Media Business

In an April 30 "Public Eye" entry, CBS ombudsblogger Brian Montopoli wrote about CBS's quandary over CIA director George Tenet has a faulty memory regarding an exchange with Richard Perle that supposedly happened the day after 9/11 at the White House. The problem, Perle was stuck in France. He returned to the country on Sept. 15, 2001. So what to do with Web site transcripts of the April 29 "60 Minutes" segment?

Well, it turns out CBS executives added an editor's note to online versions of the "60 Minutes" interview.

Montopoli wrote about the inclusion of the editor's note here, but it appears he failed to press the suits at CBS over why the supposed September 12, 2001, meeting was not verified before broadcast:

According to the New York Post's Don Kaplan, Roseanne Barr is the early favorite to replace the deposed Rosie O'Donnell.

Barr is no less of a liberal and almost as controversial as O'Donnell. If she were to replace O'Donnell, Barr would continue to tilt the show to the extreme left and fail to bring back the many viewers of "The View" who were offended at the numerous outrageous statements made by O'Donnell.

In a March appearance on HBO's "Real Time," Barr alleged that conservatives "liked Reagan because he's a confederate. [...] They worship him because he dismantled working rights for people."

Barr will bring a left-wing agenda to "The View." She admitted that she had one earlier this year:

For the fifth straight year, America's biggest newspapers (especially the left-leaning ones) have experienced big drops in circulation.

The Audit Bureau of Circulation released its annual numbers today. Among the findings: Two of the three national newspapers (USA Today and the Wall Street Journal) gained circ while the New York Times fell 2 percent on weekdays and nearly three-and-a-half percent on Sundays.

The biggest loser was the Dallas Morning News which was off 14 percent on weekdays and 13 percent on Sundays. The Miami Herald lost 10 percent on Sundays and 5.5 percent on weekdays.

Let's imagine for a moment now what types of stories we'd be hearing about these bad numbers if liberal journalists applied the same standards to themselves as they do to Republican presidents.

Now that you're done laughing, let me say that I don't think that liberal bias is the sole reason for these drops. It's also old thinking. The proof is that some papers like the New York Post and the Indianapolis Star have gained circulation. It can be done in an age of mass alienation from mass media. (h/t Stephen Spruiell)

Days after the liberal blogosphere was enraged by a Washington Post column by David Broder concerning Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada), it only seems fitting that an unnamed Democrat strategist would be quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle with negative things to say about the Netroots.

For those that have forgotten, in September, Broder wrote about “vituperative, foul-mouthed bloggers on the left.”

Months later, as California Democrats gathered in San Diego at their annual convention – with their presidential candidates present and accounted for – an anonymous strategist had rather unflattering things to say about bloggers on the left side of the political aisle (h/t Hot Air, emphasis added):

Although a quick search of the Web draws up the speech, available here (with video and audio links), rare is the online news service that links to President Bush's remarks on May 1, 2003, aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.

Notice, for example, no link to the speech in this story at CBSNews.com that follows Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-N.Y.) latest swipe at the Iraq war. (see related post here)

Since the media don't reprint excerpts of the speech nor give readers the links to the original source material, here are some comments from May 1, 2003, that point to President Bush warning Americans of an ongoing struggle to establish Iraqi democracy and counter the threat of terrorism (portions in bold are my emphasis):

Does "Dilbert" creator Scott Adams keep tabs on Katie Couric?

The mini-scandal got buried by the Imus flap, but a few weeks ago CBS fired a Couric producer for plagiarizing from a Wall Street Journal column. The offending item was the vlog script she wrote for Couric's April 4 "Notebook," wherein Couric waxed nostalgic for childhood and worried that today's kids aren't as enamored with the public library as she was.

I was reminded of Katie's ghostwritten blog when I saw the April 26 edition of "Dilbert." In it, Dilbert's buffoonish pointy-haired boss announced to his long-suffering secretary that he was starting his own blog. Of course, he expected her to write it up herself by noon, cooing that he "can't wait to see what I'm thinking."

(see strip below, also linked here):

Do you remember that Washington Post guy who somehow managed to wiggle himself into the Scooter Libby trial? Well it looks as though someone from NBC has managed to sneak himself into another high-profile trial:

The murder trial of famed record producer Phil Spector is set to open this Wednesday in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom. The legendary rock and roll music producer is charged with killing actress Lana Clarkston at his Alhambra mansion February 3rd 2003.

The presiding Judge, Larry Paul Fidler, has agreed that cameras will be allowed in the courtroom and the trial will be televised. Judge Fidler said that he believed it was time to be able move on from the OJ Simpson murder trial. "We have to get by that case," he said. "There's going to come a timethat it will be commonplace to televise trials. If it had not been for Simpson, we'd be there now," Fidler concluded.

Web use has become such a widespread phenomenon that for next year's presidential election, Yahoo is set to host the first-ever online presidential debate.

Unfortunately, all of the web media sources it's chosen to partner up with are liberal leaning. David All explains:

When mega-giant Yahoo! decides to play in the political sandbox, I’m going to pay attention. Yahoo! is currently ranked number one in Alexa.org’s Top 500.

So when it was reported this week that Yahoo! had partnered with Slate, Huffington Post, and PBS's Charlie Rose to host the first-ever online Presidential debate, as a conservative Republican, I immediately felt a curling in my stomach [...]

A troubled newspaper industry is beset with a raging journalistic debate around using the Internet to bolster the bottom line for the nation's broadsheets.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Faced with declining circulation, many U.S. newspapers are trying to engage readers by allowing them to respond to news stories online. But the anonymity of the Internet lets readers post obscenities and racist hate speech that would never be allowed in the printed paper.

LaShawn Barber lays out her thoughts in an April 26 post to her eponymous blog, suggesting that newspapers are misguided to attempt to co-opt the blog format. Rather than allowing anonymous comments that can encourage trolls that cheapen honest debate and discussion, Barber suggests another strength of the blogosphere that is easily adaptable to newspapers' online versions.:

In the wake of yesterday's announcement that Rosie O'Donnell will be departing "The View," the folks at "Today" had some fun this morning with the notion that Meredith Vieira, the "View" regular who Rosie replaced there, might return to the ABC gabfest.

As Vieira began a tease, in "Today's" opening, for an upcoming segment on the parting of ways at "The View," weatherman Al Roker shouted from off-camera "are you going to go back?"

Vieira went with the flow, announcing tongue-in-cheek: "So yes, I'll be leaving the 'Today' show to rejoin my friends at 'The View.' Sayanora." That's when co-host Matt Lauer, in the image shown here, picked up the phone, said "Barbara, hold on a second," handed it to Meredith, who continued "Barbara, I'm back there."

View video here.

The banter continued:

In an April 25 post, CBS's "Public Eye" editor Brian Montopoli worries that the media are not doing enough reporting on gun control, lamenting that the media are waiting for political players to gin up the issue.

There were reasons not to take up larger issues and assign blame in the immediate wake of the shootings – those first few days needed to be about how people were dealing with the horror of what had taken place. But some time has now passed, and I'm hard pressed to think of a better time for the media to focus on a huge issue that isn't going away anytime soon.

Where has Montopoli been? Not only have the media been focusing on the gun control angle to the story, they've heavily leaned in favor of more gun control, including featurin gun control advocates in both broadcast and print coverage. While there were a few exceptions, most media coverage has cheerleaded the notion of enacting new gun control laws. Here's a refresher for Montopoli, a list of some of our coverage over the past nine days:

As we've noted in an earlier post, Rosie O'Donnell and ABC couldn't work out a contract renewal for her slot on "The View." But when I read the "exclusive" story this morning by ABC News's Monica Nista, I noticed the reporter left out any mention of Rosie's numerous controversies such as her 9/11 conspiracy theories, her suggestion that the British hostage crisis in Iran was a conspiracy, her "ching-chong" gaffe, or her swipe at "radical Christians" being just as dangerous as "radical Muslims" like Osama bin Laden. Instead Nista focused on an a feud with rival network NBC's "Apprentice" host Donald Trump:

Update at bottom of post: Other bloggers react to Rosie announcement.

Controversial daytime television host Rosie O'Donnell just confirmed rumors on "The View" today that she will be leaving the show.

"I can't come to terms," O'Donnell said, referring to an ongoing contract dispute that she had been having with ABC, the owner of the show.

Despite her departure, O'Donnell will be a "frequent guest host," she said. "View" founder Barbara Walters said she was not involved in O'Donnell's negotiations with ABC and said that she was "sad" that the former solo daytime host was going to be leaving after such an "interesting" year.

O'Donnell's role as co-host of the syndicated talker has come under scrutiny in recent months for injecting her strident brand of left-wing politics into the show.

Ironically, after Rosie made her announcement, Walters made some left-wing remarks of her own, stating that George W. Bush "is the president, not a king" in response to her walk home from the office.

Video: Real (3.3 MB) WMV (3.8 MB), plus MP3 (604 KB)

Full transcript from NB's Justin McCarthy below the fold.

The MRC's TimesWatch division has an excellent analysis of the NYT's grossly shoddy and biased coverage of the Duke lacrosse "rape" case. In this latest item, the student newspaper at Duke, The Chronicle, actually went out and interviewed former NYT reporters and critics and asked their opinion about the paper's coverage of the Duke case. The Chronicle -- a student paper! -- did what the so-called professional media should have done long ago. Concerning the NYT's coverage of the Duke case, "it showed everything that's wrong with American journalism," said Daniel Okrent, a former public editor of the NYT. For more, click here

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:

The left-wing press is notorious for its hypocrisy and double-standards, especially when it comes to itself. No news organization is a bigger case in point than the New York Times, the so-called paper of record which touts itself as holding the Bush administration accountable, all the while engaging in unprofessional and unethical behavior and never being held accountable for it.

Well today, some accountability came.

Investors in the New York Times have been outraged as the paper continues to lose market share and bleed money faster than Rosie O'Donnell at a hamburger stand. This has been going on for years and nothing's been done to stop it, in part because the people who own most of the Times stock actually have no control as to who runs the company since their shares can't vote on a majority of the board of directors. That position is reserved for the uber-leftist Sulzberger family (headed by Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr.) who has been running the paper into the ground financially and off a cliff when it comes to bias, all the while stuffing its own pockets.

Fed-up investors finally had enough. Earlier today, they gave the Times a loud vote of no confidence by refusing to vote at all for the small number of director seats that they can vote on:

Roger Friedman, gossip blogger for FNC has an interesting item about the anti-Katie Couric piece that I blogged about yesterday. According to Friedman, the piece was done partly at the behest of Couric's predecessor, the seemingly avuncular Bob Schieffer.

That wouldn't surprise me, but before I get into why, here's Friedman:

[O]ne of Couric's frequently mentioned enemies is Bob Schieffer, the lovable, durable veteran journalist who filled in as anchor of the "CBS Evening News" between Dan Rather's departure and Couric's arrival.

But sources say that Schieffer has been unhappy lately, mainly because his airtime, which was prominent when Couric first started, has dwindled in recent weeks.

It's been suggested that a hit piece on Couric written by Gail Shister in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer was inspired by Schieffer as its main source.

"He has a direct line to her," one insider said.

This type of thing is hardly unprecedented within the television news business. CBS isn't quite the San Diego of "Anchorman," but it's had no shortage of anchor feuds.

CBS ombuds-blogger Brian Montopoli advises "Taking a Step Back In the Cho Debate" in an April 23 post, as he takes issue with conservatives like Hugh Hewitt who objected to NBC News (and other media outlets) airing the videotaped "manifesto" of the Virginia Tech mass murderer. Montopoli concludes on this note:

If, as a culture, we want to suppress the Cho manifesto, than we have to ask ourselves what else we are willing to suppress. After all, the Cho materials at least had some value beyond entertainment; it's harder to say the same for cultural products like "Grand Theft Auto" or "300." It seems to me that anyone criticizing NBC News for releasing the materials – and CBS News and its counterparts for airing them – should be thinking long and hard about how far down that path they are willing to go.

In an April 23 online chat at washingtonpost.com, the paper's chief media critic, Howard Kurtz, was asked his thoughts on the recent dustup between Karl Rove and celebrity enviro-activists Laurie David and Sheryl Crow at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Kurtz declined to give his opinions on who escalated the row, but hinted that he thought David and Crow purposely set out to tweak the presidential advisor.

Arlington, Va.: Okay, what's your take on the Laurie/Karl/Sheryl dust-up? I understand it was somewhat crazy for Laurie to think she was going to change Karl's mind then and there, but I also think that because access to Karl is so limited for "regular" people, I would have taken advantage of the chance to push my agenda on the nation's top advisor had I been there. That's why this concept of "no politics tonight, we're all friends here" for the Dinner seems silly. How often does Karl return any of these reporter's phone calls?

Howard Kurtz: Having not been there, I don't know whether Sheryl Crow and Laurie David confronted Rove aggressively, which got him mad, or tried to engage in a polite discussion of global warming, only to be tongue-lashed by the White House adviser. Given the speed and the glee with which they blogged about the incident, I suspect they were not averse to making a scene.

CBS's $15 million experiment of hiring Katie Couric has not paid any dividends. Six months into her tenure as anchor of the "Evening News," Couric has actually fallen in the ratings from her predecessor, Bob Schieffer, sparking talk within the network that the former NBC star will soon be shown the door.

Besides ratings, CBS insiders and TV observers quoted by Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Gail Shister take issue with Couric over her inability to relate to the 50+ news viewer and fluff news background.

Couric's personal pride seems to be the stickler, though:

Michael Welner, an ABC News consultant and a forensic psychiatrist, appeared on Thursday’s "Good Morning America" to slam the media for gratuitously airing videos sent by deceased mass killer Seung-Hui Cho. Welner even referenced the network frenzy over fired radio host Don Imus by saying, "Just listen, if you can take Imus off the air, you can certainly keep [Cho] from having his own morning show."

Earlier in the segment, Welner gave an impassioned plea for the networks to stop airing the killer’s footage:

Michael Welner: "If anybody cares about the victims in Blacksburg and if anybody cares about their children, stop showing this video now. Take it off the internet. Let it be relegated to YouTube. This is a social catastrophe. Showing the video is a social catastrophe. I promise you the disaffected will watch him the way they watched 'Natural Born Killers.' I know. I examine these people. I've examined mass shooters who have told me they've watched 'Natural Born Killers' 20 times. You cannot saturate the American public with this kind of message."

I've not seen this in searches on Google News or on their respective Web sites yet, but I got this today in my Facebook inbox (click here to look at the NewsBusters Facebook group):

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 19, 2007 - The Politico and www.politico.com today announced a new content-sharing partnership with www.USATODAY.com, the web site of the nation’s largest national newspaper.

Under the new partnership, Politico’s coverage of the presidential campaign, Congress and special interests will be featured prominently on USATODAY.com's redesigned political page. Some Politico coverage will also appear in the print edition of the USA TODAY.

“It has always been our goal to grow The Politico audience by introducing our coverage and website to readers around the world,” said Robert Allbritton, CEO of Politico’s parent company, Allbritton Communications. “This is the perfect marriage: our comprehensive coverage of politics with USATODAY.com’s cutting edge, widely read web platform.”

The partnership will also feature USATODAY.com political coverage on POLITICO.com.

CBS "Public Eye" editor Brian Montopoli explained in an April 18 post that when covering today's Supreme Court ruling upholding an abortion ban, "CBSNews.com has decided to go with this phrasing whenever possible: 'what the law calls a partial birth abortion.'"

And the reason?

"Both 'late term abortion' and 'partial birth abortion' are now phrases that signify a position, so we will use this phrasing though it is cumbersome," CBS editorial director Dick Meyer noted in an e-mail to CBS staffers.

Of course, it's cumbersome and ridiculous to imagine that language being used to describe a number of other things defined under federal law, but on a more basic level, "partial-birth abortion" is not political invective, it's descriptive layman's language to describe a medical procedure.

Earlier this morning the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on partial-birth abortion. What's more, Justice Anthony Kennedy, whom many in the media often focus on as the "moderate" and "swing" justice on the Court, penned the majority opinion. While the mass murder at Virginia Tech is still the top story in the media, Fox News found room to give this landmark ruling prime real estate on its Web site. CNN, however, relegated the story to a link nine entries deep into its "latest news" list.

The screenshots I've included in this post are taken from Fox News and CNN's Web sites from around 11:30 a.m.

From Todd Boyd, ESPN’s Page 2:

Now that disgraced radio talk-show host Don Imus has been booted, can we finally get down to some “real talk” about the multiple issues embedded in this racial theater? There is a lot to sort through here, but after a week of debate centered around “nappy-headed hos,” half-assed apologies, cries of censorship, and a curmudgeonly shock jock’s lame attempt at being funny, many pundits have moved beyond the core issue and now are talking about the perceived double standard they feel exists between what Imus said and what often comes from the mouths of rappers.

Yet Imus and hip-hop really don’t have much in common. Imus was host of a radio show that focused on the real news of the day, while hip-hop is a fictionalized form of cultural expression. Imus is real, featuring real guests and humor based on real topics. However loudly hip-hop might claim to be real, it is not real; it is a form of representation. This is why so few rappers use the names on their birth certificates when performing.

Perhaps a sign of how blind the liberally-biased media are to arguments from gun rights advocates, CBS's Andrew Cohen wrote in his Washington Post "Bench Conference" blog that "There Is Irony in the Tragedy at Virginia Tech."

I learned from CBS News' Armen Keteyian that school administrators and college officials at Virginia Tech had in fact implemented reasonable security measures (against the wishes of state legislators) designed to limit guns on campus. In other words, even though the university was relatively proactive in confronting the problem of guns on campus, the brutal slayings occurred anyway.

Actually, that's not so much irony as the law of unintended consequences, something that any pro-gun rights advocate could tell Cohen. I've not seen a worse definition of irony since Alanis Morissette wrote a song about it. (continued...)

Isn't there something a tad, I dunno, hypocritical about a group of journalists who associate with each other on the basis of race and ethnicity issuing an edict to fellow journalists to ignore the race and ethnicity of the Virginia Tech shooter, Cho Seung-Hui?:

Like the rest of the nation, we at the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) are stunned at the news of today's shooting at Virginia Tech. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families and friends as they cope with this horrific incident.

As coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting continues to unfold, AAJA urges all media to avoid using racial identifiers unless there is a compelling or germane reason. There is no evidence at this early point that the race or ethnicity of the suspected gunman has anything to do with the incident, and to include such mention serves only to unfairly portray an entire people.

The effect of mentioning race can be powerfully harmful. It can subject people to unfair treatment based simply on skin color and heritage.

We further remind members of the media that the standards of news reporting should be universal and applied equally no matter the platform or medium, including blogs.

I'm struck by how political Web sites are choosing to address the shooting deaths at Virginia Tech, if at all, and the reaction the same is generating among at least one prominent conservative blogger.

Shortly after midnight, the presidential campaign for liberal Democrat Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) announced it's shuttering its Web page, kucinich.us, for 24 hours out of respect to the lives lost. The Web page is plastered with an image of an Easter lily, and the words "In memory and respect of all the victims at Virginia Tech, and all those who are affected by violence everyday, we have closed our site for a twenty-four hour period of mourning."

Update added at bottom of post.

In a 2:30 p.m. posting, well before details about the weapons used in the tragic Virginia Tech shootings were available, ABC News's Brian Ross devoted a "Blotter" blog entry to a gun control advocate's talking points. Ross didn't make room for any gun rights advocates or find a critic to suggest the Brady Center was callously capitalizing on a tragedy to further its political agenda. Here's the entire blog post:

High capacity ammo clips became widely available for sale when Congress failed to renew a law that banned assault weapons.

Web sites now advertise overnight UPS delivery of the clips, which carry up to 40 rounds for both semi-automatic rifles, including 9mm pistols, and handguns.

"High capacity magazines read extreme firepower and gusto. Stock Up!" is the headline of one of many gun shop Web sites.

Virginia law enforcement officials have not identified the weapon used in the shootings today at Virginia Tech, but gun experts say the number of shots fired indicate, at the very least, that the gunman had large quantities of ammunition.

"When you have a weapon that can shoot off 20, 30 rounds very quickly, you're going to have a lot more injuries," said Peter Hamm of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

That item is the only "Blotter" entry about the Virginia Tech shootings so far today. Hamm's group, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, issued a press statement on the site's home page that peddles its talking points. It also has a brand new petition page up at the site set up to sign up readers for e-mail updates. Curiously enough, "journalist" is one of the selections a petitioner can check off when describing him or herself on the form:

In an online chat at washingtonpost.com today, media reporter Howard Kurtz condemned the media's rush to judgment in 2006 in the Duke lacross rape allegations.

"If you go back and lok at the coverage of 13 months ago, knowing what we know now, teh tone of much of it was irresponsible," wrote Kurtz in response to a question from Floris, Va. Later in response to a question from Portland, Ore., Kurtz cited the 1996 Olympic park bombing and the early media buzz over suspect Richard Jewell, "who turned out to be innocent." Kurtz worried that the media's rush to judgment in sensational crime stories "is a lesson the profession never seems to learn."

Kurtz's remarks about media coverage differ wildly from the cavalier tone taken by ABC's Terry Moran in a blog post from April 12.

Writing on his "Pushback" blog then, Moran insisted that the Duke lacrosse players received "special treatment in the justice system -- both negative and positive." He failed to offer a similar indictment of the media frenzy surrounding the case and even suggested that the Duke players would get over their ordeal with little trouble (portions in bold are my emphasis):