Clipmarks | ratilfar's 'media' clips

Charges Dropped Against Reporters Arrested At RNC

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:27:17 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: One has to wonder if this was the plan all along, and the real intention was simply to inhibit reporting of abuses against protestors. Or maybe they’re hoping that with the reporters out of court, the media won’t be so interested in covering the 800 or so other arrests. With over forty journalists arrested, there should surely be at least some investigation of police officers involved for trumping up charges too:

Clip Source: www.crooksandliars.com

Charges are being dropped against over two dozen journalists, including Amy Goodman and her two producers, arrested during the crackdown on protests at the Republican convention in St. Paul. Goodman’s charge of “obstructing the legal process” has been dropped, as have felony riot charges against her colleagues Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Other dropped charges are mainly for “unlawful assembly”.

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said Friday that the city attorney’s office recommended against prosecuting reporters for the misdemeanor charge.

“This decision reflects the values we have in St. Paul to protect and promote our First Amendment rights to freedom of the press,” Coleman said in a statement.

He added, “At the scene, the police did their duty in protecting public safety. In this decision, we are serving the public’s interest to maintain the integrity of our democracy, system of justice and freedom of the press.”

Tags: gop, politics, elections, press, media, constitution, police

The rising cost of the Iraq 'surge'

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:53:40 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: Cont....

In other words, the big-name journalists don’t want a discussion about the decision to illegally invade Iraq under false pretenses in 2003 (presumably because they almost all were cheering the invasion on), but instead they want the debate to center entirely on their latest false assumption, that the “surge” has virtually won the war.

In reality, the “surge” of about 30,000 additional troops sent to Iraq appears to have been only one factor and – according to military officials interviewed for Bob Woodward’s new book, The War Within – possibly a secondary one in explaining the drop-off in the violence that had made Iraq a living hell.

Clip Source: www.aljazeera.com

Since Jan. 10, 2007, when George W. Bush announced his troop “surge,” more than 1,000 U.S. soldiers have died in the Iraq War – about a quarter of the total war dead – but now an even higher cost may loom ahead, the indefinite continuation of the conflict under President John McCain.

Despite strong evidence to the contrary, it has become established conventional wisdom among mainstream Washington journalists that the “surge” was the singular reason for the recent decline in Iraq’s violence. It’s also agreed that McCain deserves great credit for pushing the “surge” idea early.

Barack Obama has been repeatedly chastised – even badgered – for opposing the “surge.” His attempts to refocus the debate more broadly on the wisdom of invading Iraq in the first place are rudely rejected by Big Media interviewers.

Tags: iraq, surge, myth, cost, news, politics, media, obama, mccain

Anthrax and ABC News: Selling the Saddam Anthrax Link

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 16:00:52 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: So much for the so called "Liberal" media!

Clip Source: www.salon.com

Much more important than the general attempt to link the anthrax to Islamic terrorists, there was a specific intent -- indispensably aided by ABC News -- to link the anthrax attacks to Iraq and Saddam Hussein. In my view, and I've written about this several times and in great detail to no avail, the role played by ABC News in this episode is the single greatest, unresolved media scandal of this decade. News of Ivins' suicide, which means (presumably) that the anthrax attacks originated from Ft. Detrick, adds critical new facts and heightens how scandalous ABC News' conduct continues to be in this matter.

ABC News, including Peter Jennings, repeatedly claimed that the presence of bentonite in the anthrax was compelling evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attacks, since -- as ABC variously claimed -- bentonite "is a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program" and "only one country, Iraq, has used bentonite to produce biological weapons."

Tags: lies, damned, anthrax, terror, saddam, iraq, no, link

What Wars Has John McCain Won?

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 14:05:04 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: iraq, mcsame, mcinsane, stupid, wars, media, young, turks, youtube

2004 Bush Interview Banned In America - An Insight Into Insanity

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:36:45 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: This is what a real journalist sounds and looks like.

Clip Source: www.crooksandliars.com

[Video]

This 2004 interview should be required viewing for every journalism student. I admit that I had not seen this video until today, but apparently over a million people already have and I hope that millions more will watch it as well. If the American press corps and our corporate media had asked tough questions like this of President Bush and his administration during the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that public support for it would have plummeted. This interview was done in ‘04, but was never aired in the U.S., and it’s quite possible that it could have affected the outcome of the presidential election that year. Imagine the outcome if a journalist dared to interview John McCain in this way today.

Tags: bush, media, u.s., ignorance, truth, news, nightmare

McCain gets busy, the media gets spun, and Obama gets screwed

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 21:54:27 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: So no change....

Clip Source: www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com

The more the presidential campaign unfolds, the more it resembles a Twilight Zone episode in which reality has no meaning at all.

For over a year, Barack Obama’s position on Iraq has been entirely consistent — a flexible withdrawal timeline, over 16 months, with one to two brigades a month. He would consult with commanders on the ground about how best to execute this policy, and would consider conditions on the ground, but Obama is committed to a withdrawal policy. He’s said this over and over again.

In fact, conditions-based flexibility has always been a hallmark of Obama’s policy. Asked earlier this year if he’d refine the timeline based on events on the ground, Obama said he would. Asked if he’d guarantee that all the troops would be out of Iraq, no matter, what 2013, Obama demurred.

So, yesterday, when Obama repeated the exact same policy he’s emphasized for over a year, the McCain campaign and the national political media

Tags: obama, mccain, policy, war, iraq, statements, facts

The So Called Liberal Media Part XXI

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:32:13 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: Here we go again!

Clip Source: mediamatters.org

Summary: On MSNBC Live, anchor Chris Jansing discussed Sen. John McCain's energy policy with former Sen. Trent Lott but failed to disclose that Lott is now a lobbyist for major energy companies. Earlier this month, Andrea Mitchell discussed energy policy with Lott and Sen. John Breaux on MSNBC Live but failed to disclose that both are lobbyists for oil and gas companies.

Lott and former Sen. John Breaux (D-LA) formed the Breaux Lott Leadership Group and now lobby on behalf of oil and gas clients Chevron, Shell, and Plains Exploration & Production Co. MSNBC's failure to identify Lott as a lobbyist for oil and gas clients comes after anchor and NBC News foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell discussed energy policy with Lott and Breaux on the June 9 edition of MSNBC Live but failed to disclose that both are lobbyists for oil and gas companies.

Tags: msm, liberal, media, bias, uncaring, profit, seekers, message, pushers

The Surge is....oh no, not again!

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:51:29 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: "And the GAO report finds just that, that the Bush administration has no plan for what to do next. With the 18-month surge coming to an end in July, the report says that the administration has not set out "strategic goals and objectives in Iraq for the phase after July 2008 or how it intends to achieve them" and "an updated strategy is needed for how the United States will help Iraq achieve key security, legislative, and economic goals."

The report acknowledged that violence was down in May (after rising in March and April) and attributed the reduction to three factors: "1) the increase in U.S. combat forces, 2) the creation of nongovernmental security forces such as the Sons of Iraq, and 3) the Mahdi Army's declaration of a cease fire." What do these three conditions have in common? They are all temporary and unlikely to continue in the future.

Clip Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

The statement is made in the U.S. media, over and over again, as if it is as factual as the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening: "The surge is working." But just because the media has parroted the talking points of the Bush administration and John McCain's campaign in making such an assertion, it does not make it true. And a report released by the U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) yesterday does something that McCain and the White House probably wish would not be done: actually evaluating progress in Iraq against the goals the administration laid out in January 2007 when undertaking the surge. Guess what? In many material ways, the surge isn't working. Sorry to rain on the parade of CNN, Fox News, ABC, CBS, etc. with the facts.

The mainstream media is barely even acknowledging the report's release. At the time of this writing, the GAO report didn't even warrant a headline on the CNN.com home page,

Tags: gao, iraq, war, surge, facts, you, can, use

The "Dark Genius" of Fox News

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:56:23 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: "To me, that's the smoking gun if you're looking for evidence that Fox News is as much a partisan political machine as a news organization. I think TVN is a great piece of evidence in that whole puzzle. And Joe Coors played the role of Rupert Murdoch in that. Basically, Ailes learned how to run a national news service. He learned how to get stories to deadline, he learned how journalists work the news, but most importantly, he learned from Coors and his associates, people like Jack Wilson, how to try and manipulate the news product. Because the Coors people, they wanted a conservative news service, they were frustrated they couldn't get that because it turned out the reporters they hired were too professional."

Clip Source: www.salon.com

Why a book about Roger Ailes?

I couldn't believe that no one had written a book on him yet. He's been such a central figure for so long. And you see biographies and analyses of other figures in media and politics but not on him. So I said, it was past time to look at his career. I just thought he'd make a great character study.

I do think that he's been very political for the last four decades beginning with Nixon. This is a guy who has been at the center, really, of this huge effort to push the country to the right wing for 40 years. He says he's not, he makes all these claims that he's objective, but when you look at the record, there's just no way.

TVN produced conservative video content that it shopped around to stations and networks, and it was intended as a counter to the supposed liberal bias of the news media.

Tags: faux news, roger ailes, unfair, unbalanced

Jon Stewart Explains the 'Cavuto Mark'

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:03:57 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: For those who simply don't get it.

Clip Source: www.newshounds.us

On the "Daily Show" on Wednesday (September 13, 2006), Stewart aired a segment on the increasing use of question marks in the chyrons of 24-hour news channels. He ribbed CNN a little for its use of questions on the lower third of its screen -- questions such as "Can Your Purse Make you Sick?" or "What If ... ?"

Stewart's real target, however, was Fox News. He strung together a number of examples from Fox News' Neil Cavuto's "Your World" show to demonstrate how Fox News uses questions to ask attack questions about Democrats and other news media and supportive questions about Republicans. Examples: "Have the Democrats Forgotten the Lessons of 9/11?" "Is the Liberal Media Helping to Fuel Terror?" or "The Best President?"

"...Cavuto's not saying these things. He's just asking, like, 'Is your mother a whore?' What? I'm not saying she's a whore. I'm just wondering out loud if she is a whore. All I'm saying is that reasonable people who have banged your mother for money can disagree."

[Video]

Tags: cavuto, faux news, thinly, veiled, attacks, points, i, haz, them

Your "Liberal" Media at Work: NYT Lies about Telco Immunity

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:30:14 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: Nah, really?

Clip Source: www.salon.com

The New York Times' Eric Lichtblau has a long, prominent article today on the pending debate over FISA and telecom amnesty -- headlined: "Return to Old Spy Rules Is Seen as Deadline Nears" -- that features (and endorses) virtually every blatant falsehood that has distorted these spying issues from the beginning, and which is built on every shoddy journalistic practice that has made clear debate over these issues almost impossible. The article strongly suggests that a so-called "compromise" is imminent, a "compromise" which will deliver to the President virtually everything he seeks in the way of new warrantless eavesdropping powers and telecom amnesty.

we are approaching "a situation that some officials predict could leave worrisome gaps in intelligence";

if no deal is reached, then "'We'll start losing intelligence capabilities,' Senator Christopher S. Bond of Missouri said";

Tags: media, news, nyt, telecoms, crimes, eavesdroping, spying, constitution

Jon Stewart Slams Media for Blacking Out Iraq War Lies Report

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:56:28 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: I wonder why they are so quiet?

Clip Source: www.crooksandliars.com

The Daily Show reports on the media’s failure to report on the Senate report that proves the Bush administration knowingly lied to us about the reasons for war. Surely the “Big Three” have more important things to cover.

Download | Play Download | Play (h/t Heather)

Stewart: “Let’s go back to the Big Three, that’s where real Americans get their news. Charlie Gibson, cover it!”

Gibson: “Something that doesnt happen every day, and certainly doesn’t happen twice..a well-know French daredevil named ‘Spiderman’…”

Stewart: “Yes, he was climbing the New York Times building. Perhaps looking to read the story about the administration leading us into a war that you didnt cover at all! At all!

For a “fake news” anchor, Jon Stewart sure does a better job reporting actual news than the entire mainstream media combined. I’m sure Stewart wouldn’t take offense when I say that that’s pretty sad.

Tags: jon steward, media, news, war, senate

Moyers on the Crisis of US Media

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:47:35 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: Moyers tells it like it is.

Clip Source: www.juancole.com

[Video]

Tags: media, news, news media, truth, communication, democracy, journalism

The so called "Liberal Media" Part XVIII

Sat, 31 May 2008 00:50:30 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

In his new memoir, “What Happened,” Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary, said the national news media neglected their watchdog role in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, calling reporters “complicit enablers” of the Bush administration’s push for war.

Surprisingly, some prominent journalists have agreed.

Katie Couric, the anchor of “CBS Evening News,” said on Wednesday that she had felt pressure from government officials and corporate executives to cast the war in a positive light.

On Thursday, she clarified her comments in a blog post, writing that her producers at MSNBC had wanted their coverage to reflect the patriotic mood of the country.

“I think the questions were asked,” Mr. Gibson, who was a host of “Good Morning America” before the war began, said in response to Ms. Couric. “It was just a drumbeat of support from the administration. It is not our job to debate them. It is our job to ask the questions.”

Tags: media, war, iraq, mcclellan, failure, jingoism, death, destruction, lies

How the military analyst program controlled news coverage: in the Pentagon's own words

Sun, 11 May 2008 03:44:14 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar

Clip Source: www.salon.com

These are excepts from a memorandum sent on January 14, 2005 -- just before President Bush was to be inaugurated for his second term -- from Capt. Roxie T. Merritt, the Director of DoD Press Operations, to several top Pentagon officials, including Larry Di Rita, the top aide to Donald Rumsfeld (pp. 7815-7816 (.pdf)). It reports on Merritt's conclusions and proposals in the wake of a Pentagon-organized trip to Iraq for their military analysts:

The key issue here is that more and more, media analysts are having a greater impact on the television media network coverage of military issues. They have now become the go to guys not only for breaking stories, but they influence the views on issues. They also have a huge amount of influence on what stories the network decides to cover proactively with regard to the military. . . .

Tags: media, war, information warfare, propaganda, lies, damned lies