Reuters

Better stow all potables and sharp objects, for the ratings of America's top four broadcast networks are so bad that one is giving refunds to advertisers while the other three are offering what is known in the industry as "make-goods." Even better, the problem began before the writers strike. Honestly, you can't make this stuff up. As deliciously reported by Reuters moments ago (emphasis…

Can I get an "argh"?As detailed here, "Abu Omar al-Baghdadi" was long-ago outed as a figment of al Qaeda-in-Iraq's imagination, a transparent attempt to give a home-grown flavor to the foreign-controlled AQI operation by claiming that the non-existent Baghdadi, supposedly an Iraqi, was AQI's leader.But despite the debunking of the bogus Mr. Baghdadi, the environmentally-sensitive Reuters recycles…

So that's why they call it "the graveyard shift."There's little the MSM likes more than to report the latest thing that's bad for us. Today's news brings a double-header of doom: night shifts and salt.First, the AP reports that the UN's World Health Organization will soon list working the night shift "as a 'probable' cause of cancer."Then Reuters informs us that the Center for Science in the…

The surveyor will see you now      Journalist and Pollster (Either Or)As an increasing number of Americans exhibit knowledge of and confidence in the success of the surge in Iraq, pollsters seeking a gloomier picture have turned to their single most reliable focus group for bad news.  They have in fact skipped the middle men and women and gone to its very font: the media.In a November 28th…

Pop quiz, hot shot: On any given day, who is more likely to say the nuttiest thing? Sean PennRosie O'DonnellKeith OlbermannHugo ChavezRegardless of your answer, on Wednesday, November 28, 2007, the whacky dictator from Venezuela wins the booby prize for saying CNN is trying to get him killed.As deliciously reported by Reuters moments ago (emphasis added throughout, h/t JammieWF):

First published in Human Events on November 27th, 2007.Wash, spin, rinse, spin. Phone, spin, report, spin, poll, spin. The similarities between the work of the mainstream media and a laundry machine are striking. Yet there is nothing about the cycle -- the spin-report-poll-spin cycle -- that does for political events what detergent does for your boxers or briefs. The media, as One, spend days…

Shouldn't the media cover the debunking of an event which stirred violent anti-Israel sentiment and even became a talking point for Osama Bin Ladin? Instead, the media ignored a French judge's investigation into whether France2's 2000 report that claimed Israel shot and killed a 12-year-old Palestinian boy is “a hoax.” The famous picture of a terrified Mohammed al-Dura hiding behind his father…

Folksy can accurately describe many a politician, foreign or domestic. But a Fidel Castro-loving, Bush-hating, suppresser of free speech who has carte blanche to rule by decree? If you ask Reuters, well, yes. (h/t Taranto's November 15 Best of the Web).The November 13 article in question by writer Enrique Andres Pretel dealt with how Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is demanding an apology from Spain's…

The media had some rather interesting takes on Fred Thompson's November 12 speech at The Citadel in Charleston, SC, or at least takes different than my own. Jim Davenport of AP keyed in on the size of the military that a President Thompson would champion. Jeremy Pelofsky of Reuters parroted the same sentiments. I saw the first half of the speech, and then Roger L. Simon and I were fortunate…