Code Pink Gets Reuters Coverage — For a Protest Group of 20
The ability of tiny numbers of far-left fringe group demonstrators to get undue press attention virtually any time they want continues to be intensely annoying.
In mid-2007, Barack Obama made closing the prison at Guantanmo Bay a core promise of his 2008 campaign. That was 7-1/2 years ago. Obama has been in office six years. Gitmo is still open. So naturally, the aggrieved professional…
Barely News: Dire Venezuelan Shortages Bring Military Into Stores
Three results returned in a search at the Associated Press's national site on "Venezuela" tell us almost nothing about that country's deepening economic crisis.
An unbylined January 10 item reports on the visit of Nicolas Maduro, the country's de facto dictator, to Iran in hopes of "stabilizing" (i.e., raising) oil prices. A second unbylined report on January 9 tells readers that there's really…
NYT Editorial Criticizes Others for Charlie Hebdo Sentiment It Tweeted
The New York Times ran a lead editorial Thursday in support of Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine in Paris where twelve people were massacred, evidently by radical Muslims angry at its satirical images of the Prophet Muhammad. But the Times' defense of free expression looks like hypocrisy, given the paper's pathetic past in condemning previous cartoonists for drawing Muhammad:
Kristof: 'Is Islam to Blame' For the Charlie Hebdo Massacre?
At around 6 p.m. Wednesday, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof was still wondering: "Is Islam to Blame for the Shooting at Charlie Hebdo in Paris?" ("Shooting?" Singular?) Maybe he still is.
This was many hours after it was known that the perpetrators shouted "We avenged the Prophet Muhammad!" and "Allah Akbar!" after completing the Charlie Hebdo massacre of 12 in Paris, and after ISIS…
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Networks Ignore Obama’s Shaky Footing on Depictions of Muhammad
On Wednesday night, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC ignored the contradicting statements made by President Obama in condemning the terrorist attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris as an attack on free speech, but stating in a 2012 speech at the United Nations that “the future does not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam.”
When it came to discussing the terrorist attack…
Vanity Fair Failed to Report Clinton Pal's Sexcapades in '03
Correction: This post originally referred to Variety as the publication involved. It was Vanity Fair, and the text below has been corrected to reflect that.
At the Daily Beast on Tuesday, Vicky Ward, who profiled Jeffrey Epstein for Vanity Fair Magazine in early 2003, revealed that she and Graydon Carter, the publication's editor, were aware of and had specific details about the convicted…
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Rangel Says Dead Soldiers Didn't Move Him Unless They 'Looked Like Me'
Let's imagine a white Congressman saying that when he served in Vietnam, he was never moved at the sight of a dead U.S. soldier unless he was white. His career would be over, and deservedly so, within about five minutes of his statement. If he was a conservative or a Republican, even if he resigned instantly and was roundly and unanimously condemned by his colleagues, the press would remind us of…
At LA Times, Pearce Joins Parade of Brown-Wilson Evidence Distorters
In the final three paragraphs of a "Year in Review" item at the Los Angeles Times on December 31 (HT Patterico), reporter Matt Pearce joined the long list of journalists who have failed to properly characterize the evidence in Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, Missouri in August.
You had to know that distortions were coming based on the rest of the article content which preceded it. The most…
NY Times Labors Mightily to Paint Cop Shooter as 'Accidental' Killer
In the interest of getting all supposedly relevant information out there for the public to see, the New York Times amassed an extraordinary array of journalistic resources — three reporters, three who "contributed reporting," and two others who "contributed research" — to what they must have thought was an important, underappreciated element of the saga which ended with the brutal ambush murders…
Mario Cuomo in 1984: High on Passion, Low on Accuracy
Former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who died on Thursday, is predictably being lionized today by USA Today's Aamer Madhani "as (a) giant in political rhetoric," and by others elsewhere in similarly glowing terms.
Madhani goes on to characterize the three-term Empire State chief executive's 1984 Democratic Convention speech in San Francisco as "what is widely considered one of the finest pieces…
Stop the Presses: Jackson Said Something Sensible — On Immigration
Call the Ripley's Believe It or Not people. Have smelling salts available. What follows will surely be one of the more unusual things you've seen or heard this year.
In the midst of his otherwise odious Silicon Valley race-hustling shakedown effort, Jesse Jackson said something that made sense — so much sense that the rest of the press, which usually hangs on every word of his nonsensical…
LAT Laments How Mega-Donor Steyer Was Not Decisive in 2014 Midterms
Chris Megerian at the Los Angeles Times, in a report first published online on Tuesday, had a difficult time trying to downplay the fact that Democrat and leftist mega-donors outspent their Republican and conservative couterparts by an overwhelming margin during the past election cycle.
But Megerian made the best of it, giving readers the impression that David Koch, of the supposedly evil Koch…
De Blasio Pressured Pols to Condemn Police; Will Media Ignore?
Let's say that a Republican or conservative governor or big-city mayor (yes, there actually are quite a few) was in a heated dispute with his state's or city's police union. Let's further say that this official decided that his or her best method for whipping up support was to order the staff to (ahem) "ask" GOP legislators or council members to issue public statements of support while bashing…
Nets Skip Gruber, ObamaCare, Hong Kong During Year in Review Roundups
Each of the network morning shows devoted some time on Wednesday to looking back at the biggest news stories of year and, while they certainly could not have included every story in the allotted time, they all failed to spend even a few seconds on topics such as Jonathan Gruber, pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, President Obama’s unpopularity, and the Hobby Lobby case to name a few.
In…
