Media Business

Update (June 25, 5:48 p.m. EDT): Wurzelbacher has responded in a blog post at RedState, linking to a Smart Girl Politics post which noted that "[o]f the thirty-one signatories [of the anti-Wurzelbacher letter], all but six are registered Democrats or have made financial contributions to Democratic candidates or PACs."

"A viral campaign video in which Samuel 'Joe the Plumber' Wurzelbacher links gun control to the Holocaust has sickened some members of Ohio's Jewish community, who sent the GOP congressional candidate a letter on Thursday that calls his claims 'misguided,' 'highly offensive' and 'harmful to the Jewish community,'" Sabrina Eaton informed readers of the Cleveland Plain Dealer in an article uploaded yesterday evening. In the video in question, Wurzelbacher noted that gun control programs in Turkey and Germany preceded the Armenian genocide of 1915-17 and the Holocaust, respectively.

On June 13, the CBS Evening News devoted a story by David Martin to the Afghanistan death count reaching 2,000, as Martin interviewed a mother of a fallen Marine. CBS was alone. There was no story last week on the Afghanistan death “milestone” on ABC, NBC, the PBS NewsHour – or even on the MSNBC programs found in Nexis, including Rachel “Our Military’s In a Perilous Drift” Maddow.

But the networks were all more aggressive when the 2,000 mark arrived in Iraq on October 25, 2005. The Big Three networks devoted 14 morning and evening news stories to the death toll from October 24 through the end of October, and another 24 anchor briefs or mentions. They used the number to spell “disaster for this White House.”

Barack Obama’s adoring cheerleaders at NBC are back in the editing room distorting the truth, and, not surprisingly, Andrea Mitchell has the gall to make no apologies for it.

First it was their vile attempt to make George Zimmerman sound like a racist to gin up racial conflict, and now they’ve set their sights on Mitt Romney who they’re desperately trying to paint as an out-of-touch, silver spoon Republican wowed by Wawa sandwiches. [Attached below page break: Our side-by-side comparison of the edited video plus video of Mitchell's non-apology]

The next time a liberal friend of yours -- with a straight face -- tells you that MSNBC is concerned with substantive campaign reporting, you can throw this back at them.

The Right Scoop blog has an excellent post today -- be sure to also check out Soopermexican's original post -- about how the network's latest fixation: Mitt Romney mistakenly calling the Wawa convenience store chain "Wawa's" and seeming to be enthralled with their system for obtaining made-to-order sandwiches. Afternoon anchor Andrea Mitchell hinted at a long-since discredited "supermarket scanner" meme about President George H.W. Bush, suggesting Romney was unfamiliar with touch-screens in convenience stores. But missing in the network's fixation on the minor gaffe is the substance of Romney's comments, Right Scoop notes:

Openly gay MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts seems to make a point of addressing an issue of interest to homosexual activists at least once in each hour of his coverage of MSNBC Live. Today was no exception as Roberts gave a softball interview to retired multimedia journalist and former Eagle Scout Naka Nathaniel. Nathaniel was on to explain why he was publicly renouncing his achievements as a Boy Scout, particularly his Eagle Scout rank, as an act of protest to the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) policy forbidding gay scout leaders and den mothers.

True to form, Roberts failed to ask any tough questions of Nathaniel nor did he provide equal time for a supporter of the BSA policy to come on air to defend the Scouts.

With a program entitled Hardball, MSNBC audiences should expect, well, "hardball" questions of politicians no matter what their ideological leanings, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell noted on the June 14 edition of Fox News Channel's Hannity. Instead, host Chris Matthews recently and quite openly confessed his eagerness to aid Democrat Elizabeth Warren's campaign to defeat Sen. Scott Walker (R-Mass.) this November.

"Let me help you on this, to the extent I, as a journalist, can help you," Matthews offered Warren on his June 13 program. [see the full video below the page break]

MSNBC host Alex Wagner has made no secret of her disdain for the Second Amendment, telling Bill Maher last November that if it were up to her, she'd repeal the amendment which enshrines the right of Americans to keep and bear arms, saying the right to own firearms is not "in the grand scheme" of things as important as the rights to speech and assembly. Back in February, Wagner seized on a tragic school shooting to complain about the lack of new gun control legislation.

So it's no surprise that, when turning again to the topic of gun control and gun rights today, Wagner would stack the deck in favor of the former and dismiss concerns about the latter. Regarding legislation in New York State that would require "microstamping" of firearms, Wagner brought on Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence president Dan Gross, who insisted the legislation in question was "a simple case of right versus wrong" that should face no legitimate criticism from gun rights advocates.

On the heels of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s latest stupid regulations commanding a shrinkage in the size of sugary drinks in restaurants, movie theaters, and stadiums, the Walt Disney Company has announced it will ban ads for products on its broadcast and online platforms that it has scientifically determined are “junk food” that do not meet the company’s nutrition standards.

Curiously, Disney announced that it would begin this new effort immediately – wait, no, at some time in 2015. So why announce this now? It would seem so Disney could be praised and honored by First Lady Michelle Obama – or the other way around. It just smells. It carries a distinct aroma of Campaign 2012.

The Radio Equalizer catches up with Bill Press on his Friday radio/Current TV show after his blatant attack on the National Anthem. "Boy, I never expected it," he claimed. Was Press professing shock that his rant was controversial -- or perhaps he's shocked anyone noticed from his obscure posting in the media? It's not exactly CNN or MSNBC down there for the former chair of the California Democratic Party.

Despite his puny perch in the commentariat, Press boasted that somehow Michelle Malkin on the Fox News Channel is a mere insect. She's on Fox, and he's on Current TV, and she's the insect? (Audio and transcript below)

Last month 43 Catholic institutions across America joined together to defend the First Amendment and filed a total of twelve lawsuits against the Administration in order to protect the right to freedom of religion on behalf of all Americans. 

This is the most significant religious lawsuit in U.S. history and Christian leaders all across America have joined in support of the Catholic institutions.  This lawsuit is not a single action by a few “out of touch religious leaders,” as the liberal national media would like to portray it. 

When even a panel of liberal journalists thinks the New York Times has gone too far with its Romney-bashing, you know the paper's descending to uncomfortable subterranean depths of bias. With the lone exception of Jodi Kantor, herself a New York Times reporter, the members of today's Now with Alex Wagner panned the Times for its Home section front-pager about Romney's La Jolla, California, home, "The Candidate Next Door."  The story was written by political writer Michael Barbaro in a section that usually has to do interior decorating and other apolitical domestic fare.

"Can I call bull on this?" Nation magazine contributor Ari Melber asked. "What they've done here is taken a campaign reporter who covers the campaign with a really thin, silly story, and then put it in the home section." [audio available here; video update coming shortly]

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was honored in Washington during a discussion and light lunch hosted for a largely female audience at the Sewall-Belmont House & Museum. She was honored by MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, who “largely praised Pelosi throughout the interview” and at one point referred to her former speakership as "Sam Rayburn-esque." Rayburn was Speaker for 17 years and one of the House office buildings is named after him.

"TARP, the stimulus, health reform, Wall Street reform, student loan reform, the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the new GI bill," Maddow began. "The number of major pieces of legislation that you not only saw passed in the House — but we can also include cap-and-trade, we can include the DREAM Act there —but beyond those, the ones that also became law is, and I don't just mean to flatter you, but is [the] kind of list of legislation we associate with people whom we name large buildings after in Washington."

In the same spirit as Scott Bauer's claim for Associated Press of a "narrow 7-point gap" in the Wisconsin recall polls, so The Washington Post on Wednesday's front page classified Scott Walker's win as "Walker survives," and below that, "LONG LINES AND A CLOSE VOTE." Close?

Via my Twitter friend mattjmobile, here's a reminder of the Washington Post's front page on November 5, 2008, when Obama won by the same margin as Scott Walker: "Obama Makes History: US DECISIVELY ELECTS FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT." [See below]

NewsBusters senior editor and Media Research Center director of media analysis Tim Graham appeared on the June 4 O'Reilly Factor to discuss the role that the broadcast network morning shows play in influencing the electorate with their liberal-leaning narratives about the issues this election season.

The morning shows have strong ratings, "have become the profit centers for [broadcast networks'] news divisions and they reach a lot of female voters in particular," Graham noted. "[O]ne of the reasons we pay so much attention to the morning shows... is just a dramatic bias in terms of favoring Obama, favoring the Democrats." [you can watch the full segment in the video embedded below the page break]

JPMorgan Chase CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon and President Obama were once friends, but the three major networks were quick to forget this once JPMorgan Chase lost more than $2 billion. Earlier this year, Dimon was one of only three CEOs who had special access to the White House and Treasury Secretary Geithner, according to Associated Press.

Now the Obama Administration and the media have made Dimon into a poster child for why a lack of government control in the banking sector is a bad thing, while at the same time they have distanced Obama from the controversy surrounding his former friend. Dimon used to be regarded, as Politico so aptly put it, as a “blunder-free Master of the Universe.” He was also referred to as the president’s “favorite banker” three separate times by The New York Times. Dimon will be testifying before the Senate Banking Committee regarding the JPMorgan Chase debacle on June 13.

Matt Lewis at The Daily Caller reports a new E-book by RealClearPolitics’ Washington editor Carl Cannon and executive editor Tom Bevan contains a juicy media tidbit. During preparation for the January 16 Myrtle Beach GOP debate, Fox News anchor Bret Baier and his producers voiced concern that if Juan Williams asked Newt Gingrich a question about black Americans demanding “jobs, not food stamps,” that Gingrich could hit back hard, “attempting to turn Williams into a prop, as he had done with both Chris Wallace and Baier in a debate in Ames, Iowa.”

But Williams persisted in his planned spin. “I need to ask it this way...because it’s offensive.”

Liberal historian and biographer Douglas Brinkley is out with a new book about the late Walter Cronkite and in its pages lie plenty of revelations that damage the late anchor's objective journalist "halo," according to media critic Howard Kurtz, who reviewed the book for the Daily Beast. Among other things, Brinkley wrote about how the allegedly Cronkite bugged a committee room at the 1952 Republican convention, how he literally begged liberal Sen. Robert Kennedy to jump into the 1968 presidential race, and how the avuncular family man figure had a penchant for partying at topless bars.

Yet on the May 31 edition of Now with Alex Wagner, neither Brinkley nor Wagner nor anyone else on the panel brought up any of those interesting revelations, focusing instead on such trivialities as how Cronkite, who got his start in the wire service UPI, perfected his on-air news-reading skills. [MP3 audio here; video follows page break] [Related: Read the MRC's Cronkite "Profile in Bias" here]

It's been breaking news all over MSNBC, liberal blogs, newspapers and even The Wall Street Journal: "Federal spending under Obama at historic lows ... It's clear that Obama has been the most fiscally moderate president we've had in 60 years." There's even a chart!

I'll pause here to give you a moment to mop up the coffee on your keyboard. Good? OK, moving on.

"You know what, you've been a great journalist for 44 years," The View host Barbara Walters gushed to Dan Rather at the close of a softball interview on May 23 about his new memoir, "Rather Outspoken."

"No matter what CBS says!" an excited co-host Joy Behar interjected. Yes, "no matter what CBS says," Walters agreed of the former anchor/managing editor of the CBS Evening News, who was fired from the Tiffany network for running stories on a discredited phony memo that alleged President George W. Bush was often AWOL when he should have showed up for training exercises when serving in the Air National Guard.

"In 2008, in the primaries, there were 1,365 stories on Barack Obama" and of those, "not one single story" was devoted to President Barack Obama's admitted youthful use of illicit drugs. By contrast, President Bush's refusal to admit either way on youthful drug use in the 2000 campaign was met with non-stop media scrutiny, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell noted on Friday's edition of Hannity on the Fox News Channel.

What's more, when Hillary Clinton's campaign raised the subject of Obama's drug use in the 2008 campaign, it was denounced by the media as descending "into the gutter," the Media Research Center founder noted on the May 18 edition of Sean Hannity's primetime program. To watch the full "Media Mash" segment, click the play button on the video embed that follows the page break.

Politico media reporter Dylan Byers is impatient with the media: “When will we talk about Mormonism?”

He means the negative stuff: “I’m talking about a national conversation about the Mormon faith, including its past practice of polygamy (which was renounced by the church in the 19th century) and its exclusion of African Americans from the priesthood (until 1978). That sort of thing.” Does he watch anything?

On Tuesday, May 16, CNN did something that hadn't happened to the network since 1997: The 9 p.m. edition of Piers Morgan Tonight drew an audience of only 39,000 viewers in the important 25-54 age demographic.

These numbers come as a huge blow to the host, liberal, former tabloid editor Piers Morgan.

As an ever-shrinking number of newspaper readers can attest, most major U.S. papers skew liberal. But its not every day the head of a union representing journalists lays out a list of goals that might have been written by MoveOn.org, and displays a contempt for democracy more at home on the editorial pages of state-run organs in third-world dictatorships.

But there was Larry Cohen, AFL-CIO Organizing Committee chair and President of Communication Workers of America (CWA), of which the Newspaper Guild is part, calling on progressives to “unite in a years-long campaign to restore and reclaim both workers rights and U.S. democracy.” According to report on the Guild’s website, Cohen was addressing the Women’s National Democratic Club in Washington, D.C., when he declared that reclaiming democracy would mean overcoming, well, democracy. “The limits of democracy alone have blocked us,” Cohen said.