Philadelphia Inquirer

And no, I don't mean the cloud of smug from all the Toyonda Piouses.

Benefit concerts, even ones held to save the planet, generate lots of trash and traffic, and eat up plenty of electricity, half of which is generated in this country from coal-fired power plants. Just don't expect the liberal media to make those points as they cover former Vice President Al Gore's "Live Earth" concerts.

Dan Gainor writes about that today over at the MRC's BusinessandMedia.org Web site today.

UPDATE (16:50 EST, 2/17/2007): Reprogram your alarm clocks (or TiVo), Dan is scheduled to appear on "Fox & Friends Sunday" on February 18 but they moved it up to 7:50 a.m. EST.

Several prominent liberal newspapers have weighed in with critical editorials on the Associated Press story that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid failed to disclose a real estate deal in which he made a $700,000 profit, including the Washington Post  ("Mr. Reid's Nondisclosure"), the Philadelphia Inquirer ("Practice What You Preach"), and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ("Sen. Reid Should Look in Mirror First").

The Philadelphia Inquirer has declared a jihad against guns in the city. Classical Values has all the details.

Illustrating the far-left composition of the faculty at one of the most prestigious journalism schools, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism professor Sandy Padwe called the dismissal by Time magazine, for budget reasons, of investigative reporters Donald Bartlett and James Steele, “a disgrace. Two of the best investigative reporters ever, and they're on the street? It's a f---ing travesty." In fact, at both the Philadelphia Inquirer and Time, Bartlett and Steele delivered shoddy, ideologically-driven left-wing “journalism” which should have embarrassed any journalist with pride in their profession. Nonetheless, in the Thursday CJR Daily posting which quoted Padwe, veteran journalist Steve Lovelady gushed: “Barlett and Steele came to be regarded by many as the premier investigative team in the business, and one that consistently met benchmarks to which others could only aspire.”

Thou Shalt Not Stereotype ranks among the top ten rules that govern respectable newspapers.

Unless, of course, you happen to dislike a particular individual, or his politics.

As the Philadelphia Inquirer sounded the trumpets for yesterday’s nationwide march with the headline IMMIGRANTS SEND A RESOUNDING CALL, with photos glorifying the event, the paper still found room to profile Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) who opposes amnesty for illegal aliens. This is not popular, this point of view.

The Inquirer interviewed dozens of these marchers and while we were given their names we were not treated to their physical characteristics.

Were they short, fat, ugly, tall, slim, handsome -- none of that because that is none of our business.

Fired CIA leaker Mary McCarthy gave money to Joe Sestak, the Democrat in the race for a Pennsylvania U.S. House seat. The Republican incumbent, Congressman Curt Weldon, says Sestak should return the money.

Reports the Philadelphia Inquirer:

U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon called yesterday for Democratic opponent Joe Sestak to return $350 in campaign contributions from Mary O. McCarthy, the CIA investigator fired last week for allegedly leaking classified information to the news media.

Sestak's spokeswoman noted, in reply, that the CIA employee had not been charged with any crime and said she saw no reason for the money to be returned "at this time."

McCarthy, who worked at the National Security Council when Sestak worked there in the 1990s, donated $100 to Sestak on March 1 and $250 on March 11, according to a campaign finance report the Seventh Congressional District candidate filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Meredith Vieira, set to become the new co-host of NBC's "Today," fired back at critics who said her anti-war activism (as noted by NewsBusters' Brent Baker) doesn't mean she's a liberal.

Reports Gail Shister in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

An outspoken critic of the war in Iraq, Vieira says she's being unfairly labeled as a raving liberal by some right-wing bloggers.

"I'm an independent. I'm not a Democrat or a Republican. I'm not particularly interested in politics, truth be told. Every time you read the paper, somebody lies about something [about the war.] I've been vocal about it.

The English-language version of Al Jazeera is coming to America, but Philadelphia Inquirer TV columnists Gail Shister wonders: "is America ready for Al Jazeera?"

The English version will be called Al Jazeera International (AJI) and has recruited journalists from the mainstream media. Dave Marash, formerly of ABC's "Nightline," and former CNN anchor Riz Khan have been recruited.

The new network promises "accurate, impartial and objective reporting," and one journalism instructor said Al Jazeera is no different than Fox News.

Al Jazeera "clearly has a point of view, but so does Fox," says Kelly McBride, director of the ethics program at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a journalism think tank in St. Petersburg, Fla.

"There's a market for that in the world, and in the United States, it's probably a growing market."

After its puzzling failure to defend the Mohammad cartoons and free speech in a Sunday news report, the Times recovers, if only slightly, in its Tuesday editorial, “Those Danish Cartoons.”

Although the Times didn’t join the Philadelphia Inquirer in actually publishing the most controversial cartoon (Mohammad with a bomb for a turban), its tentative stand for free speech is nonetheless braver than the editorial page of the NYT Co.’s subsidiary paper, The Boston Globe.

In a Saturday editorial, “Forms of Intolerance,” the Globe made this bizarre comparison:

Like some of the other shows, it seemed a little unanimous on CNN's "Reliable Sources" today. They began with a panel of raving leftist New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, liberal historian Robert Dallek, liberal CNN correspondent Bruce Morton, and UPI Pentagon correspondent Pam Hess, who must qualify as the most conservative one on the panel. Krugman muffed it early when host Howard Kurtz asked if Walter Cronkite could galvanize the anti-war movement today by saying we've lost, we should withdraw: "If Walter Cronkite were alive -- sorry, he is alive. If Walter Cronkite were on the news today, if a Walter Cronkite equivalent were on the news, he would -- immediately after that broadcast we just saw, he would have been called a traitor."

An article in today’s New York Times depicted a grim picture of the future of America’s newspaper industry. Stung by declining circulation rates, most of the nation’s major dailies are laying people off:

“Such rethinking is sweeping newsrooms across the country as the industry faces a wave of job cuts, among them 700 announced since May at The New York Times Company, including its business operations and the various media properties it owns, and 14 at The Hartford Courant. Most recently cuts have been announced at The Boston Globe (a division of the Times Company), The San Jose Mercury News, The Philadelphia Daily News, The Baltimore Sun and Newsday, and over the last few years The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post have also moved to eliminate jobs.

“Industrywide, ad revenue is flat, costs are up and circulation is eroding.”

The article went on to discuss how ad revenues at the major newspapers have stopped growing as major retailers have refocused their marketing dollars into other channels such as cable television and, of course, the Internet: