Online Media

"Seriously?!"

That's what I thought when I received an e-mail from NewsBusters reader Lori Puente informing me that Yahoo News is listing an article about Katie Couric's upcoming trip to report from Iraq and Syria in the "entertainment news" section.

Sure enough, I took a look at Yahoo News and there the headline was: "Katie Couric to report from Iraq, Syria."

Given the nature of news on the Web, it's likely to change by the time many of you folks read this, so for a screencap, check out Puente's blog here.

The story in question is from the AP's David Bauder. Here are the first few grafs:

It's not very surprising coming from the same guys that tried to scare young voters in 2004 with fears of the military draft, but Human Events online producer Ericka Andersen takes a look at the left-wing, anti-war in Iraq slant of MTV.com's political news section:

Not that I expected MTV to be fair and balanced but this is ridiculous. I checked out the MTV site after seeing their recent commercials featuring two musicians strumming along to Spanish music in a cool setting to cool music with two cool looking Latin folks. But the wordless tone is clearly MTV's embrace of illegal immigration. Though they did provide different viewpoints to choose from on the immigration debate on the politics section of their web site, the same could not be said for coverage of the Iraq War.

When you enter the think:Politics section of MTV.com, you can choose to to click Iraq: Take a Stand. Then, there are two sections -- one for if you support the war, one if you do not. The section labeled "If you are against the war" features six different websites and resources to choose from. The section labeled "If you are for the war" lists only one.

In San Francisco's liberal Ninth Circuit Court today, a three- judge panel heard arguments in the strange case of Al-Haramain v. Bush. And the members of the media gathered in San Francisco showed their ideological colors afterwards.

To those who may not be familiar with the case, this is essentially a test case as to whether the United States government has the legal authority to perform secret surveillance on anyone. The plaintiff is a Muslim organization called Al-Haramain that has been linked to a variety of Muslim terrorist organizations and has been shuttered in many countires for its unabashed laundering of money to said terrorists. Even the United Nations has placed Al-Haramain on its list of banned organizations.

If you're a soldier serving in Iraq and have a downbeat view of the troop surge, Time's Joe Klein is itching to have the Left adopt you as a poster boy. But should you be a soldier in Iraq and you think the surge is working, well, obviously you're just a tool of those vile neocons at The Weekly Standard, willing to "trash" fellow soldiers.:

Glancing over blogs that have written on the CNN "God's Warriors" miniseries, I came across a critical entry by liberal activist Sharon Cobb, formerly a contributor to the "NBC Nightly News."

While Cobb professes immense respect for CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour, she's not well-pleased with the jet-setting journalist's latest special. Cobb is particularly chagrined with how Amanpour's special seems to treat Judaism. Here are the first few grafs of her August 22 blog post (emphasis mine):

For the second day in a row, Google News is placing a picture of President Bush laughing next to stories about new proposals for tightening who is eligible for the federally-backed State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). (SEE screencap below fold)

NewsBusters associate editor Noel Sheppard wrote about a similar incident on Wednesday.:

Whether an accident or intentional, the placing of a picture of President George W. Bush laughing next to the headline "Children May Lose On Insurance" is rather deplorable, especially since the picture was not from the article in question.

Whether an accident or intentional, the placing of a picture of President George W. Bush laughing next to the headline "Children May Lose On Insurance" is rather deplorable, especially since the picture was not from the article in question.

However, that's what occurred at Google News' Health section Wednesday morning when the featured article was the Boston Globe's piece by Alice Dembner discussing how "[t]housands of Massachusetts children from low-income families could be denied health insurance under new rules imposed by the Bush administration late last week."

Yet, for some reason, the picture above right, from an article published Tuesday at the website OverTheLimit, was placed next to the Globe's headline, and was actually about a story in the New York Times Monday (emphasis added, h/t reader Lloyd Hohn):

In the appropriately-titled "Media Backtalk" chat on August 21, Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz defended a fellow reporter's self-described "smart-assed" remark to President Bush about adviser Karl Rove's political acumen.

Kurtz defended CBS White House correspondent Bill Plante's August 13 question as "the Sam Donaldson technique of trying to get the president and top aides to say something, anything at a scripted event where they are determined not to respond to reporters."

"If he's so smart, how come you lost Congress?" Plante shouted to President Bush at an August 13 White House news gaggle. Three days later, Plante defended his question in a CBSNews.com interview saying:

It's not a scientific survey, but a recent poll of Chicago Tribune readers showed an overwhelming majority of readers support the arrest and deportation of illegal immigrant and Social Security fraudster Elvira Arellano. You'll recall I wrote about the Trib's bias on Monday.

The results of the four poll questions were published in an August 21 post at Eric Zorn's "Change of Subject" blog:

We asked chicagotribune.com readers for their views on the Elvira Arellano case. Here are the results after approximately 23,900 votes were registered:

Update below (11:26): ThinkProgress responds.

(h/t Ace)

NonPartyPolitics has picked up on how the liberal ThinkProgress blog smells something fishy in presidential daughter Jenna Bush's engagement to beau Henry Hager. Basically the lefty blog suggests that first lady Laura Bush lied to the press -- in 2005.

That's right, there's got to be something sinister and mendacious in Laura Bush's 2005 prediction that Jenna and Henry were "not serious." I mean, it's not like true love can blossom in a courtship in two years. Not for someone that close to President Bush!

Admitting it was "smart-assed," CBS White House correspondent nonetheless defended his now-infamous "If he's so smart, how come you lost Congress?" quip from Monday's White House South Lawn farewell for Rove. Interviewed by CBSNews.com blogger Matthew Felling, Plante did concede that he welcomes scrutiny of how the press functions, especially in live press conference settings.

Said Plante at the close of his interview:

I’m absolutely and totally in favor of openness, even if it makes us look bad. The public is entitled to see what we see – and, increasingly, they do because of live coverage. If that means they see me or hear me asking what they think is an impertinent question, that’s fine. I’ve got no problem with it.

Not surprising, but the Time magazine contributor and "Swampland" blogger slapped around President Bush for moving to empower the federal government to freeze assets held by the terrorist-sponsoring Revolutionary Guard Corps of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Yet two weeks ago, Joe Klein slammed President Bush for not confronting U.S. ally Pervez Musharraf about terrorist sympathizers that work covertly against U.S. interests from within the Pakistani military.

Here's Klein's August 15 post, after which I add more commentary:

In my experience, Wikipedia is often a good resource, especially for pop culture and computer tech terms. But since it is a fully community-operated enterprise, there are some pratfalls about relying on it for information, especially since some organizations use it as a marketing tool for themselves, attempting to control entries they're interested in.

This type of cybersquatting is quite widespread but up until now, difficult to track. That's changed however, with the creation of Wikiscanner, a search engine that allows you to see what organizations have been editing Wikipedia. You can, for instance, look up to see what Wikipedia users from different political groups, business, churches, and any other organization have been up to on the site. Early results are showing that many employees seem to have a habit of editing the entries of their own company/organization. You can also see that at least one person at the New York Times deliberately defaced Wikipedia's entry for George W. Bush with the words "jerk" inserted into the page repeatedly.

It's not completely foolproof, however, since Wikipedia only reveals your IP address if you edit a page without signing up for an account. Still, the data is interesting. Wikiscanner is being deluged with huge amounts of traffic right now but when things calm down, it should prove to be a very interesting research tool for us here at NB and for everyone in the blogosphere.

As NewsBusters reported earlier (here and here), the New York Times is likely to soon abandon its TimesSelect pay-subscription online service. That's hardly a surprise when you look at the numbers writes Brett Arends:

The New York Times Web site is extremely popular. According to figures tracked by Nielsen/NetRatings, nytimes.com attracted about 12.5 million readers worldwide in June, the month with the most recent data. That's a huge global audience for news, and a large multiple of the Times' print circulation.

The number willing to pay extra for access to TimesSelect?

Just 29% -- a mere 221,000. That figure has risen a miserable 8,000 since the start of the year.

The screaming left is always going on about the lives that will be lost from the global warming boogeyman, yet I can't find a single newspaper willing to confront the seven lives that may be lost on Wednesday because of it. You may recall how Clinton/Gore EPA regulations forced NASA to switch to a freon-free foam, one that doesn't stick to the tanks, one that causes up to 11 times more damage to the life-saving thermal tiles, all in an effort to make the libs feel better about flying their personal jets across the globe. Ever since then we've had scare after tragedy every time a Shuttle launches.

A cursory look at Google News shows that the brave and enterprising journalists from American news organizations are completely unwilling to even mention this important story. It makes me wonder what Adolph Ochs, the publisher of the New York Times who created the journalistic oath to cover the news "without fear or favor", would think of the state of journalism today. Show me the journalist with the courage to look the families of these astronauts in the face and tell them the science has already been decided.

A recurring feature on her "Couric & Co." blog is the "10 Questions" interview, usually posed to a think tank official or politician on a major political issue. In the past, I've blogged about how the interviews have generally skewed leftward, but I was pleasantly surprised with the CBS anchor's mostly neutral agenda of questions in her August 9 interview with Robert Moffitt of the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Generally speaking, the questions sought to elicit Moffitt's perspective on tackling health care without pressing him with loaded questions. I was annoyed at question #4, but Moffitt immediately pointed out that foreigners seeking treatment in America are fleeing inefficient, shoddy socialized medicine in their home countries.

Here are Couric's questions. For Moffitt's answers, check here.:

This is still developing apparently, but Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters is all over what appears to be a hare-brained smear of presumptive GOP presidential candidate and former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson. Here's an excerpt:

It doesn't take long for provocateurs to crawl out of the woodwork to attack candidates, especially in stealth attacks. With Fred Thompson, they've apparently started before he officially enters the race -- and in one case, race is the operative word. Apparently hoping to confuse web surfers looking for Fred's website at www.imwithfred.com, a new site has appeared at www.imwithfred2008.com -- only this site welcomes people to the Ku Klux Klan, "Bringing a Message of Hope and Deliverance to White Christian America!" It includes links to a variety of disgusting racist sites.

Who would post something like this as a smear on Fred Thompson? Someone a little too stupid to cover his tracks, possibly? A DNS search gives us an answer. The domain name, registered through GoDaddy (no great shock there), belongs to:

While looking at a friend's profile on Facebook today shortly after 10 a.m., I spotted her "Election '08" application which proudly lists her support for the Republican Party in 2008. Immediately below are three of the "latest politics headlines" on Newsvine.com, the Web site that created and manages the Facebook application. Yet the headlines were hardly the "latest" and had nothing to do with the 2008 race or its principals. What's more, all three headlines carried downbeat news:

I've been on a roll lately with stories about the media not getting religion, so I might as well get another amen from the choir in the comments threads.

Christianity Today's Ted Olsen explained yesterday at his magazine's "Liveblog" why he doesn't rely on Reuters for that ol' time religion (reporting):

Today's nonsensical headline from Reuters: "New evangelist leader plans to avoid politics"

Don't get me wrong. I like that mainstream media do take some efforts to report more religion and faith news items these days, including blogs like "The Seeker" at Chicago Tribune's home on the Web and the ongoing "On Faith" feature hosted by the Washington Post and Newsweek.

But just as I ripped "On Faith" for asking if good works were preferable to being saved, I have to admit this August 6 discussion starter by the Trib's Manya Brachear is a little clumsy as well:

Is church the right venue to talk about pornography? Is a small dose really that wrong?

This from the same blogger who asked, "Does sex bring you closer to God?"

Slate magazine found out that Rudy Giuliani's daughter Caroline has a crush on Obama.

Well, maybe not a crush, but she had joined a pro-Obama Facebook group and describes herself as "liberal" (but then that's also how many Republican voters would describe Caroline's father).

The article, complete with evidentiary screen grab, was written this morning by Lucy Morrow Caldwell, like Caroline Giuliani also a student at Harvard University. Caldwell has a profile on Facebook in the Harvard and Washington, DC networks, and has poor taste in sunglasses, as the screencap below shows:

The Washington Post's Jose Antonio Vargas reported in the August 6 paper about worries in the Yearly Kos crowd that the liberal blogosphere is too white and too male. Critiquing that August 6 article, Jack Turner of "Jack & Jill Politics" disagreed with Vargas' assessment that every attendee at YearlyKos was wringing his or her hands about how to "diversify" the attendance.:

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.

It's hard to write a blog aimed at being both red meat for Fox News haters and Reagan conservatives. That didn't stop Keith Olbermann's staff from trying yesterday in a blog that highlighted Giuliani's friendship with Fox News chairman Roger Ailes.

Implying that Ronald Reagan would have something damning to say about Giuliani "from the grave," Keith Olbermann's "NewsHole" blog picked up an item run on HuffPo and American Spectator that cited one brief reference from the Gipper's diaries that called the then-federal prosecutor "crazy."

Here's the text of the August 2 post:

Time magazine's Joe Klein doesn't like Rudy Giuliani's health care plan for three reasons. Well, one really, but three manifestations of the same beef: It's not socialistic enough.

What follows are Klein's complaints from his August 1 "Swampland" blog post, followed by my snarky translation:

--it doesn't mandate that insurance companies cover everyone at the same rate, regardless of pre-existing conditions (community rating).

Who cares if you're a chain-smoking, trans fat-loving, Burger King-is-your-second home kinda guy with diabetes, high cholesterol and a coronary bypass under your belt? Health insurance companies shouldn't charge you a penny more than the marathon-running vegan next door whose idea of splurging is a little extra sugar in his mango strawberry soy milk smoothie.

On the online networking site Facebook, Time Inc. employee Betsy Burton asks "Who would you like to see as a guest blogger on Swampland," the Washington/Campaign 2008 blog on the magazine's Web site. "Self nominations [are] not accepted," Burton added.

I've already left my suggestions. If you're on Facebook, you can join their group and place yours. With its solidly liberal blogger bullpen and wildly liberal fan base (read the comments threads on an empty stomach), the blog could use a conservative voice to bring in balance in reporting and analysis of the '08 race and the Democratic Congress.

While you're at it, join NB's home on Facebook and say "hi" on our wall.

Blogger Michelle Malkin has an excellent item today at RealClearPolitics.com about how the media have a lack of interest in stories about Christian missionaries kidnapped, brutalized, and tortured at the hands of Islamist terrorists. Here's an excerpt, after which I share my thoughts on what we could expect to see from the biased media should some of the South Korean missionaries make it back alive and find themselves interviewed on say "Dateline NBC":

The blood of innocent Christian missionaries spills on Afghan sands. The world watches and yawns. The United Nations offers nothing more than a formal expression of "concern." Where is the global uproar over the human rights abuses unfolding before our eyes?

In light of Matt Sheffield's latest post, I found it a bit funny that this article is featured on the front page of USAToday.com this morning (see screenshot to the right).

SAN FRANCISCO — Brooke Brodack remembers her first online "hater."

Nearly two years ago, the person posted rude comments about a video she had posted on YouTube, says Brodack, 21, of San Francisco, whose videos show her lip-syncing and creating characters. "It was shocking to me. Why would someone want to be so mean for no reason?"

Why, indeed? Nasty comments, sometimes even death threats, have become ubiquitous on virtually any website that seeks to engage readers in discussion.

"Ur ugly u suk and u should die," says a typical comment beneath one of Brodack's many videos. Such vulgar messages have inspired heated discussions, and video responses, on YouTube.

Reporter Janet Kornblum later brought the topic around to how mainstream media Web sites have taken to banning comments after persistent problems:

Over at Time's "Swampland" blog yesterday, journalist Joe Klein all but suggested the GOP candidates might be hoping to chicken out of the upcoming YouTube debate on September 17, given the leftward slant of the YouTube questions.

Given the generally irreverent and, well, liberal tone of the questions last night--and the general skew of the YouTube audience leeward, do you think it's possible that some of the Republican candidates are having second thoughts about participating in their version of the CNN/YouTube debate on September 17?

And might there be an Ailes gremlin whispering to the candidates: The Dems stiffed us at Fox. You can stiff CNN.

I'm glad Klein agrees with us that the agenda of questions on Monday skewed heavily left-of-center, but where he's off-base is suggesting that Republicans should also be pushed from the left in the debate format.

The Chicago Tribune's Frank James thinks the Democrats really need to stop this insistence on retreat... from the word liberal. In short, James wrote at the paper's "The Swamp" blog today, if Democrats don't hunker down and fight Republicans on the dreaded L-word, the GOP will keep moving on and make "progressive" an epithet as well.

Here's James' argument, portions in bold are my emphasis: