Online Media

Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan are Democrats. Is it okay to write that? Apparently, it's not in an establishment media report, based on the last six months of coverage of these two corrupt Pennsylvania judges. In February (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted that the Associated Press ran a story about two Pennsylvania judges "charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send…

"U.K. Docs Worry Patients Dying Prematurely," reads a headline featured this afternoon in CBSNews.com's Top News menu. The link brings readers to a CBS/AP story with the same headline. But when one reads through the article, it becomes clear the matter at hand may have some bearing over a controversial issue in America's current health care reform debate (emphasis mine):A group of British doctors…

In today’s L.A. Times director Oliver Stone discusses his upcoming documentary “South of the Border,” about the “warmhearted” Hugo Chavez. [emphasis added]: Oliver Stone is shown warmly embracing Hugo Chávez, nibbling coca leaves with Evo Morales and gently teasing Cristina Elizabeth Fernández de Kirchner about how many pairs of shoes she owns. … “I think he’s an extremely dynamic and charismatic…

Some of us have been wondering how viable the Voluntary Employee Benefit Arrangements (VEBAs) set up by the United Auto Workers for its auto industry employees really are. This is of particular concern at the VEBAs tied in to General Motors and Chrysler. What happens to the employer stock these VEBAs own will heavily influence whether they have the money to pay promised benefits. The answer to…

Does being a member of a social networking website such as Facebook or Twitter give crooks personal information about you that could increase the likelihood of you being robbed?If the answer is "Yes," should such participants be required to pay higher insurance premiums?This concept is being considered by Great Britain as reported by that nation's Daily Mail Thursday (h/t William Ricci):

Julia Seymour, Kyle Drennen, and several others at NewsBusters have done a great job (here and here, here, and here, just for starters) exposing the establishment media's rush to characterize the government's Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS) program, commonly known as "Cash for Clunkers" program, a success. This media meme has persisted despite processing snafus, slow payments to dealers,…

"It feels a bit like 9/11 on Martha's Vineyard. End-of-summer weather is achingly beautiful but the mood is melancholy because of Teddy." [click image at right to see larger image of screen capture]Thus wrote Matt Cooper, editor of Conde Nast Portfolio on his Twitter page a few hours ago. The former Time magazine White House correspondent, who also writes for Huffington Post, walked back his…

Reflecting on "How Ted Kennedy Found Himself," Time's Joe Klein today let readers in on an encounter with the Massachusetts senator in the 1970s when he was stoned and Kennedy drunk. The occasion, Klein receiving an "honorable mention" journalism award from the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial foundation in 1974.Klein explained how their conversation at the reception centered around an earlier incident…

Are social networking websites like Facebook negatively impacting people's ability to effectively communicate with each other?As adults -- including members of the news media!!! -- begin acting like their text message-crazed children, mightn't the very way they convey thoughts and ideas be changed forever...and not for the better? Such seems counterintuitive as Americans across the fruited plain…

Using a "clever" headline, LiveScience.com, in a report carried at Yahoo News, tries to give those who will only see the headline the impression that Americans are a bunch of dummies who don't understand what's good for them: Majority of Americans Believe Health Care Reform 'Myths' Yes, the word "myths" is in quotes, but the reader is left to assume that a credible outfit must be asserting what…

Gabriel Malor at Ace of Spades HQ has a great "name that party" catch today. Malor noted that at least three major news outlets all failed to note the high-powered Democratic Party ties of one Hassan Nemazee, a businessman arrested this morning on a charge of bank fraud against Citigroup:Do you know what's not in the CNN article?* Or this Reuters one? Or this AP one?A crucial detail from Nemazee'…

On Sunday evening, NewsBusters colleague Noel Sheppard highlighted a health care-related story from the Canadian Press (CP), which is that country's rough equivalent to the USA's Associated Press.It appears that the CP is more open to reporting inconvenient news than is "our" AP, judging from a report earlier that day by the CP's Jennifer Graham. In an interview with Graham, the incoming…

The story of his passing is here. Brent Baker's tribute to this true exemplar of journalism is here. Here, in my view, the most direct measure of the man: He never forgot those who worked with him (and I suspect that was the case for those who worked for him). Proof: He and his partner Rowland Evans were responsible for the Evans-Novak Political Report until Evans died in 2001. Novak never…

When George W. Bush was in the White House, one of the leading anti-war voices in the nation was the ultra-liberal website Daily Kos.Now that Barack Obama is President, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are mysteriously no longer of such great concern to the Netroots.I guess the anti-war movement was much more about getting Bush out of office than getting our troops out of harm's way. Such was…