ACORN

UPDATE #2 - ALSO BELOW THE FOLD.

UPDATE BELOW THE FOLD - THE ESTEEMED MR. CALDERONE RESPONDS.

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CORRECTION: I said the Washington Post was on the hook twice on Calderone's list.  H/t to NBer Dean who pointed out it's three - #s 2, 7 & 10.  A thousand apologies, and thanks to The Man from the People's Republic of Maryland.

Politico's staff reporter Michael Calderone has compiled his list of his top ten Media Blunders of 2009.

I for one think he did a fully fair and more than fairly good job of it. Media Research Center Director of Media Analysis Tim Graham for two thinks so as well.

On his list were the likes of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, the New York Times's Maureen Dowd and CNN. And the Washington Post - twice. Targets all for which you'll find a rich environment here on NewsBusters. And he slammed the traditional media in totality for remaining dockside while the Good Ships ACORN and Van Jones set sail on alternative media seas. He hailed the Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck and website mogul Andrew Breitbart by name for captaining those stories when the Jurassic Press stood down.

Calderone clips Fox News for what he calls their "Tea Party Trifecta," but he's hardly bashing meritlessly here either. An FNC producer was caught on tape rallying a Tea Party crowd. That is quite a bit over the top. And Sean Hannity did run B-roll from the wrong rally - a more populous one - and was forced to apologize to the world generally and Jon Stewart particularly.

Though Hannity's probably was an honest mistake. The Pulitzer-winning Dowd's excuse for "borrowing" a paragraph from the liberal website Talking Points Memo - that a "friend" had sent it to her - bends the credibility curve downward quite a bit.

Someone at Politico worn-out horsed (See: Definition #3) Calderone on the photograph composite accompanying his article, however. (Said snapshots appear below the fold.) We don't think Calderone chooses what goes with his pieces. Perhaps he should.

The ladies of ABC's "The View" on Thursday spoke out against Republicans who "have always felt that there was something a little off about ACORN," and said the embattled community organization needs to be given a second chance because "the Republicans aren't going to take care of [the poor]."

Sure...who cares that they're advising people how to set up child prostitution rings, cheat banks, and evade taxes if they're helping the poor?

Of course, nobody on the panel pointed out that the Democrats currently control both Chambers of Congress as well as the White House.

Alas, facts are never important to these folks when they get on a roll (video embedded below the fold with rough transcript, h/t our dear friend Ms Underestimated with assistance from Jeff Poor):

"ACORN appears to be a corrupt organization that aids and abets criminals and gets millions of dollars in taxpayer money."

Such was reported Tuesday evening, but not by one of the mainstream television news outlets.

That was Jon Stewart on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," who in a fabulous six-minute segment not only covered the story of ACORN representatives giving business advice to folks trying to set up a child-prostitution ring, but also lambasted the media for getting scooped so embarrassingly by "two kids from the cast of ‘High School Musical III.'"

After walking through some of the videos captured at numerous ACORN offices by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, Stewart said (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript):

In a shocking twist to Thursday's ACORN sting video story, the Baltimore city state's attorney is considering charging the two people that exposed the activity.

As NewsBusters has been reporting, Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe (pictured right) caught on video several ACORN representatives giving them advice as to how to get a loan to purchase a house to be used as a brothel whose employees would be under-aged illegal immigrants.

Despite the long list of laws possibly broken by these ACORN representatives, the Baltimore city state's attorneys office is looking into whether or not Giles and O'Keefe violated statutes concerning taping people without their consent (h/t HotAirPundit):

You would think videos exposing representatives of the controversial organization ACORN giving advice on how a couple can get a loan to set up a brothel would be BIG NEWS.

Such would seem especially the case if the proposed house of ill repute would be employing minors illegally smuggled across the border from Central America.

Yet, when Andrew Breitbart's new website Big Government published such videos Thursday morning, media normally fascinated with sex stories almost completely ignored it.

The boycott continued even after several ACORNers were fired as a result (sting videos embedded below the fold):

Justin Rood of ABC news came out with a tortured defense of ACORN today with the help of "experts" that claim there is no connection between invalid voter registrations and voter fraud. In order for Rood to make this claim he relies on the testimony of two "experts", namely Civil Rights attorney David Becker and Lorraine Minnite, a political science professor at Barnard College in New York.

A further examination of these two experts however shows that Rood is downright deceitful in presenting this argument. Lorraine Minnite actually donated $250 to the Obama campaign in March of this year while David Becker is anything but the Republican that he is portrayed as in the article. In fact Mr. Becker is a former director at People for the American Way, a liberal activist group that monitors "right wing organizations" and is currently launching a campaign aimed at Fighting Back Against Right-Wing Smears of ACORN.

Just in case you were unconvinced of the objectivity of Becker's former group note that they will be launching a full page ad in the New York Times in defense of ACORN.