YouTube

Apparently, YouTube doesn't think that a conservative journalist has anything to say to help all you budding citizen journalists out there. A glance at the denizens of the Old Media offered up as journalism experts on the Internet video giant will show a long list of well known lefties with not a single center or center right professional in the mix.

On April 30, YouTube set up a channel dedicated to a sort of how-to instruction manual or an online media 101 class that folks interested in becoming citizen journalists can watch to help them learn some of the tricks of the Media trade. Ostensibly, this will help the average, every day blogger present his work in a more professional way. This is a great idea, by the way. Many blogs could use some tips on better writing and presentation, interview skills, and video presentation if not an occasional editor -- and I should know on that last one!

Pornography is no longer a poison creeping into the crevices of our popular culture. It is part of the very fabric. One sensation at a recent Apple conference for new and developing applications in San Francisco was the "i-Porn bikini girls" advertising free X-rated films for your i-Phone. It sounds like a whole new reason to fear people using their mobile phone while they drive.

Free porn sites are all over the Internet now, with zero restrictions or minimal electronic barriers against curious children who might be in for a very crude shock within seconds, just with the still photos on the home page. Even the most mainstream of video sites are inundated with pornography and its promoters. YouTube touts itself as the world’s most popular portal for Internet videos. It has become so big it’s even promoting a new technology called YouTube XL to put its videos directly on your big-screen TV.

A new study by Matthew Philbin and Dan Gainor of the Culture and Media Institute (CMI) found that YouTube is stuffed with porn videos.

On June 17, FNC’s “O’Reilly Factor” focused a “Viewer Warning” segment on the Culture & Media Institute’s new Special Report: “Blue Tube: Four Reasons to Keep Your Kids Away From YouTube.”

“A new study by the Media Research Center – a conservative group, but an accurate group – indicates that pornographic content is available to kids on YouTube pretty much all the time,” host Bill O’Reilly said.

Amanda Carpenter of the Washington Times, “The Factor’s” regular Internet correspondent, explained some of the study findings. “If you put in a search term like ‘porn,’ into the YouTube site,” she said, “you’ll come up with 330,000 different hits. And, while the Web site says it warns … it bans, excuse me … explicit pornography, there are tons of things out there that resemble, you know, soft-core type of porn, girls stripping, allusions to lesbianism, fetishes. And they say its porn – they advertise it as porn. Other pornographers put links to their own real sites that are pornographic.”

O’Reilly asked about the lack of safeguards that the CMI study uncovered. “So say a 12-year-old wants to see this stuff,” he said. “All they have to do is lie about their age, right?”

If you are following the amazing events currently unfolding in Iran in the wake of their turbulent election, then YouTube will give you a much better sense of what is happening than the mainstream media. Yesterday, while the dramatic protests were unfolding, CNN held an extended forum on healthcare. The other cable news channels weren't much more enlightening in their coverage of events from Iran.

Where does a web surfer go to find out about the turbulence taking place there? For me, and a lot of other people, the natural gathering place for a video view from Iran is YouTube where many Iranian bloggers have been uploading their highly interesting videos some which you can see, along with a sampling of the accompanying commentary, below the fold. So turn away from those cable news networks which are only giving relatively shallow coverage of the turbulence in Iran and welcome to the Brave New World of Web video reporting from bloggers on the scene of the action.

We couldn't resist posting this one for a good Friday laugh -- I think the video speaks for itself.

Found via SunSentinel.com

While most people might be offended by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) saying bonuses are like bribes, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali.) was so enamored with such talk that she actually posted a video of the Massachusetts Congressman's disgusting remarks at YouTube.

As NewsBusters previously reported, during Wednesday's House Financial Services Committee hearing, Frank chastised the CEOs in attendance for having the gall to receive bonuses:

Why do you need to be bribed to have your interests aligned with the people who are paying your salary? 

Pelosi obviously wasn't offended by Frank's comments, for she posted a video of his remarks -- in her own name, mind you! -- at YouTube (video embedded below the fold):

In addition to his regular pundit responsibilities at Fox News and sometime column in the Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove has taken it upon himself to do the job of the MSM--reporting the news.

Yesterday, my colleague, Noel Sheppard, noted the lack of coverage of President George W. Bush's homecoming in Texas. Only Fox News was present to cover what was, in Sheppard's words (and I agree), "one of his finest speeches ever." Thanks to Fox News, we have documentary evidence of this speech.

Were it not for Karl Rove, we might not have any similar evidence of President Bush's hearty farewell at Andrews Air Force Base. From Greg Pallowitz at NRO's Media Blog, video after the jump.

 

 

The latest news from the Onion: YouTube offers $100,000 to people who can make videos that someone would actually want to watch.

With the economic recession beginning to affect even Google, news came out today that the web giant's YouTube property is making some major changes to its video service that are designed to clean up the site's image in the hopes of slowing the massive financial bleeding.

The policy changes were announced in a posting at the YouTube blog. An excerpt from the post is after the jump:

The only thing remotely interesting about San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's bizarre decision to upload his incredibly dull 7.5 hour "state of the city" speech to YouTube is the knowledge that it is sure to inspire parodies. So how dull is Newsom's speech? Well I challenge you to listen to just a couple of minutes of it without hearing the beckoning call of Mr. Sandman enticing you to enter a deep slumber. Here is the take on this YouTube speech by Michelle Malkin:

Hey, remember that judge who sentenced noise violators to Barry Manilow music? Here’s a worse sentence: Sitting through 7.5 hours of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom droning on and on and on about the “state of the city.” There are YouTube segments on health care, education, and the environment. But nada on the city’s infamously deadly illegal alien sanctuary policies.

He’s uploaded his entire speech on YouTube. Even his fellow libs can’t take it:

YouTube is promoting as its "citizen news report of the day" a video of an alleged attack on Greenpeace activists at a coal plant in Poland. There are two problems with the news judgment behind this video selection.

First, both the initial report on the video and YouTube's description of it overstate what actually happened. Watch the video for yourself and see. Aside from some unjustifiable shoving, kicking of snow and grabbing of signs, there is no attack.

In one instance, the pushing is to get protesters out of the way of an oncoming bulldozer. Another clip appears to show a coal miner helping up a protester who fell, and the Greenpeace activists eventually are allowed to display their "Quit Coal" banners without interference -- presumably on private property where they had no right to be.

But the bigger problem with the news judgment in this case is the blatant double standard at work. Why is YouTube helping to publicize an obscure, pro-environmental protest in Poland while ignoring citizen journalism reports of recent bad behavior by protesters that are far more noteworthy and much closer to home?

H/t reader Harry S.  Imagine that a prominent media conservative jokingly hoped, in any way shape or form, that a member of the Dem presidential ticket would be shot.  How long until the MSM and various others demanded he be fired, a Secret Service investigation launched, etc?

But when Bill Maher jokes about Sarah Palin being shot? Silence, except for the raucous laughter of the studio crowd.  Maher offered up his violent fantasy on this past Friday's "Real Time" on HBO in the "Exit Strategy" segment, devoted to exploring foreign countries to which people might consider moving in the event of a McCain victory.  India was the subject of the week, which led to Maher's invocation of recincarnation, and his "hope" for how Sarah Palin would come back . . . .

A Barack Obama supporter in Ohio with deep roots in Democratic politics -- and a 2001 sex-related felony conviction to his name -- is behind two new confrontational videos that bait ignorant people into calling Barack Obama a terrorist.

The first video was released Wednesday and has gone viral. It currently has more than 1.1 million views on YouTube. Part II went online a day later and is well on its way to viral status, with more than 145,000 views.

The John McCain and Sarah Palin supporters in the videos are characterized as “The McCain-Palin Mob.” The videos selectively feature voters who, upon being asked antagonistic questions, make some outrageous statements about Obama.

One of the hottest Internet videos during the mortgage and banking crisis has been a YouTube clip titled "Burning Down the House," which outlines the untold story of how liberal Democrats pressured banks and lenders to throw standards out the window and give money to people who couldn't pay it back.

Try watching it now, however, and you won't be able to, thanks to the growing problem of "flag spam," the practice of abusing online filter systems to squelch political speech with which one disagrees.

We've all seen spammers at work in our e-mail inboxes. Experts estimate that 90 percent of all e-mail messages nowadays are spam, or unsolicited commercial e-mail.

Luckily for most of us, the majority of it gets filtered out. That's caused the more sophisticated spammers to change course and target a more vulnerable part of the Internet - the hugely popular Web sites like YouTube, Digg and the blogosphere, where anyone can join the discussion by posting videos, essays, reviews and other content.

When interviewed by Eyeblast.tv last month, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that YouTube, the video-sharing site owned by his company, is "pretty serious" about removing the "strange" videos that keep popping up on the site, especially videos "that can be used to incite bad outcomes." Apparently videos designed to incite Catholics don't fall into that category.

A YouTube user who goes by the moniker "fsmdude" has posted more than 30 videos under the title "Eucharist Desecration." Each video features an attack on a symbol that Catholics consider sacred -- by blow gun, nail gun, boiling, sword and cigarette in a few recent episodes.

The creator of the videos isn't subtle about his intent. He was angered by reports of a college student allegedly receiving e-mail threats from "fanatical Catholics" after the student snatched a wafer at mass, so "fsmdude" decided to repeatedly profane the Eucharist on camera for all to see.

On PBS's Web site today, ombudsman Michael Getler writes of complaints over an incident during last Sunday's pledge drive.  He describes the cheap shot taken by actor Mike Farrell against vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin:

According to Joseph Campbell, vice president of fundraising programs, here's what happened:

Who says Ralph Nader doesn't have a sense of humor? Here is a video of Nader in a Hamlet like discourse with Cardozo the Parrot about why his presidential campaign isn't getting much media coverage this year. Well, I can tell Ralph why he isn't getting media coverage. Because the MSM fears he will take votes away from Obama this year and don't want a repeat of 2000 where many blamed Nader for siphoning enough votes away from Al Gore in Florida to cause him to lose the election. However, let us read Ralph Nader in his own words as he pours out his campaign coverage woes to Cardozo the Parrot:

(Cardozo the Parrot squawking)

 On CNN's American Morning today, White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux reported on Barack Obama's campaigning in Virginia.  Afterwards, anchor Kiran Chetry had a question:

CHETRY: All right. And Suzanne, what's on tap for the campaign today? And please tell me it's not lipstick again.

MALVEAUX: Let's hope not. He's going to be in Norfolk, Virginia. That is in southeast Virginia, and it's home to the world's largest Naval base. It's one of the most competitive areas that the Democrats and Republicans are fighting over. It's a critical piece of property, piece of land there with folks in Virginia, and they want those voters.

NewsBusters editor and "NewsBusted" executive producer Matthew Sheffield was interviewed by Steve Grove of YouTube's CitizenTube political channel about "NewsBusted."

In the segment, Sheffield talks about the origins of the show, whether it's really a "Daily Show" for the right and his other favorite YouTube channels.

This doesn't qualify as any kind of surprise, but it should be noted nonetheless.

Thursday, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama gave a stunningly downbeat assessment of the nation's overall situation in a response to a seven year-old girl who asked him why he is running for president. Obama's media water-carriers have virtually ignored his very telling response, one that is reminiscent of Jimmy Carter's gloomiest, malaise-based assessments of America during his awful presidency.

Here is a rundown of what happened from Ed Morrissey of Hot Air (direct YouTube link to relevant video is here):

When media personality Tim Russert, once a top adviser to leading Democratic officeholders in New York, died of a heart attack in June, editors at YouTube rightly paid tribute to him by promoting videos that celebrated his work and life.

They didn't extend the same courtesy to conservative journalist Tony Snow over the weekend. Instead, YouTube chose to mark Snow's passing by featuring a liberal rant that blamed Snow for "hundreds of thousands of deaths," including those of innocent children, because he briefly served as President Bush's spokesman.

The video was one of two promoted in YouTube's news and politics section after Snow died of cancer at age 53. The first clip, from an interview with White House counselor Ed Gillespie on CBS' "Face The Nation," gave Snow his much-deserved due as "one of the good guys."

But in an apparent and twisted attempt at balance, the second Snow-related clip that YouTube chose was headlined "Tony Snow Job." Here's how it began: 

You likely didn't notice but my posting volume has been lower of late. This is in part because of my work on a new theme for NewsBusters but also because over the past few days, I've been at the Personal Democracy Forum, an internet technology conference where I was asked to speak on the topic of online video based upon my experience as executive producer of our comedy show "NewsBusted."

Despite being the lone center-right panelist in a room full of liberals, the experience was quite enjoyable. My thanks to Micah Sifry of PDF for inviting me to join in.

On the panel with me were Steve Grove of YouTube who served as moderator (see his excellent summary of the discussion here), Josh Marshall of the Talking Points Memo blog, and Robert Greenwald, a left-wing producer of films attacking "the corporate media."

Los Angeles Times staff writer James Rainey has an article today taking a look at the lack of love for John McCain on YouTube compared to the multiple hosannas found when searching for videos of the Obamessiah:

Search "John McCain" on YouTube and you'll find the latest broadside, by Brave New Films of Culver City, and a lot more that's not good for a candidate who's built his reputation on constancy and authenticity.

[...]

Six of the top 10 videos returned by a "John McCain" YouTube search Thursday pegged the 71-year-old as inconsistent, extreme, wooden or a combination of the three. (The one clearly favorable piece came from the McCain campaign and focused on his Navy service.)

**Video below the fold**

The Hill is reporting that Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) told an audience at a town meeting that the Democratic Party was basically lying when they said they'd stop the war if they were elected as the majority during the 2006 midterms. One would think that such an explosive admission would be all over the news? Amazingly, this news is rather hushed.

In an August, 2007 video posted on You-Tube on May 22nd, Kanjorski is seen saying that Democrats "stretched the facts" when they said they would stop the war after winning the majority.

Update (14:11): Video is no longer up on YouTube, so we pulled the embed. For more coverage, see Ed Morrissey's post at Hot Air.

Just in time to prove a major migraine for the Clinton campaign for the May 6 Hoosier State primary, a YouTube video alleges Clinton backer Mickey Kantor once derided Indianans as "sh*t" and "white n****rs." Fellow NewsBuster Seton Motley and I reviewed the video. There's no doubt Kantor actually said "It doesn't matter if we win. Those people are sh*t," but there is a dispute over who "those people" are and if the second slur is doctored. [see video embed below fold]

Ben Smith at Politico.com reports that D.A. Pennebaker, director of "The War Room" from which the clip is taken, insists the "white n****rs" comments were doctored. Au contraire, says the editor of the video, who insists he merely "enhanced" the audio to bring out the barely whispered epithet.

What's more, Smith reports, Pennebaker says Kantor was referring to then-President George H.W. Bush's political advisors as "sh*t", not the people of Indiana themselves:

Today is Earth Day, and you don't have to look any further than the home pages of the top Internet companies to see it. Green is the politically correct color of choice for firms that want to score cheap environmental points online.

The bias is most blatant at Google and its video-sharing subsidiary, YouTube. Google's logo has gone completely green, and the television screen within YouTube's logo is a snapshot of the earth.

YouTube also has turned over the prime real estate on its home page to earth-friendly videos, with headlines like "5 Easy Ways To Save The Planet" and "Veggie Cars." Oh, and don't forget, "Paris Hilton Is Greener Than You."

Video Below the Fold

Erick Erickson over at RedState tells us all of an anti-Christian video recently introduced with great frivolity by Internet philosopher and Obama technology advisor Larry Lessig. The video introduced at a Google Author series seminar shows Jesus singing the Gloria Gaynor tune "I Will Survive" in a very effeminate, theatrical way. As the song ramps up, Jesus throws off his robe and strips down to a diaper-like covering, then he sashays through a modern city until he gets hit by a bus in an intersection.

The worst thing about this is that this is also another scandal involving a Barack Obama campaign associate showing his disdain for the American mainstream, this time a disdain of Christianity. It turns out that Lessig is a somewhat secretive Obama campaign advisor, serving to assist the campaign on Internet and technology policies. As Erickson points out, Lessig hosts Obama's tech policy on his own lessig.org website.

Confirming the important role that NewsBusters played in exposing Hillary Clinton’s bogus “sniper fire” story, CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson told the Los Angeles Times’s “Web Scout” blog that it was in fact our March 18 NewsBusters item that prompted her to debunk Clinton’s claims in a March 24 report for the CBS Evening News.

According to the April 8 posting by David Sarno, the Times’ Internet culture and online entertainment writer:

CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson didn’t realize she had a story on her hands until a colleague e-mailed her a link to 12-year-old footage of the Bosnia trip that she herself had reported on, which had been posted on newsbusters.com [actually, NewsBusters.org] several days earlier. “I clicked on a link and was stunned to see it was the same trip,” Attkisson said in an interview.

A tip for today's starter: ReviveTube. This site lets you watch videos that YouTube has pulled from its public archive because of censorship complaints.

It seems to work by accessing the Flash files directly from YouTube's servers since when it "deletes" a video, really all that YouTube does is just deny access to the page it's on. The files are still cached an accessible, provided you know how to get at them. Luckily, ReviveTube does.

YouTube watchers have often marvelled at the video website's floating enforcement of copyright laws.

Another such incident guaranteed to cause a lot of conservative heads to be scratched is this weekend's decision by YouTube to yank an advertisement created by the Competitive Enterprise Institute -- as reported by NewsBusters March 12 -- harshly critical of Nobel Laureate Al Gore's hypocritical views on global warming.

As reported by the conservative CEI moments ago: