Washington Times

Item: Less than six weeks after legendary editor Wesley Pruden's retirement, new Washington Times editor John Solomon has begun selling out to politically correct and objectively inaccurate language (additional HTs to NewsBusters' Tim Graham, and to John Haskins in an e-mail). The reason for the Times to even exist is slowly but surely being eliminated.

Accordingly, this parody, sung to the tune of Chicago's 1975 hit, "(America Needs You) Harry Truman" came to mind, in hopes of convincing Pruden to reconsider the virtues of returning, if only for a year:

America needs you, Wesley Pruden
Wesley could you please come home?
The new guy's really bad,
A PC flack gone mad.
So Wesley please come back and save the paper we all know and love.

(continues after the jump)

When Wes Pruden was the editor of The Washington Times, reporters complained to outside sources about his editing and style choices, sometimes pummeling reporter’s copy. They called it "Prudenizing." Now that former AP and Washington Post reporter John Solomon is in charge, he’s begun the "Solomonizing." Erik Wemple of Washington City Paper reports that the new boss wants the Times to join the "mainstream" in using sensitive terminology on homosexuality and illegal immigration. From the memo Wemple quotes:

All:

Here are some recent updates to TWT style.

1) Clinton will be the headline word for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

2) Gay is approved for copy and preferred over homosexual, except in clinical references or references to sexual activity.

3) The quotation marks will come off gay marriage (preferred over homosexual marriage).

4) Moderate is approved, but centrist is still allowed.

You reap what you sow.

Nothing could be truer when it comes to the American economy. According to CNBC "Closing Bell" host Maria Bartiromo, if the media continue to push doom-and-gloom economy stories, they will make the economy worse.

"[T]he truth is, ["Today" co-anchor] Meredith [Vieira], it doesn't matter if we're in a recession," Bartiromo said on NBC's February 6 "Today." "We can talk ourselves into a recession, and that seems to be what we're doing right now and that certainly begets more weakness."

The media coverage has apparently affected voters. According to the February 6 Washington Times, an exit survey from the "Super Tuesday" primaries showed 47 percent of Democratic voters and 40 percent of Republican voters said the economy was the most important issue in making their choice at the polls.

My my, the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) is busy these days -- aiding and abetting those who wish to suppress the human right of free speech and expression.

Even though (or is it because?) the vehicle that enabled and emboldened the CHRC's thought police and those who complain to it was the passage of the kind of "non-discrimination" legislation Congress has considered passing for several years, US Old Media could care less.

Some of the CHRC's targets:

• A Catholic magazine (also noted by NB's Tim Graham last month) --

  In February 2007 Rob Wells, a member of the Pride Center of Edmonton, filed a nine-point complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission alleging that Catholic Insight had targeted homosexuals as a powerful menace and innately evil, claiming it used inflammatory and derogatory language to create a tone of “extreme hatred and contempt.”

  Catholic Insight responded to these charges in its January 2008 issue, saying the complaint consists of “three pages of isolated and fragmentary extracts from articles dating back as far as 1994, without any context.”

  ..... The magazine has continually emphasized that, with the respect to homosexual activity, it follows the guidance of the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church.

  Although I doubt it will happen (yet), it seems "logical" that CHRC could say, "OK, you're right, the entire Catholic Church is engaged in 'extreme hatred and contempt.'"

To be found here.

Excerpt therefrom:

... "Our whole mission ... is to say: These people are not objective. They're not disinterested, the press and people need to see them for what they are," (Tim) Graham said in a recent telephone interview.

Demystifying the relationship between the press and the Clinton camp is essential for Americans to decide this year's race, (L. Brent) Bozell said.

"Past is prologue," he said. "The kind of behavior that was going on 15 years ago is going on today."

The Washington Post might consider doing something I hesitate to recommend to anyone before they simply print campaign talking points in covering an admittedly negative situation. That something is, read the New York Times. The narrative for the piece, sourced through Clinton people, is pretty clear. Hillary don't know Iowa, it was a national campaign - but "Hillary" figured it out and saved the day ... hopefully for them, at least.

Still, her initial strategy did not put special emphasis on the caucuses, treating them as part of a national campaign.

The chief concern, one person with immediate knowledge of the campaign said, was that Clinton simply did not visit Iowa enough over the summer and early fall -- a common complaint in national campaigns

Conservative publisher R. Emmett Tyrrell gave readers of the Washington Times his endorsement of the latest book by MRC president and NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell, "Whitewash: What the Media Won't Tell You About Hillary Clinton, But Conservatives Will." From his December 4 op-ed:

"Whitewash" is one of the most important books I have read about the Clintons' relationship with the press, and I myself have contributed a number of books to this field.

The American Spectator editor-in-chief also praised the Media Research Center for 20 years of exposing and combating liberal media bias:

Is it acceptable for stores catering to Hispanics to use racial epithets when referring to Caucasian residents of the United States? Apparently so. According to the Washington Times online edition, a furniture store located in Alexandria, Va., has posted a sign calling Americans 'gringos'. The Times reports that,

A sign outside the store at the intersection of North Beauregard and King streets reads, “Credito sin papeles de gringo.” In English, that could be translated to say “Credit without gringo papers.” Blanca Granados, the store's assistant manager, translated the message to mean “just 'without white papers,' like Social Security or like that.”

What's another $500 taken out of your paycheck over the course of a year? It probably isn't much to global warming alarmists like Al Gore, but that's what it could cost you if legislation pending in the U.S. Senate is passed into law.

Does that $500 have your attention? Well, multiply that times every member of your immediate family.

According to a November 11 Washington Times editorial, a bill introduced in the Senate by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.) that would require companies to scale back greenhouse-gas emissions could cost Americans $4 trillion to $6 trillion over the next 40 years.

If that bill were passed and made law, the tax would cost every man, woman and child - more than 303 million Americans - $494 a year, a significant burden on the U.S. economy.

Both Bill and Hillary Clinton have a history of fund-raising from shadowy Asian donors. Bill was connected with such donors in a scandal that was never fully investigated due to most of the targets fleeing to their native countries. Now the Los Angeles Times is reporting that Hillary also is gaining money from Asian sources that would seem to merit some investigation. The question is- will the rest of the mainstream media actually follow up and report it?

A few days ago I wrote about how blogger Flip Pidot of Suitably Flip found that while the Hillary Clinton campaign vowed to give the Norman Hsu campaign contributions to charity, his name still appeared in a list of "HillRaisers," top-dollar fundraisers and bundlers for the Hillary Clinton 2008 presidential race.

Now reporter and blogger Robert Stacy McCain has an interview on the Washington Times Web site with Pidot. Below are some questions pertaining to Hsu and Pidot's research and blogging about the Clinton contributor:

Q: You actually went to the New York address listed on Norman Hsu's [Federal Election Commission] forms. ... Did you see anything?

Once you work for The Washington Times, the left and the media never stop hating you. The New York Times proves that with an attack on former Times Managing Editor Josette Sheeran.

I am more than happy to come to Josette's aid (not that she needs it) because I worked directly with her in my time at the Times. We haven't spoken in years, but Josette was great to work for and both gave me some big responsibilities and treated me with respect.

Josette now has the audacity to be the United Nations World Food Program's executive director and simultaneously come from the "most conservative wing of the Bush administration," according to the Times.

Cry me a river. It appears that Slate's Dahlia Lithwick was driven to tears by the Supreme Court nomination hearings, according to Christina Bellantoni of the Washington Times:

"I covered those confirmation hearings. I went home at night in tears.
It was awful."

-- Dahlia Lithwick, Slate.com's Supreme Court reporter, talking at a Yearly Kos breakout session about the Senate's confirmation of Alito and Roberts and Democrats being too soft in their questioning.

(h/t CNSNews.com's Nathan Burchfiel)

Oh, and on a related note, Time magazine is spending money to wine and dine the Kossacks.

As noted here at NB yesterday, Kansas Congresswoman Nancy Boyda walked out of a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Friday after hearing General Jack Keane testify about the potential impact of a bill meant to micromanage troop deployment. Keane also testified about progress being made in the counteroffensive that has come to be known as "the surge."

Boyda walked out because the objections to that bill, and the descriptions of an improving situation in Iraq, were apparently too much to bear. She said as much when she returned. Boyda and the fly in her pocket (based on her several references to "we") went into full-rant mode (painfully long and slow-loading audio is here; scroll down to July 27's entry and click on "Audio Transcript"; Boyda's tantrum is about 60% of the way through it; also note that at least a half-dozen hecklers and demonstrators had to be removed during the hearing):

"..... As many of us, there was only so much that you could take until we, in fact, had to leave the room for a while, and so I think I am back and maybe can articulate some things that after so much of the frustration of having to listen to what we listened to."

"But let me just first say that the description of Iraq as if some way or another that it's a place that I might take the family for a vacation, things are going so well, those kinds of comments will in fact show up in the media and further divide this country instead of saying here’s the reality of the problem and people, we have to come together and deal with the reality of this issue."

As we've documented at NewsBusters, last year the media, particularly the Washington Post, raked then-Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) over the coals for his infamous "macaca" insult, and his ensuing profuse apologies for same. We've also documented that Democratic politicians' jokes about India and Indian-Americans have been largely ignored (see below the jump).

The latest racial incident kicking up dust on the 2008 campaign trail is yet another Democratic gaffe, dubbed by some, "Punjab-gate," after an Obama presidential campaign research memo cheekily described rival Hillary Clinton as a Democrat from Punjab, a province in India.

Of course, as the oppo memo itself notes, and as John McCormick of the Chicago Tribune reported in the Trib's "The Swamp" blog, Obama's staff were referring to another "lame attempt at humor" (my emphasis, see below jump) by the junior senator from the Empire State about her electoral chances were she to decide to relocate to India:

Washington Times reporter Martin Arostegui has an excellent article in today's paper about the socialist leaders of two South American countries following Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez's example by moving to restrict press freedoms in their respective countries. By contrast, the news didn't even meake the "World in Brief" digest on page A16 of today's Washington Post:

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia -- The leaders of Bolivia and Ecuador are moving with Cuban encouragement and in concert with their mentor, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, to restrict press freedom in their countries.

Bolivian President Evo Morales and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa both announced steps to crack down on independent broadcasters within days of Mr. Chavez's closure on Sunday of Venezuela's main independent television station, RCTV.

For the past 20 years, every Memorial Day weekend,  tens of thousands of motorcyclists join together as Rolling Thunder to honor the military, particularly the dead and MIA.  The coverage is usually positive and focuses on the patriotic bikers and their interesting-looking bikes.  On May 27, ABC News went a different direction for this year’s ride. Instead of covering Rolling Thunder and their military and veteran-related issues, the way the Washington Post and the Washington Times did in their articles, ABC turned it into advocacy journalism to inform people about the importance of--wearing helmets while riding motorcycles. After four rather bland sentences about the the event, ABC slipped into lecture-mode (emphasis mine thoughout):

What is it about anti-gunners that they just have to lie in their advocacy against guns? Do they lie because they know the facts makes them look so bad? This time it's the Washington Times' turn to publish an anti 2nd Amendment piece based on several lies. This one, penned by an Alex Gerber, worries that gun control will "apparently be glossed over again" and claims that the evil "American gun culture" is so insensitive to have tolerated "some 14,000 firearm murders" in 2005.

Only there weren't 14,000 "firearm murders" in 2005. According to FBI statistics, there were 10,100 gun murders in 2005 instead of the 14,000 cited by Gerber. In fact, the whole of the 2005 murder rate of all causes was 15,517, not much more than just the gun deaths claimed by Gerber.

Conveniently ignoring all the evidence that says more armed people in a given area actually lowers gun violence, Gerber goes on to claim that the idea that if the students at Virginia Tech were armed, maybe so many would not have died before the killer was taken down is "a joke". Absurdly, he makes his claim as if he knows beyond doubt that it could not be true that others being armed could have lowered the VT kill ratio.

In 1995, Bill Clinton said this to a Houston fund-raising audience about the 1993 tax increase his administration is infamous for:

Probably there are people in this room who are still mad at me at that budget because you think I raised your taxes too much. It might surprise you to know that I think I raised them too much too.

John Edwards, on the other hand, must think that the Clinton Administration and the congress at the time raised taxes too little, because he said on Sunday that he wants to go beyond what was done in 1993 (link requires registration; HT Colorado Right):

Washington Times reporter Jon Ward's April 24 article about Tony Snow substitute Dana Perino (pictured at right) is getting a bit of buzz among conservative bloggers such as Kathryn Jean Lopez, Ed Driscoll, and Mary Katharine Ham. Here's what's got them buzzing:

When Mrs. Thomas, 86, kept firing questions at Mrs. Perino, 34, the presidential spokeswoman cut her off.

"Do you want me to answer the question, Helen, or do you want to ask questions? It's really hard to concentrate here. What's your question?" Mrs. Perino demanded.

Mrs. Thomas replied, "You repeat yourself so much that. "

"So do you," Mrs. Perino interrupted, then immediately called on another reporter.

Mrs. Perino is "the first press secretary to cut Helen Thomas no slack," said Ann Compton of ABC News, who has spent more than three decades as a White House correspondent.

Contributors to NewsBusters and MRC.org have frequently documented Thomas's biased tirades and tantrums from the daily press briefings.

Below are links to some Thomas-related items from NB and MRC archives:

This is a developing story, so there's room for it to play out a bit, but the law firm congressional Democrats are hiring to help plow through the U.S. attorney firings, Arnold & Porter, has a history of heavy donations towards Democrats.

From the last two paragraphs of a March 28 Associated Press story:

[House Judiciary Committee Chairman John] Conyers , meanwhile, has signed a contract with the law firm Arnold & Porter worth up to $225,000 through the end of the year to help with the investigation.

This year the Media Research Center marks 20 years of busting liberal media bias. Today's Washington Times took notice, with a profile of the MRC by reporter Robert Stacy McCain entitled "Keeping the press honest."

You can find the article online here and here (printer friendly version).

Here's an excerpt:

Six silent television screens are tuned to six different channels on the third-floor offices of the Media Research Center in Alexandria, producing a discordant TV tableau. On a recent afternoon, one screen shows a woman crying on the "Dr. Phil" show, while on another screen, director James Cameron is promoting a documentary that purports to show the tomb of Jesus.

It's all in a day's work for the center, whose red-bearded founder, L. Brent Bozell III, chuckles cheerfully as he guides a visitor on a tour.

In a nearby room, he points to row upon row of archived video recordings of news broadcasts, dating back to the founding of the conservative media-watchdog group two decades ago. In another room, banks of computers hum away, digitally recording the day's news from every U.S. network.

"I think, in one sense, you could say we've exceeded all expectations," says Mr. Bozell, whose organization will celebrate its 20th anniversary March 29 at its annual gala banquet.