Political Scandals

In its opening half-hour, Good Morning America found time to tell us—twice—that Pres.-elect Obama choked up with emotion as he viewed his packed-up old home. But somehow ABC never got around to mentioning that a possible pay-to-play scheme was behind Bill Richardson's bye-bye as Commerce Secretary nominee.After the show-opening roll in which the president elect was shown heading to DC, Robin…

Future resting place at Chicago's Oak Woods Cemetery of Roland Burris, named by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagovejich to replace Barack Obama in the Senate.

Although most media members used the occasion of Mark Felt's death on December 18 to praise the former FBI official better known as "Deep Throat," George Friedman of the geopolitical intelligence organization Stratfor warned readers about journalists becoming "tools of various factions in political disputes" as well as "the relationship between security and intelligence organizations and…

ABC can't be so naive as to believe it wasn't a carefully calculated publicity stunt.  Surely the good folks at Good Morning America know it was anything but an invasion of privacy--that the Clintons wanted the world to see the image of a blissfully happy married couple tripping the sand fantastic. And yet .  . . GMA devoted a segment this morning to a collective tongue clicking in concern that…

Two situations over the weekend illustrate that the Associated Press's habitual failure to identify the political party of Democrats in trouble is more than likely a conscious decision. This is despite the AP Stylebook's guidance (as of 2000, the latest free edition I can find; a PDF is here) that a reporter should "include party affiliation if readers need it for understanding or are likely to…

Associated Press writer Glen Johnson's story on the indictment of a close friend of Salvatore DiMasi, Massachusetts's Democratic Speaker of the House, is the latest in a long line of fairly long stories about Democratic politicians in trouble that fails to identify their party affiliation.The story names a half-dozen politicians, all of whom are Democrats, without identifying the party of any of…

Lynn Sweet wants the Obama team to come clean over its contacts with Blago.  David Shuster has a different concern.  He's hoping the media won't get "adversarial" once the Obama folks get around to releasing their report about who said what to whom.Shuster made his pre-emptive plea for good media manners on this evening's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the MSNBC show Shuster has recently begun hosting…

Ten years ago, the House of Representatives voted to impeach President William Jefferson Clinton.Ten years later, how will the very media that helped sway public opinion in order to prevent a guilty verdict in the Senate report this anniversary?As a preview of what we should expect, here's how CNN's Frank Sesno recounted the tawdry details during Thursday's "American Morning" (video embedded…

The first of just three questions asked of Barack Obama at his December 17 press conference [audio available here]:CYNTHIA BOWERS, CBS News Chicago correspondent: I have a question. You ran on a platform of transparency. How difficult is all this having to wait to release your inquiry business when the American people expect transparency?Yes, you read that correctly. Bowers prompts Obama for an…

What a difference an administration makes. During the Bush years, if a spokesman or the president himself attempted to dodge a tough question, the media would go into their Sam Donaldson impressions and pundits would see a conspiracy of silence.But now that it's Obama, the dodging that was once denounced is suddenly celebrated.  Thus, appearing on today's Morning Joe, Larry O'Donnell declared "…

With apologies to the creator of the famous evangelical Christian bumper sticker, "Obama said it. The media believe it. And that settles it."Get a load of the first two grafs from AP's December 15 article, "Obama: Probe shows no contact in Illinois gov scandal.": President-elect Barack Obama said Monday a review by his own lawyer shows he had no direct contact with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich…

On Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez discussed the potential impeachment of disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich with Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky and asked: "You've been calling for impeachment proceedings since the day after this scandal broke. Why? What happened to innocent until proven guilty?" Schakowsky explained: "No, this isn't about the legal process.…

The media defense of disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and corruption in politics continued Sunday morning as new "Meet the Press" host David Gregory, along with his guests, actually defended Blago's actions as "pay to play" business as usual that's just "part of the system" and "how the world works." Such seems an astounding about face from the press's disgust and incessant focus on…

In today's "You've Got To Be Kidding Me" moment, PBS's Jim Lehrer actually defended the corrupt actions of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich Friday asking his guests, "What's the big deal here?"I kid you not.During his discussion with regulars Mark Shields and David Brooks on Friday's "News Hour" the subject of Blago arose, and Lehrer took what has to be considered an absurd position on this…