comments about magazines and articles
This is how advertising copywriters get fired. What they meant to say was, “Puncture wrapper before microwaving.”
What they meant to say was, “Puncture wrapper before microwaving.”
Source: Andrew Bolt/Courier Mail
Air America breathlessly announced yet another corporate restructuring this week.
It’s starting its own network sales division, which will pitch all the company’s radio, video and online content directly to ad agencies instead of depending on third party rep Westwood One for ad sales.
“Agencies are sophisticated in their planning and their creative approach in making strategies for their clients, which will hopefully become our clients,” said Air America Media CEO Bennett Zier. “Because Air America is a particular type of company, and a left of center company, there are certain companies that want to advertise with us, and we want to be able to facilitate that and work with them more directly.”
“Air America is turning into a multimedia company,” Zier said. “And we are looking to attract listeners, viewers and readers with the radio and airamerica.com.”
The good news is that Air America’s management has finally discovered capitalism. The bad news is that it probably won’t trickle down to the air talent.
And we use the term “talent” very loosely.
Source: MediaBistro.com
Here’s how Time describes the results:
In a stunning result, the winner of the third annual TIME 100 poll and new owner of the title World’s Most Influential Person is moot. The 21-year-old college student and founder of the online community 4chan.org, whose real name is Christopher Poole, received 16,794,368 votes and an average influence rating of 90 (out of a possible 100) to handily beat the likes of Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and Oprah Winfrey. To put the magnitude of the upset in perspective, it’s worth noting that everyone moot beat out actually has a job.
Time continued:
Undoubtedly, many people will question moot’s worthiness of the title World’s Most Influential Person. TIME.com managing editor Josh Tyrangiel says moot is no less deserving than previous title holders like Nintendo video-game designer Shigeru Miyamoto (2007) and Korean pop star Rain (2006). “I would remind anyone who doubts the results that this is an Internet poll,” he says. “Doubting the results is kind of the point.”
Time’s circulation is plummeting. And they seem to think that the way to reverse that trend is to conduct and promote a poll that they themselves admit is meaningless.
What the hell. It’s an improvement over just plain making crap up.
Source: Time Magazine
Benedetto’s journalism students gave the media a C+/B- for their covering during the first 100 days. After chronicling a few instances of media double standards in the way similar-to-identical statements made by GWB and BHO were portrayed, the columnist felt a C+ was about right.
His list seemed a bit short. How about the way similar events were covered? One of the major stories that’s been virtually ignored was the Iowa/North Dakota flooding. Remember the overwrought and outright false Katrina coverage? (“10,000 dead”?!)
As a widely circulated conservative-leaning email asked, Where was the hysterical 24/7 media coverage, with reports of lootings, shootings at rescuers, of rapes and murder? Where were the stories of people screaming that Barack Obama hates white, rural people? Where were the government bailout vouchers and government debit cards? Are the values of Iowa and Louisiana residents that different or is the media just that skewed?
What grade would you give the media for their coverage of Obama’s first 100 days? We’d give ’em a D for duplicitous double-standards.
Source: Politico.com
Time magazine’s report on Obama’s First 100 Days begins with a swoon: “Obama’s start has been the most impressive of any President since F.D.R.” At that point we fell asleep faster than Obama’s economic advisor Lawrence Summers.
Does anybody really read Time anymore? Of course not. That was a rhetorical question. Their “news” is always a week old. People must look at it for the exciting pictures, like the behind-the-scenes photo essay consisting of 77 dynamic shots of The One contemplating paintings, moving a chair, and a dandy close-up of his healthy snack consisting of cheese, crackers and a pear. (Yawn.)
Sorry. Dozed off at the keyboard. If you manage to get through the story, let us know if there was anything “newsworthy.”
Any guesses as to who will be Time’s next Man of the Year? For the next four years. Maybe eight.
Source: Time Magazine, TMZ.com
Nadya Suleman says she’s landed a reality show deal. Or a documentary deal. Or maybe she hasn’t.
“Yes, it is official,” Suleman said. “I’m going to be doing a show, but it’s not a reality show. What I’m doing with this TV show is basically creating documentaries about the lives of my children. It’s going to be an ongoing thing, and it will follow them from now until they are 18. It’s being done by Eyeworks. They’re in the UK. It will air in the UK and then we’ll see if the US is interested.”
Unfortunately, Nadya may have jumped the gun here. No European network has agreed to carry the show and even Eyeworks disputes that it’s reached an agreement.
“At this time we are in active negotiations with Nadya and her attorney for an unscripted format following the life of Nadya and her children,” said Eyeworks CEO Reinout Oerlemans. “Nadya’s story is a unique and exciting one that needs to be told in the right manner…We are confident that we are the right party to tell their story around the world.”
How could the OctoMom story get any wierder?
Two words: Reinout Oerlemans?
Source: Hollywood Reporter
You’ve read a lot about waterboarding. You’ve heard a lot about waterboarding. But have you ever seen someone actually waterboarded?
We hadn’t until we saw this video. Playboy reporter Mike Guy got the unenviable assignment to experience waterboarding personally, which probably makes him the first guy who ever considered working for Playboy to be torture.
Turns out waterboarding is nothing like we expected and it’s definitely nothing like tough talking Mike Guy expected.
Source: Playboy via HotAir.com
So there’s a magazine out there called Allure. Or so we’ve been told.
One of the IHateTheMedia.com wives describes it as “sort of a cross between Shape and Vogue with lots of fashion and make-up and stuff like that.”
So the May issue of the magazine is called “The Nude Issue.” It features Top Chef host (and former wife of Salmon Rushdi) Padma Lakshmi, E! talk show host Chelsea Handler and “Dollhouse” star Eliza Dushku stripped down to…well…nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Rest assured, this is tasteful nudity. Artistic, one might even say. And as supporters of the arts, they’re right up our tasteful alley. Our review of the art can be summed up in a word:
Va-va-voom.
“I tend to sleep in the nude… I’m a sensual-leaning woman,” Padma said. “You have to use the word ‘leaning’ or it sounds like I’m boasting.”
When asked about her favorite body part, Chelsea said: “My boobs are good. They’re real and perky.”
Eliza: “I’ll strip down to my underwear and my Ugg boots when I eat lunch in my trailer.”
We just have one question. What time is lunch?
Source: Allure via HuffingtonPost.com
“Jihad Recollections” is published in Charlotte, North Carolina by Samir Khan. The magazine’s 70-pages are jampacked with same type of lunacy you might expect from the al Qaeda bad boys themselves.
The premiere issue offers links to al Qaeda-produced videos. It includes two English feature length articles by al Qaeda’s top dogs – “Four Practical Steps to Expand the Global Jihad” by Osama bin Laden and “Have We Forgotten Who Is America?” by Ayman al-Zawahiri and Nasir al-Fahd.
Want to see if for yourself? Download a PDF version here.
We wish Samir well. But things are tough in the publishing business these days. We think he needs to tweak his magazine a bit to make it appeal to the average al Qaeda member.
We can sum up our recommendation in one word: Centerfolds.
Obviously, we are publishing geniuses. Jann Wenner, give us a call. We have some ideas for Rolling Stone, too.
Source: TheJawaReport
As April 15 rolls around let us take a moment to recall why we Americans pay taxes: Because some of our country’s good-for-nothing bums are too chicken to rob us at gunpoint. That would be members of Congress and the executive branch. How come we keep electing politicians who will tax the bejeezus out of us? Especially Democrats? At least Republicans are smart enough to lie about it.
Read the rest in “A Nation of Moochers” by P.J. O’Rourke in the Weekly Standard.
You just can’t find a newspaper with more solid economic credentials than the Economist. So a lot of people were surprised when it endorsed a radical, inexperienced candidate like Barack Obama.
Now the respected economic publication seems to be having second thoughts:
His performance has been weaker than those who endorsed his candidacy, including this newspaper, had hoped. Many of his strongest supporters—liberal columnists, prominent donors, Democratic Party stalwarts—have started to question him. As for those not so beholden, polls show that independent voters again prefer Republicans to Democrats, a startling reversal of fortune in just a few weeks. Mr Obama’s once-celestial approval ratings are about where George Bush’s were at this stage in his awful presidency. Despite his resounding electoral victory, his solid majorities in both chambers of Congress and the obvious goodwill of the bulk of the electorate, Mr Obama has seemed curiously feeble.
Feeble? The Economist may be giving him too much credit here.
Source: The Economist via HotAir.com
Just weeks after that grand Hollywood delegation visited Iran on a “cultural” exchange, they’ve received bad news from neighboring Saudi Arabia. Movies are now taboo.
As AsiaNews/Agency in Riyadh explained it:
Cinema and theatre are “against Sharia” because they distract people from work and weaken their efforts in achieving progress, said Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti Shaikh Abdul Aziz Alu Al Sheikh during a conference on leisure, visual arts and literature attended by students at King Saud University. “Theatrical performance, whether it is a cinema or a song, would generally make an impression that is against Sharia. People need only those (art forms) that are useful to them to change their way of life (in an Islamic manner),” he decreed.
They continued. And so did the nutcase Mufti:
In his address to students at King Saud University, the grand mufti warned against playing chess because it “causes a man to lose his wealth and waste his time.”
Conversely “photography is one of the necessities of life” because it helps in “lectures, [. . .] religious activities [. . .] while maintaining public security.”
“Only the photography of sculptures and models is prohibited,” he said.
Remuneration for poets who attend festivals and cultural events is permissible if their words are good, faultless, without “abusive words or references.”
Finally, the mufti urged students to stay away from cigarettes and avoid reckless driving, especially at night or early morning.
Hold on. He didn’t mention cable TV, did he? Can they watch cable TV Saudi Arabia? If so, we highly recommend Entourage to the Grand Mufti. We’re pretty he’ll like it.
But he might want to watch it with the blinds pulled down.
Source: InfidelsAreCool.com
More and more Americans are getting their news from satirical sources. This is the best news we’ve ever heard.
Here’s how Rasumussen Reports reports their report:
Nearly one-third of Americans under the age of 40 say satirical news-oriented television programs like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart are taking the place of traditional news outlets.
Thirty-two percent (32%) of adults ages 30-39 believe this to be true, while 42% disagree, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Thirty percent (30%) of those ages 18-29 say programs like the two Comedy Central shows that feature news reports with a comic twist are replacing traditional news outlets, but 35% disagree and another 35% are not sure.
The only problem these days is trying to figure out if you’re watching news that’s news, news that’s satire, satire that’s news, or satire that’s satire.
It’s a complex world we live in.
Source: Rasmussen Reports via Media Bistro
On one hand, the Times doesn’t like Kirsten Gillibrand, New York’s new senator, because they fret that she may be a closet conservative. So the paper ran a front page story attacking her work as an attorney for Philip Morris back in 1996.
On the other hand, the Times has been conspicuously silent when it comes to Anthony Walker, President Obama’s nominee to head the Justice Department’s Civil Division. West defended John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban nabbed in Afghanistan after 9-11.
Our theory is that the Times is upset at the difference in results the two attorneys produced.
“The industry beat back the federal perjury investigation,” the Times said about the tobacco litigation, “a significant legal victory at the time, but not one that Ms. Gillibrand is eager to discuss.”
Lindh, on the other hand, was sent to the Big House for 20 years.
Looks like John Walker Lindh hired the wrong lawyer. And so did President Obama. Lindh might want to start smoking and hire Gillibrand for his appeal.
Source: TimesWatch.com
Watching Newsweek is like watching the Bataan Death March. Only uglier.
Times are tough at the weekly news magazine. Last year, its circulation dropped from 3.1 million to 2.6 million. It is expected to drop to 1.9 million by July and again to 1.5 million by next January.
In response, it is launching a new smaller design, moving to a heavier paper stock, and putting more emphasis on photography. But the biggest news is that Newsweek is abandoning in-depth coverage of the week’s news.
We’re no publishing experts, but if Newsweek is abandoning weekly news coverage, we think they might want to find a name, too.
We’re still waiting to hear how stupid Barack Obama is for mispronouncing “defibrillator” on the Tonight Show. Guess the story was simply lost in the flood of mainstream reportage of the President’s “Special Olympics” quip.
Oddly enough, we had to go all the way to Tim Blair’s blog (“the second funniest blog on the internet”) in Australia to read the about this slip-up.
Here’s Obama’s Tonight Show appearance again. Start paying attention at about the 1:50 mark. He says it just at the 2:00 mark.
Defibrillator – the definitive treatment for the life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias, ventricular fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia.
– Wikipedia
Defibulator – the definitive treatment necessary to translate the lies told by any Democrat discussing the bail-out bill. Or bills. Or damn near anything else.
– IHateTheMedia.com
Source: Tim Blair/Sydney Daily Telegraph
Based on the really strange photos in the April issue of Details magazine, Alex Rodriguez has found his one true love. And it turns out to be none other than Alex Rodriguez.
Now we realize this guy has never been mistaken for a genius. And we realize that some people think Madonna looks like she’s been rode too hard and put away wet (did that line reveal too much about the childhood years we spent on the farm?). And we realize the baseball season is long and arduous and a man can get lonely on a two-week road trip to Detroit, Cleveland, and Baltimore.
But putting all that aside, what the hell was this Rodriguez thinking when he posed for these photos?
Ahh, we just realized the problem. We mistakenly thought there was thought involved. But then we remembered this was A-Rod.
Or as he’s now known in New York, A-Hole.
Source: Details
The results of a new poll conducted by ABC News, the BBC and Japan’s NHK must make editors and reporters around the nation take a big gulp and say, “Didn’t see that comin’.”
It shows big progress everywhere they looked. But you probably won’t read about it anywhere except an editorial in Monday’s Investor’s Business Daily.
Check out these numbers:
85% of Iraqis said their neighborhood security was “good,” up from 62% a year ago and 43% in August of 2007.
Those who support democracy jumped to 64% from just 43% in 2007.
58% feel “very good” or “quite good” about the state of affairs in Iraq. That’s up from just 22% in 2007.
When asked what their main concerns are, war, security and terrorism took a backseat to jobs and prices.
“In short, it sounds like we not only won the war, but the peace as well,” IBD concluded. “And for those who cast a skeptical eye on the idea that any Islamic country could ever be democratized, it turns out the former President Bush is winning that debate too.”
Some results IBD didn’t mention:
96% of Iraqis think John Kerry is a pompous liar. 98% think Harry Reid is a pathetic liar. And 100% of Iraqis think John Murtha is a big, fat liar.
Source: Investor’s Business Daily
Remember Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist who spread money around as if it were peanut butter and Washington, DC were a slice of white bread?
The media felt it was their patriotic duty to expose the recipients of his largess, especially since most of them were Republicans.
Have you seen any headlines announcing that Bernie Madoff, the perpetrator of the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, was a huge Democrat donor? Well, he was. Here’s how OpenSecrets.org reports it:
In total, he and his wife, Ruth, have given $238,200 to federal candidates, parties and committees since 1991, with Democrats getting 88 percent of that. Overall, Madoff and other individuals at his company, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, gave $372,100 in campaign contributions since 1991, with 89 percent to Democrats. The firm spent $590,000 on lobbying in the last 11 years, all but $10,000 of it with the lobbying firm of Lent, Scrivner & Roth.
The media demanded that Republican politicians return Abramoff’s donations and his money wasn’t even stolen. When will they begin demanding that Democrat politicians return Madoff’s stolen money?
It says a lot about the current political environment that this guy would confess to being a crook, but keep quiet about being a Democrat.
Although we can’t really say we blame him.
Source: OpenSecrets.org
Air America is going into the syndication business. And its first outside client is a Newsweek Magazine radio production called “Newsweek On the Air.”
In keeping with Air America’s corporate mission statement, the program has been on the air for 27-years, but no one is known to have ever actually listened to it.
In reality, this isn’t news. It’s merely the continuation of a long, friendly relationship between the two lib media sources. Like when Chris Dodd goes to dinner with Ted Kennedy.
For example, back in 2004 when Air America first hit the airwaves, Newsweek covered the event with an effusive story that was long on compliments and short on reality.
It is surely no coincidence that this “big” announcement falls on a week in which Newsweek’s cover story attacks conservative icon Rush Limbaugh, Air America’s arch enemy.
This really is an almost Zen-like concept: A radio network no one listens to syndicating a program no one’s ever heard from a magazine no one reads.
SOURCE: NewsBusters
Remember the movie “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark?” Indy found an ancient artifact that had been lost for thousands of years.
Well, slap a snappy fedora on the president and call him Indiana Obama, because he’s discovered socialist Saul Alinsky’s long-lost 13th Rule for Radicals. It is “Create successes that cannot be measured or disproved.”
Presidents used to say, “My plan will create X jobs?” Our new president says, “My plan will create or save X jobs.”
Every time he says it, the compliant media nod enthusiastically, scribble down that day’s number, and hope like hell reporters are among the ones that are saved.
For God’s sake, people, would someone please ask this guy how to measure this new statistical category he’s invented called “Jobs Saved.”
Thanks to this magical new “Jobs Saved” category, Obama can make up any number he damn well pleases. Even if jobs don’t budge an inch in the next four years, he’ll happily announce, “Due to our policies, we have saved 4 million jobs.”
To complete the analogy, Indiana Jones was afraid of snakes. So are we. Especially when they’re in the White House.
In a battle between a vile hardcore porn publisher and a vile softcore porn publisher, wheelchair-bound Larry Flynt claims he’s had more women than Hugh Hefner. “
To tell the truth, we don’t care about either of these guys. They’re both living in the past.
But based on longevity, we’d give the nod to Hefner. As far as we can tell, the guy invented sex and most of the primary positions associated with it. He’s been doing it since dinosaurs roamed the earth. He drew the first centerfolds on the wall of a cave. The first issue of Playboy was a big seller in Sodom and Gomorrah.
This video shows just how wacky Flynt is. The TMZ reporter says, “How you doin’ tonight, sir.” Flynt’s entirely disconnected response is, “I’ve had more women than Hefner.”
Would someone please take the demented old codger home, wipe up his drool, and put him to bed.
Source: TMZ
For some mysterious reason, this story’s barely made a blip in the news. Guess the American media’s just been too darn busy gushing over Michelle Obama’s arms.
A 75-year-old Saudi Arabian widow has been sentenced to 40 lashes and four months in jail for “mingling” with two young men who were not close relatives. One was her late husband’s nephew and the other was his business partner. Ah, the beauty of Islamic Sharia law.
One can’t help but notice the media’s striking lack of concern for women outside the United States. It’s rare to hear more than a whisper of protest from any print or broadcast media.
And the big name women’s organizations? Silent as Marcelle Marceau despite the fact that they’re always the first to say, “It’s one world. We’re one family of people. We’re all brothers and sisters.” Yet when confronted with horrible abuse in Muslim nations, the typical response is, “We must understand. We must not be so quick to criticize, because its their culture.”
Perhaps those 40 lashes would have been applied better to someone else. Send your nominations to IHateTheMedia.com.
Source: Yid With LID
Conservatives are constantly told how unsophisticated they are. That they’re rubes. Bumpkins. Recent refugees from turnip trucks.
Well, listen here, you liberal city slickers. You can keep your sophistication, if that’s what they call it over at Vanity Fair magazine these days.
The current issue features an interview with MSBNC host Rachel Maddow. It’s probably the most bizarre interview ever conducted by a major publication. We’ll just tease you with this bizarre exchange:
Vanity Fair: Miss “Cable Queen,” as Vogue calls you, do you suffer from any paraphilia?
Maddow: Paraphilia?
Vanity Fair: Listen to this saucy pedant. Paraphilia is having a rare erotic fetish. Perhaps you may indulge in eproctophilia?
Maddow: Duh?
Vanity Fair: Darling! Eproctophiliacs are those sexually turned on by farts and farting!
Maddow: That word actually exists?
As you can see, we are simply not smart enough, not sophisticated enough, not freakin’ loony enough to be good leftists.
Bumpkins of the world unite!
Source: Vanity Fair
This started off as two completely different stories, but a third story popped up during our research that magically tied all three stories together into one mega-blockbuster piece of investigative reportage.
Story Number One: Beyonce claims that Michelle Obama approached her during an inauguration celebration just to say that the singer was a role model for her little girls.
Story Number Two: A story in the Huffington Post compares Michelle Obama to Wonder Woman.
Neither of those stories seemed strong enough to merit our attention. Goofy enough, to be sure, but not strong. But then, we ran into Story Number Three. It was kismet, fate, truth stranger than fiction.
Story Number Three: The LA Times reported on November 7, 2008 (just two days after the presidential election) that Beyonce desperately wanted to land the role of Wonder Woman in an upcoming film.
Do you see where this is going? Michelle Obama calls Beyonce a role model. Michelle Obama is like Wonder Woman. Beyonce wants to be Wonder Woman. This inextricable linkage cannot be mere coincidence. We contend that they are one and the same woman.
Just look at the evidence: All three dominate weak men. All three specialize in sleeveless costumes. And all three are black.
What’s that? You thought Wonder Woman was white? Au contraire, mon frere. Check out the junk in that trunk.
Source: The Sun, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times
