Corporate Liberalism

New York Times reporter Leslie Kaufman, who works for a paper that prints over one million copies every day, lectured Americans for using wastefully cushy toilet paper in Thursday's "What Mr. Whipple Didn't Say: Softer Paper Is Costly to Forests." Americans like their toilet tissue soft: exotic confections that are silken, thick and hot-air-fluffed. The national obsession with soft paper has…

Rick Sentelli's rant for the ages (transcript here) on CNBC's Squawk Box yesterday criticizing the recently passed stimulus package and the Obama administration's mortgage modification program was marred somewhat by the studio hosts. Though their tone was semi-humorous, it's telling that their instincts were to characterize the traders present at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange as a "mob," and to…

Lost in the overall cratering in the stock market yesterday in reaction to Tim Geithner's awful "soiled the bed" TARP II presentation yesterday -- New York Times Company stock closed at $4.23. As of 3:30 PM today, the stock was up 12 cents. Yesterday's close is the stock's lowest point since the company went public in July 1986 (down over 50% in real terms): At yesterday's close, the company was…

Kerry Smith, ABC's Senior Vice President for Editorial Quality, has in an open letter responded to Media Research Center President Brent Bozell's call to publicly address and resolve the apparent breach of ethics of its Chief White House Correspondent George Stephanopoulos. Smith succeeded in delivering distortions and hurling false allegations at Bozell and the MRC, but failed to address the…

Big business, the supposedly right-wing, conservative entity that thwarts "progress" and advocates against left-wing economic policies sure doesn't seem to be acting that way of late.Of course it never really does but that is beside the point. AP reporter Stephen Manning chronicles how corporate America is trying to cash in on Barack Obama's inauguration in an unprecedented, literal selling of a…

Are you a latte liberal who can't make the pilgrimage to D.C. for the Obama inauguration? Or do you think that if you did, you'd in the January chill without your mid-day brew? Well, MSNBC is looking out for you!The Obama leg-thrill network has teamed up with Starbucks Coffee to open more than 600 java joint locations in New York City, Seattle, and San Francisco.Not into coffee? MSNBC also has…

Ever since the financial services industry totally melted down in September, anti-free market media have pointed an accusatory finger at deregulation as the primary cause of bank, brokerage firm, and insurance company failures.Yet, as press outlets across the fruited plain deal with declining revenues and layoffs, some believe a looser anti-trust environment could be the solution.Even more…

Despite conservative grumblings of liberal bias, Internet behemoth Google has for years claimed its search engine exclusively uses algorithms to provide accurate and impartial results for those interested in finding out information concerning a particular subject.Google's CEO Eric Schmidt affirmed this contention while speaking to a group of conservative bloggers during the Republican National…

Who says there aren't some positive side-effects to a slowing economy?I'd say this one, as reported by the Washington Post's "Capital Weather Gang" blog, qualifies:NBC Universal made the first of potentially several rounds of staffing cuts at The Weather Channel (TWC) on Wednesday, axing the entire staff of the "Forecast Earth" environmental program ..... The layoffs totaled about 10 percent of…

Is MSNBC being rewarded for having backed Obama?  That's what Jim Pinkerton suggests.  On this evening's Fox News Watch, the columnist and New America Foundation fellow cited the news that GE Capital, a subsidiary of MSNBC's parent company GE, has received a $139 billion government loan guarantee.Host Jon Scott opened this evening's show opened with a clip of Chris Matthews [in a story that NB…

With General Motors in serious trouble, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Harry Reid, D-Nev., are making a push for the government to intervene and rescue the auto giant as they did with AIG. However, Francesco Guerrera, U.S. editor for the Financial Times, isn't so sure a GM failure would be as bad as some are letting on. Guerrera appeared on CNBC's Nov. 10 "Power…

It's taken them awhile, but good to see that MSNBC has now seamlessly integrated its own promotional advertising with that of the Obama campaign.An MSNBC promo that just aired, touting the network's election coverage, concludes: "Watch MSNBC, and experience the power of change."  And as you'll see from the screencap, who is at the center of MSNBC's coverage but Keith Olbermann.  Oh, and prior to…

The election results aren’t in yet, but there is one set of surveys with an unmistakeable conclusion. Everyone should be forced to admit that the publicists formerly known as the "news" media have worked themselves to the bone this year to elect Barack Obama.Polls have found it. The Pew Center for the People and the Press documented a landslide: "By a margin of 70 percent to 9 percent, Americans…

Rarely do the media put their institutional political bias on public display, but this past weekend, America's news industry titans left no doubt that they're fully behind one of the nation's most radical cultural and political movements.  ABC, AP, CBS, CNN, Fox, NBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the corporate owners of USA Today, the Miami Herald, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution…