnering with liberal radio uber-failure Air America to syndicate their show Newsweek On Air.  They are the first outside "talent" to join with the newly rechristened Air America Media (AAM). 

Longtime Newsweek On Air producer and host and Newsweek Contributing Editor David Alpern said of the conjoining, "AAM Syndication is a great partner for Newsweek On Air. We look forward to maintaining the same high-quality content, balance, and listener interest that has won our program various awards and a place on so many station schedules, some for nearly all of its 27 years on the air."

After more than a quarter century of their "balanced" programming, I would venture to guess that most of you have never heard of Newsweek On Air.  This state of anonymity will likely continue with their Air America Media partnership.  It seems they sought to collaborate with an entity whose listenership mirrors their readership - minimal and declining rapidly.

Prominent hurricane forecaster Dr. William M. Gray, a professor at Colorado State University, appeared at The Heartland Institute's 2009 International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC) in New York on March 11 to elaborate on his theory that a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures related to the salinity (the amount of salt) in ocean water was responsible for some global warming that has taken place.

Gray also distributed a document containing a scathing critique of Dr. James Hansen, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who is widely known for his outspokenness on the issue of manmade global warming. Gray's document criticized the American Meteorological Society (AMS), an organization that issues a "seal of approval" to broadcast meteorologists, for awarding Hansen the 2009 Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal.

Imagine a partnership between the owners of the Titanic and the Hindenburg, and you've pretty much got the brilliance behind Newsweek's newly-announced alliance with Air America.

"[G]iven the respective ratings, it’s an outstanding business decision. Clearly, Newsweek wanted a radio partner whose listenership mirrors their readership -- minimal and declining rapidly," quipped Media Research Center President Brent Bozell in a statement released today.

The announced radio partnership comes the same week Newsweek used its cover art and the accompanying story to bash conservative radio talk icon Rush Limbaugh, the ideological nemesis of his ratings-challenged competition at Air America. 

"The 'News' in Newsweek has always been a joke," but now the weekly magazine's partnership with the "uber-liberal" Air America radio network "removes all doubt," added the NewsBusters publisher, reacting to news that Air America will syndicate "Newsweek On Air" on its stations. 

Time magazine is clearly dispensing with "news" reporting this week. Michael Grunwald started his article "How to Spend the Stimulus" with this sentence: "It's hard to take Republican leaders too seriously when they criticize the recovery plans for the economy; it's sort of like those geese criticizing the evacuation plans for US Airways Flight 1549."

That would be the geese that were ground into the jet engines of the airliner that crash-landed in the Hudson River.

Clearly impressed with his own comic stylings, Grunwald continued: "Their critiques seem even more comical when you see their alternatives. They warn that President Obama's stimulus package will explode the debt – so they want to make George W. Bush's debt-exploding tax cuts permanent. They say Democratic spending plans are full of pork – then they propose an extra $24 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal equivalent of Oscar Mayer. Let's just say their idea bank could use a bailout."

Newsweek Magazine, referred to frequently by yours truly as "Newsweak," is deliberately shrinking its circulation base by half, in effect giving up on its formerly mass audience, and going through a top-to-bottom redesign.

As is the case with its fellow declining competitor Time, it never occurs to these people that their legacy of bias, double standards, and inexplicable sloppiness have chased away so many readers that whatever business model they adopt won't work without an accompanying fundamental philosophical shift towards fairness, balance, and due diligence that is nowhere on the horizon. In Newsweak's case, all you need to remember is the "Quran flush" debacle of 2005 and Drudge's trumping Michael Isikoff on Monica Lewinsky in 1998 (with plenty of other examples in between and ever since, as you can see by typing "newsweek" at the Media Research Center's search page).

Here are excerpts from a New York Times puff piece on the magazine's plans (the picture at the top right is from that story), including a bizarre new "feature" straight from the "Can't Make This Stuff Up" Department (in bold at the end):

Updated below: CT editor responds to NewsBusters.

Evangelical magazine Christianity Today is using the term "anti-abortion," rather than "pro-life," to refer to a CatholicVote.com ad which NBC has refused to air during the Super Bowl. (h/t @pdavidy8)

The term "anti-abortion" isn't used by reporter Sarah Pulliam in the body of her article posted at CTliveblog, but it is used in her January 30 article's headline -- Anti-Abortion Super Bowl Ad Rejected by NBC -- on the magazine's Twitter page (see screencap at right).

By using "anti-abortion" in its headline, Christianity Today appears to be following the lead of the Associated Press. The AP calls for the term "anti-abortion instead of pro-life and abortion rights instead of pro-abortion or pro-choice" in its Stylebook. AP goes further and frowns on the term "abortionist," saying it "connotes a person who performs clandestine abortions," so a reporter should "use a term such as abortion doctor or abortion practitioner," it counsels.

While many journalists and news agencies outside the AP follow the Stylebook, including (for the most part) this organization, they are free to supercede the manual where they see fit. For example, our very own NewsBusters Style Guide has this mandate for our contributors:

James Lovelock (picture is from his web site) has been the topic of at least three previous NewsBusters posts:

• In September 2006, Dan Gainor marveled at how the Washington Post could devote 2,400 words to Lovelock and his "Gaia Theory" -- the idea that the earth acts like a living organism. 
• In October 2007, Gainor noted Lovelock's appearance in that esteemed scientific publication Rolling Stone, which called him "The Prophet of Climate Change." Lovelock claimed that global warming is irreversible, and that, as stated by writer Jeff Goodell, "the Earth's population will be culled from today's 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million."
• A March 2008 post by Jeff Poor told readers that Lovelock, in the UK Daily Mail, had apparently moved up his disaster scenario by 60 years, among other things predicting that by 2040 China would be uninhabitable.

Lovelock clearly isn't the go-to guy for cool, calm, and collected science. But given his standing with many environmentalists, his views of certain aspects of environmentalism are worthy of attention. They are profoundly negative, as recorded in the January 24 issue of New Scientist by "Gaia Vince," where Lovelock also proposes a last-ditch strategy for saving the planet and salvaging several hundred million more survivors:

On Monday, both The New York Times and The Washington Post noticed a long-simmering trend: Time and Newsweek have increasingly abandoned news reporting in favor of being more opinionated "thought leaders." In the Post, reporter Howard Kurtz bluntly declared, "The rival editors are turning out weeklies that are smaller, more serious, more opinionated and, though they are loath to admit it, more liberal."

Newsweek editor Jon Meacham and Time editor Rick Stengel didn’t want to admit a bias. "I'm not ideologically driven by any means," claimed Meacham. "I'm really conscious of trying to be fair and balanced," argued Stengel, although Kurtz noted he was at one time an aide to the Bill Bradley 2000 presidential campaign.

Now that Barack Obama is assuming the presidency, partisan criticism is suddenly so passé.  Just ask Chris Matthews. In the course of cheerleading anchoring the MSNBC coverage of Hillary Clinton's confirmation hearing today, Matthews suggested that the media shouldn't cover the Republican National Committee's criticism of Clinton. 

The comments came during the Hardball host's chat with Newsweek's Jonathan Alter.  A few minutes earlier, Matthews had assured us that those who had the privilege of knowing Hillary personally were aware of what a "wonderful" person she is.  Then it was time to attack Republicans for refusing to join the Hillary love-fest.

View video here.

Well, it seems that the folks at Vanity Fair realized that they won't have George W. Bush to kick around any more. So they decided to launch the journalistic equivalent of thermonuclear war against him in an attempt to get its shot at a "draft of history."

In a 14 web-page tome (the photo at the top right is at its beginning) that fancies itself an "oral history," the magazine hauls out every criticism, real or imagined, hurled at the president during the past eight years. It reminds everyone that the media's favorite stereotype of conservatives and Republicans is that they're dumb (I guess Ike's orchestration of D-Day was some kind of accident, and George W. Bush's MBA -- he is the first president to hold one -- was some kind of gift from Poppy).

Sadly, the magazine finds a few former administration officials to pile on. One of them likens Bush to Sarah Palin (that's supposed to be an insult). We're left with the long-discredited meme of Dick Cheney as puppet master and Bush as impotent since Katrina (then how did Bush get that Iraq Surge past everyone and make it stick anyway?).

All you really need to know to spare yourself a truly painful read is what is in the tease paragraph after the headline. Brace yourself:

ABC can't be so naive as to believe it wasn't a carefully calculated publicity stunt.  Surely the good folks at Good Morning America know it was anything but an invasion of privacy--that the Clintons wanted the world to see the image of a blissfully happy married couple tripping the sand fantastic. And yet .  . .

GMA devoted a segment this morning to a collective tongue clicking in concern that the Obamas' privacy is being invaded by photographs taken during their current vacation in Hawaii. To lend historicial perspective, other instances of photograhic invasions of presidential privacy were aired, including the image displayed here.  According to ABC's Yungi de Nies, who narrated the segment, the photographic invasion of vacation time was "something the Clintons had to get used to.  They were spotted dancing in the sand on one vacation."  "Spotted"?  I suppose. In the same sense streakers are "spotted" running across football fields.

View video here.

Let's let Kate O'Beirne, in a 2005 column in the National Review, tell the real story behind the Clintons' careful mise-en-scène:

In his December 19 blog post, "You too can be a spiritual dilettante," Get Religion contributor Douglas LeBlanc shared his bemusement with self-admitted atheist Sally Quinn's helpful suggestions to Newsweek/Washington Post's "On Faith" readers about interfaith dialogue. LeBlanc noted that Quinn gave her readers this assignment:

Try a new faith (or non-faith) for one day. That exploration can include attending a different place of worship or an event hosted by another faith tradition, discussing faith with someone whose views differ from your own, or inviting someone of a different faith to experience yours.

Then come back to the site and tell us about your experience. What did you learn? What surprised you? What bothered you? What would you like to know more about? How did you experience with another faith impact your understanding of or appreciation for that faith or for your own? Take a picture and share that too.

That's when LeBlanc turned on the snark, lambasting Quinn as out of touch with religious Americans who most certainly are politely engaged in theological conversations with friends, family and neighbors on a regular basis (emphasis mine):

"The way they wrote this story... it's an embarrassment. If you go to the Obama for President site, you won't see the kind of language that Time magazine put in a news story," Media Research Center president Brent Bozell told viewers of the December 17 "Hannity & Colmes." [audio available here]

Appearing live via satellite from the MRC's new state-of-the-art studio, Bozell scoffed at writer David Von Drehle's syrupy write-up:

Look at this quote. I mean, [Democratic strategist] Kirsten [Powers] says that they're flowery. Get this: "We are all accustomed to that Obi-wan Kenobi calm, though we may never entirely understand it." What they hell are they talking about?!

Shortly after dismissing the Bible as archaic and "lukewarm" on marriage, Newsweek's Lisa Miller waxed poetic about it as a "powerful" "living document", essentially suggesting that religious conservatives who consider Scripture to be the inerrant, eternally true decrees of God Himself have a lower view of the Bible than religious liberals:

Biblical literalists will disagree, but the Bible is a living document, powerful for more than 2,000 years because its truths speak to us even as we change through history. In that light, Scripture gives us no good reason why gays and lesbians should not be (civilly and religiously) married—and a number of excellent reasons why they should.

Perhaps ignorant of the biblical warning against double-mindedness (James 1:5-8) four paragraphs earlier Miller began her treatise by misrepresenting and then scoffing at the Bible's teachings on sex and marriage, confusing human sinfulness for biblical teaching and Jesus and the Apostle Paul's teachings for a virtual loathing of marriage:

In only the latest example of how out of touch Newsweek magazine truly is with reality, the magazine Web site's Conventional Wisdom feature for December 5 praised an institution with lower poll numbers than outgoing President George W. Bush.

That's right, Newsweek gave a back-slap to the Democratic Congress for doing what it does best: preachy grandstanding, particularly in service of left-wing economic lunacy such as fresh mandates for "green" technology from Detroit:

CongressIn giving the Big Three the hairy eyeball, Capitol Hill seems to have suddenly rediscovered what oversight means 

Some wag dubbed the Prius the "Pious," for the smug self-righteousness of its greener-than-thou owners.  CNBC ran a segment this morning highlighting an even pricier form of conspicuous green consumption: the installation of geothermal wells in Manhattan as an alternative form of HVAC.

Narrating a segment that would have had Veblen nodding in approval, CNBC's Bertha Coombs observed "for many, it represents bragging rights in the pursuit of green luxury."  That segued to a clip of New York magazine's Jesse Oxfeld explicitly making the conspicuous consumption point.

View video here.

Practically rubbing his hands in glee, Time magazine's Joe Klein exulted yesterday over Michigan Rep. John Dingell (D) losing out to the more liberal Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) for control of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Apparently Klein is happy that under Waxman the committee will succeed in decreasing both domestic energy and commerce with fresh, strict regulations on America's automakers. From his Nov. 20 Swampland blog post at Time.com: